The top baits for fall bass fishing. Let's get into it. I like to throw a spinnerbait as my number one choice. Why? Because the bass are up, roaming around chasing baitfish, like shad and bluegill, and those baitfish are moving. They're on the move constantly and the bass are right behind them. So, it can be difficult to find them. So, you need a search bait and a spinnerbait is my number one go-to bait. You can cover an awful lot of water. It gives up a great baitfish profile. So, those bass are gonna hone in on and crush it. The other thing about spinnerbaits is that you can fish it really shallow, in just a couple feet of water and you can get it down as deep as you want. You can fish the entire water column regardless of, you know, you don't have to change up baits or anything like that for the most part. You do have to change up a little bit if you want to vary your retrieve speed. We'll talk about that in just a second. But typically, I like to start off with a 3/4 ounce, double Indiana blade white spinnerbait. That is like my go-to bait, year-round and it works really well in the fall because again it's white, got that shad kind of color to it. And you can again fish it at all depths. The cool thing about it is you can bring it back really fast and that's kind of a key in the fall is a fast retrieve. You don't want that bait to lay over sideways and they'll do that with lighter baits.
So, a three-quarter ounce with a double Indiana will remain upright and you can bring it back really fast just under the surface. And you can get some vicious, vicious strikes that way. Now, if you need to slow it down and get it down a little bit deeper, a double willow leaf blade works really well. And you got 3/8th ounce and I'll use that to get that down a little bit deeper off of tapering points, drop-offs, bluffs, areas that are near flats or near shallow water but the bass are hanging up off of it. That's when I'll use a double willow leaf blade combination with a little bit lighter lure and that enables me to get it down deeper and to bring it back nice and slow, to get those strikes. Rod and reel combination, this is really simple. A 7'1'' medium heavy fast action rod, spooled with a 15-pound fluorocarbon line. I like to use the Seaguard and Vizics line for this, and using a 6'5'' to 7'1'' gear ratio reel. That will do it for you and make it really simple. It doesn't matter. Again, you can swap out the spinnerbait size and you don't have to change any of the rest of it. So, that's the number one key for fishing spinnerbaits in the fall. The next bait that works really well in the fall, the vibrating crankbait, like rattle traps and the Booyah One Knockers. These things work fantastic. Why? Well, they're bait fish-shaped and they look and sound like bait fish, and guess what? That's exactly what the bass are keen on right now. So, they work really well. The key thing about fishing them is where you fish them and how you fish them.
So, what I like to do first of all is fish these out and around in the outside edges of weeds and along docks and along tapering points and bluffs. The way to fish them. One way is to bring them back at a steady retrieve. You can catch a lot of fish that way. It does really work. But if you're not getting a lot of bites with that, then speed up. Get it up towards the surface and just bring it back really quick and see if you can elicit any bites that way. A lot of times doing that across the tops of like mill foil or hydrilla that's submerged, and you can bring it across the top of that. Just tick the top of those weeds and sometimes you'll snag a little bit and you just give a little pop to rip it out. And that little change in cadence and that little pop with the rod, sometimes all it'll take it's to trigger a bite. So, that can work really well, as well. Now, when you're fishing on the weed edges, again I fish that fast, but then on a subsequent cast, I may slow down and get mid-column and bring it back at a little bit slower pace. And if that's not getting any strikes, another way to fish it is to let it flutter down and hit the bottom. And then jig it up off the bottom, and reel up the slack, and let it fall back down to the bottom. Let's sit for a second and then pull it back up and it'll flop back down. What you're doing is the bait's fluttering up and then fluttering back down. Fluttering up and fluttering back down.
And a lot of shad, they start dying off in the fall and they're given this type of activity. Falling and fluttering as they fall and that can trigger a lot of strikes. So, rattle traps, Booyah One knockers, they work really well as far as rod and reel. Again, I'll throw a 7'3'' to 7'5'' medium-heavy fast-action rod. I may even go to a medium power rod because of the treble hooks. Just something a little bit lighter on it. Again, a 15-pound, 12-pound fluorocarbon line works best. I'll use a snap on the end of it, to give that so the bait has enough movement. I won't tie directly to the bait but a snap, not a swivel, just a snap. And that typically is all I need. The reel, a 6'5'' to 7'1'' gear ratio reel works really well for this type of technique and bait. The next bait I like to throw in the fall, buzz baits. So, a lot of folks throw away. They take their buzz baits in the top water and put them in the tackle box after summer and don't throw them again. That's a mistake. Again, a lot of fish, they're all up shallow, right? The bait fish are up shallow, the bass are up there with them and there's just a lot of activity and top waters can do really well, especially buzz baits. Going back to what I said before, the bass are roaming around because they're chasing all these bait fish, so it's difficult to kind of find them sometimes. A buzz bait, you can cover a lot of water, very quickly and effectively.
