Bass Fishing with Crankbaits in the Fall with James Niggemyer

...but nothing really big yet. There we go, that's a good one. That's the...

Hey, everyone, thanks for tuning back into my YouTube channel. We've officially hit fall in East Texas. The nights are cooler. The highs during the day are not even hitting 80. So I hit this little lake near me, about 40 minutes away, and I didn't realize how small the lake was. It'd been years and years and years since I'd been there. Water temperature was right about 71, 72, a lot of fish suspended, and caught some fish. I caught the better portion of my fish, actually all my good ones, on square bill crankbaits. With that in mind, I thought I would do a fall cranking overview. Where I live, we have mostly lowland impoundments, but a lot of places in the country have highland impoundments, river-type systems, canyon-type reservoirs, deep clear lakes, and things like that.

Wherever you are in the country, it's going to vary to some degree. I'm going to quickly go over some different scenarios for other parts of the country and then just jump into kind of what works in the area and the part of the country that I live in here, which is East Texas. The first thing is, when I think of cranking in the fall, clearly it's bait-fish related, whether it's gizzard shad or thread-fin shad or, up North, alewife. You know, a bait fish that schools. I'm not talking so much about bluegill. This time of year, the seasonal pattern is such that those bass really kind of set their sights on gorging on all these bait fish. Water temperature's cool, there's a lot of oxygen in the water, and fish are just out there chasing bait fish. Crankbaits are great way to catch them in the fall. And with that, let's get into it. If you're fishing more, say, deeper lakes or even some of the low impoundments that the main creek channel is deeper, like a striking 6XD, or a 5XD, or even a series 5, you could be cranking channel bends.

Actually, finding the original creek channel, and I know some lakes don't lay like this in the country, finding the original creek channel before that reservoir was flooded and those channel bends, those turns on the upper third of the lake, tend to be really good. Down towards the dam, that also can be good, too, just depending upon how deep it is. Obviously, you're not going to throw something like this over 50 foot of water. A striking 6XD is probably going to hit...on a good long cast, it'll hit that high teens to low 20, actually just to 20. A 5XD in the low teens. And then, a series 5 is right around the 10-pound cusp. Those are baits that you can fish, and as these bait fish migrate into the backs of most of the creeks, they kind of move away from the main lake and kind of move into the mouths of creeks, and even back in the creeks, and even up the main river channel. You might even throw deeper divers on some points, some secondary points, on some of the lakes that have bluff ends or bluff-type banks. The main creek channel doesn't get to where you can touch it with a crankbait until you go way up the main river.

That's key. If the fish are 3 to 5 feet, you want a crankbait that's running that 3-to-5-foot zone. If they're 10-plus, you want some deeper divers. See, grabbing the correct tool to both mimic the bait fish, but also contact the cover and fish it in and around the zone where the fish are located. Cranking really becomes one of the best methods of attack in the fall time frame. The main key is finding the bait fish. That's the main key, is just finding that bait. This part of the country, a lot of the lakes that I fish, there's a lot of bait fish suspended out over the main lake, but those fish are really hard to catch because there's nothing to pinpoint where they're going to be. So one of the best methods to catch them is to go really shallow, in the backs of creeks and fish kind of hardcover, ambush points, dock pilings, stumps, laydowns, grass edges, those types of things. Probably one of the best times of the year to go to a square bill.

Also, a lipless crankbait really comes into play. Generally, I keep a lipless crankbait and a square bill tied. Once you hit the late summer, in through the fall, they're the ones that really do the lion's share of the heavy lifting for me. Yesterday, I caught them on a square bill 1.5.

A laydown like this that runs perpendicular to the bank should have some fish on it. Popped a couple quick little ones, but nothing really big yet. There we go, that's a good one. That's the right kind right there. Square bill right off the laydown. Mm-hmm. Dude, it just careened him. I don't know how well I have him hooked. I'm going to kind of get him out here, away from the bank a little bit. Oh, he's got it. I got him in the crushers. He said goodnight to it. Got to have it. Come on, girl. Look at this one right here. Yes, sir. Look at that, all the way down in the crushers. Yeah, that's the kind right there. Pretty fish, down in the crushers. KVD 1.5, getting it. I was just wondering, you know? I was just wondering, "What do I got to do to catch a better quality one?" And wammo, 3 1/2, 3 3/4. Just careened it off there. Nice.

Yeah, there's that perpendicular piece of cover right there, running off the bank like that over deeper water. Definitely held a good one right there. Now we know that there are just not little ones up, and that's key. When you know, when you've kind of established, okay... Oh, there's another one. He's like... Oh, look at that one. Golly. Gosh, I can't believe that.

