BassResource and Gerald Swindle bringing you fall fishing right here, son. Fall fishing, it's one of my favorite, I'm gonna say my favorite times of year to fish. Out of all the seasons, fall fishing can be the best. Fish are returning out of their deep summer patterns. They've kind of went through that early fall pattern. Now, we're into fall and the water temperatures getting down like upper 50s, mid-50s, low, low 60s. And those fish are active, and they are looking to eat. The biggest key in that time of the year is just find the bait. You need to put gas in your boat and ride toward the back of the creeks because that's where they're migrating to. They'll be on shallow flat banks.
They throw everything out the window, then they just go to eat because they know there's gonna be a winter coming in. It could be hard. They want to gorge up. They wanna be healthy. So, put gas in your boat and ride, ride to the back of the flat creeks. Look for creeks that have a channel coming in. Find that bait. When you pull in the back of a creek and you see that bait popping everywhere, there's gonna be a great start for you right there. That's strictly temperature time of the year. It's telling those fish to move back. The bait's moving back, winter's coming. Let's all go eat.
The cool thing about that fall pattern is, it's a fast time of year. You know, you're coming out of summer, that kind of early, early, let's say, fall bite, where it's still hot. And now the water's cooled off. Now, you can move around. You can burn a spinner bait. You throw in a buzz bait, you're throwing all kind of top water. You can throw lipless crankbaits, you can hit them with a DT6. You can hit them with all the fast-moving baits.
Speed kills in the fall, which means speed triggers more bites than anything else. Even with a swim jig, the fish are super active. And if you'll watch why speed's so effective, is you'll see the big balls of bait in the back of the creek in the fall, and you'll see a fish move on them, and you see the bait. And they move real quick. You think that's what you want your bait to do. You want your bait, that swim jig to be [vocalization]. You want it to be jumping because the fish are seeing those shed do that all day long. They're just popping here and they're squirming around there. So mimic that, mimic fast and erratic. Whether you're throwing a lipless and you just wanna keep ripping and jerking, ripping and jerking.
Fall means fast. The bait's in the back and the speed is fast. And 99% of the time, like, that's the guaranteed formula to success. But I fish many tournaments in the fall and never make a catch for the first three or four hours when I'm practicing simply riding from creek to creek, to creek to creek, to locate the most bait. When I find the most bait, then I put the trolling motor down, and I start fishing.
So the key to fall is remember, look for the bait. And you don't wanna be scared to fish too fast and you're gonna find fish aggressive and wanting to bite. And it's a super fun time of the year.