So, a buzz bait is a really good lure to use in the fall. Now, one of the things that folks do sometimes, is they'll take the skirt off and put like a frog trailer on there or maybe a paddle tail trailer. That gives a little more buoyancy and gives a bigger target for the bass to hone in on, so you have fewer missed strikes. Plus, you can slow it down a bit more. A buzz bait, when you're moving at a very slow pace, best you can, tends to get more strikes. So, try that little trick. Throw it around, the outside of weedlet edges, throw it in between the pockets of lily pads, along docks, floating docks, and pier docks. Drop-off points, long tapering points are some of my favorite to go, both secondary and main lake points during the fall can be very productive. There's really no wrong place to throw a buzz bait during this time of year. Just make sure that you've got the proper equipment. And what I mean by that, is you want to use a 30 to 50-pound braided line, tie it straight onto the lure, no snaps or swivels or anything like that. I use Uninot, you can use a polymer as well, that works just as well if you're comfortable tying the polymer knot. And I use a medium heavy, fast action, 7'2'' to 7'6'' rod teamed up with a 6'3'' to 7'1'' gear ratio reel. And that works really well for a buzz bait. Now, the next lure, right along the same line of topwaters is a frog.
Frogs, some people don't think about frogs during the fall. Some people don't know this. Frogs actually, migrate to the shallows and they hibernate during the winter. And the bass knows this and they chase them up and they're actually, feeding on frogs in addition to bait fish. So, a frog can be a very popular way of catching fish. All you do is throw it out there and let it sit, and give it a few pop, pop, pop, and let it sit, as long as you can stand it. Sometimes it's just not moving at all and that's when the bass will strike it. So, try giving it long pauses and then shorten up the pauses in between pops and sometimes popping it all the way back to the boat. A quick cadence like that, sometimes is what it takes to trigger. You just kind of have to experiment with it because each day they want something a little bit different. Again, throw it in between pockets of weeds. It's kind of the open areas. Because these are weedless, they work really well when you're going across the tops of milfoil, or, you know, hydrilla pads, weeds that have matted over. You can bring it across the top of that, bring it to an opening and pause it and the opening of those matted-vegetation and sometimes, you know, get wallops when you do that. Or when you get to the edge of that mat, hold on tight because the bass sometimes will fall all the way out to the edge and as soon as it pops free, boom, a bass will blast it. Scares the bejeebies out of you sometimes, but it's a fun way of fishing. Because of this, you want stout equipment.
So, we're doing a 7'4'' to 7'6'' medium-heavy, heavy-action rod with a 50-pound braid, tied directly onto the bait. No snaps, no swivels here. And the reel, I like to use a 7'1'' to gear ratio reel. It's a little bit faster, but sometimes you need that, especially if a bass grabs it and pulls it down where there's weeds. You want to get his head turned and get that fish moving to you, as fast as you can. Don't give him that chance to bury up in the weeds or wrap you up in lily pads or anything like that. So, a faster gear ratio can help you wrench them free from all that and get them to you. But that is an exciting and fun way to catch fish as with frogs. Now, I'd be remiss if I'm talking about fall fishing and not talk about crankbaits. Now, there's a plethora of crankbaits to choose from, so I'm going to break it down to three main ones that I like to use during the fall. The first one is a square bell. The square bell, the cool thing about that is you can use it very similar to the vibrating crankbaits that I just mentioned, where you can get it into the weeds like hydrilla and milfoil. Just go across the tops and then let it just tick the top of that and rip it out. The difference here is with this bait, is when you rip it out, you can give it a pause, because a lot of them are buoyant or even oftentimes they just kind of hover right there. They're suspending kind of square bell baits, which work really well for this type of technique.
Let it hit that or maybe bring along the docks or you're fishing some riprap, bang it off of that, and then let it sit. Give it a pause and it'll just sit there in place suspending and oftentimes that'll trigger a strike before you... Or after letting it sit, then when you start to crank and move it again, wham, that'll hit it when it starts to move again. So, be ready for that kind of strike. But that's kind of the fun way to fish square bells. They work really well for that type of thing. And, because they deflect off the cover and whatnot, they don't get hung up as easy. So, that's a good bait to use when you're fishing shallow. Another bait to use though is a medium diving crankbait. Now, you use that on the outside of weed edges. It could be mill foil, could be lily pads, hydrilla, coon tail, whatever it may be. But on the outside edges where it's not too deep, say 10 feet deep at the most, a medium diving crankbait can get you down along there. Crank it down or just bring it back at a regular cadence. Usually, elicits a lot of bites, but if you're not getting bit that way, put some pauses into it and get some erratic movements. Just pop it with your rod or stop and go retrieve with your reel. Anything you can do to give it a little bit of erratic behavior oftentimes will trigger strikes. If you can get it to tick off the weeds without getting hung up, you can always try that too. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Kind of depends on the design of the crankbait. But that can be a good way of triggering bites too. And then the last type of crankbait is a deep diving crankbait.