A 2.5, it's a little bit bigger. If the water's a little more off color, then the 2.5 really comes into play over the 1.5. I feel like they can find it a little better, more pressure waves, silhouette, bigger footprint in the water. The thing that I really love about throwing a square bill is it's a full-contact sport, in my opinion. You're going to want to get it to run into things or run really close to it. If you're scared of losing your crankbaits, this is where you kind of have to get over that fear. You want that bait to run into stuff. Because of that square bill, as you can see...let's say this is a stump or a or a laydown, a piece of wood in the water. It's going to be running like this and it's going to kind of careen over it. And this square bill is acting like a guard. It pushes the bait out of the way. It pushes the hooks out of the way, and as it rolls and deflects, that directional change is key to getting bites.

So you want to get as close to cover as you can. You want to put this thing in places where you would put a worm or a jig, a skip or a flip or a pitch or a short cast in and around cover. I mean, I'm talking about throwing it up on those laydowns, under docks, different things like that, around the grass, and getting those fish to come out. Conditions are key, too. If you get a little bit of a ripple on the water, a little bit of wind, that's going to help this bite. Now, I've caught them when it's dead slick glass, but there has to be the presence of a...is where that comes into play. And I'm trying to hit every angle and just bounce it off everything that I can and really get it to ricochet, directional change. When that bait's running like this, a fish is following it, and it runs into something and it careens like that, something about them ignites those fish to trigger a strike. I think they just can't handle the idea that it's getting away.

...about it. When it comes to rods, I love a fiberglass rod. This is a David Fritts Perfect Crankbait rod. I really like it because it really has one of those parabolic bends. That's key for when a fish eats one of these, to keep them loaded up and the hooks penetrating into the flesh of the fish's mouth. I like a 7-foot rod for shallow cranking, and the reason I like the 7-foot rod is if it gets really long, I have a tendency to miss my targets. The shorter the rod, I can be more accurate. I can just put it in there, snipe those specific places and targets. So that's really key. I like that 7-footer for that.

That one, just had it. The biggest one so far. There's one. Golly, look at that one. I'm still on the right deal. It's just a matter of getting them in front of him. Look at that fish. Super shallow, too. Look at that. I should have grabbed the net, but I'm so far up here. That's another good one, another solid chunk. 1.5. Oh, my hook's kind of opening up there. 1.5 Strike King KVD. Look at that fish. All right. So way up underneath that dock right there. It's definitely the pattern.

It's the square bill and these shallow little docks and different pieces of wood. And I think these fish, you know, the water's really shallow. Some of them are spooky. Some of them are not quite getting the bait. I got a start at 11:00 and I don't know how late I'm going to go tonight, but just... There's another good one. Oh, golly. That was another good one. I don't know how he came off.

God, look at that one. By the feet of that laydown. Yes. Look at that fish. Man. I had a lot going on right there. It wasn't coming off. Actually, she came right off and ate it. Oh, that's a good one, like 3-plus. Basically, what you have is you have fish just on certain wood targets, horizontal and vertical wood targets.

I’m usually running on, depending upon how heavy the cover is, I'm running anywhere from 12 to 20-pound-test fluorocarbon. I believe I have 14-pound-test gamma fluorocarbon here. I spooled this up on a Lew's BB1 pro, and it's a 6.4:1 gear ratio. I like the 6.4:1, but if I can, I'd get my hands on a 7:1. I like to have the extra speed every once in awhile. Cranking it faster can generate some additional reaction strike. Overcome that fear of getting them hung up. The beautiful thing about being in a boat is you can go over there and get them unhung. The other thing you can do is a lure retriever by Ego. You run the line in here, you run it down, and this little shovel-type nose will pop that bait free, and sometimes the chain will even get hung on the treble hook.

So this one's probably one of the best that I've ever used. It doesn't look like any of the ones out there that you'll see, but that this one, I've gotten I don't know how many baits with this one. Crankbaits, jigs. It works great at getting jigs out of root balls and root systems and different things like that you get hung up in. A great lure retriever this time of year is definitely key. One more thing that you'd probably want to have on board whenever you're cranking, especially cranking shallow square bills and stuff like that, is a box of replacement treble hooks. I do try to get my crank baits rigged up with some nice, sticky Owner treble hooks that always keep my line nice and fresh and my knots retied off it.

Cranking in the fall, get around the bait. Number two, you definitely want to choose the crankbait that will get down to that depth where the fish and bait are. Some lakes, it's deeper. Some lakes are shallower. Here in East Texas, a lot of places right now, the lake's super shallow, even up on flats you can't even get to. Shallow cranking's a lot of fun. I love it, but make sure you have a nice parabolic rod, some good abrasion-resistant fluorocarbon, a 6.4 or 7:1 gear ratio reel, one that you can make some short, tight, close-quarters casts.

That's my fall cranking overview. I sure appreciate you guys tuning into my YouTube channel. If you like this video, please like, and also, please subscribe because I'm going to continue to send some videos your way. Hopefully you'll be there to enjoy them. Good fishing to you all. I hope you guys catch a mess of crankbait fish in the fall.