These go down deeper than 10-feet deep. This is for fishing, not only the weed lines, just deeper weed lines like I just mentioned before, but deeper structure. Like, drop-offs and points and humps, ridges, or some brush piles that are in deeper water. That type of thing works really well, best suited for deeper diving crankbaits. And in crankbaits, man, again, these fish are feeding on baitfish. I mean fall is crankbait time. It really is. I mean, crankbaits shine the... Year-round crankbaits work, but fall is arguably the best time for crankbaits just because that's what pests are keying on. So, make sure you've got at least those three types of crankbaits with you. For the rods, you want a cranking rod, all right? So, a 7'4'' to 7'8'', medium-power fast-action rod or medium-heavy rod, moderate-action rod. Something that's got a lot of flex give, the parabolic action to it, that's what you want. It helps cast it out far. Plus, because they have those little treble hooks on them with a small bite and the thin wire hooks, that rod enables you to keep that fish pinned rather than ripping the hooks out of his mouth like a stouter rod would do. Compare that with a 12-pound fluorocarbon line. I like to use fluorocarbon because again, it's got some stretch to it. If you got braid to it, you have two problems, or three actually. Braid, first of all, doesn't have that stretch. So, you put all the pressure on the hooks. That can rip the hooks out of the fish's mouth or straighten the hooks out, or the fish can use that as a leverage to pull free. So, you want some give in your line. Braid doesn't have it. Number two, braid, has some buoyancy to it. So, you can't get that crankbait down to the full running depth. The braid won't allow you to do that.
And number three, a lot of times when you're using braid with crankbaits, the braid will get tangled in the hooks during the cast and foul it up and kind of ruin that whole cast and presentation. So, fluorocarbon solves all that. I don't use leaders at all with this for all the reasons above. Braid and crankbaits don't go well together in my opinion. I just use straight-up fluorocarbon. I tie it to a snap, and the snap connects to the crankbait. That allows the crankbait freedom of movement. You can use a loop knot too if you feel really good with that. But I feel that also is a weak knot. So, that's why I use a snap. And as far as the reel is concerned, I'll use a 6'3'' to 6'5'' gear ratio. If I can get away with it and get a slower gear ratio reel, I will. It's hard to find those that are in the 5 to whatever range, 5'1'', 5'6''. They're few and far between, but if you can get one of those, that's even better. A slower retrieve works really well with these, and a stop-and-go type of retrieve works really well with these kinds of baits. So, that is definitely, something I would have in my arsenal on where and when I'd fish those crankbaits. And then finally, the last bait, and we'll be talking about a lot of fast-moving baits right now, but let's shift gears and go to the jig. It's a good old standby. You've got to have it already to throw pretty much year-round, and fall is no different. A jig works really well. Now, here's how you piece it together, guys. A jig, it's a slow vertical fall, and you can crawl it on the bottom for those bass that are more reluctant to bite. This is what you do, when you've used these faster-moving baits to find the fish, where they're schooling, where they're more really active, and you pick off fish using your faster-moving baits.
Go back through that area again with a jig. I can't tell you how many times I've picked off more fish, and often bigger fish, with a jig after I've located where the fish are at. A lot of times those bigger fish just won't trigger off some of those faster-moving baits, but a jig, I'll put a larger craw on the end of it, or maybe a space monkey, or a beaver-style bait, something that's got some bulk to it to slow down the fall, make it fall a little bit slower, and that oftentimes triggers more bites. A larger profile gives them something to hone in on as well, especially if the water's a little dingy. But that's what I'll throw as a follow-up bait. After I've worked an area with fast-moving baits, I'll come back through with a jig, and let it... A lot of times falling, they'll hit it on the fall, but sometimes you just crawl it on the bottom, or hop it up and down on the bottom. Works really well, especially on those outside weed lines, when those bass are roaming, hunting for prey. A jig can be really productive. So, those are the baits that I use during the fall. I'm thinking about winter already. It's getting there. But during the fall, and armed with those. You can go out and catch yourself a whole bunch of bass. I hope that works for you. For more tips and tricks like this, visit bassresource.com.
