Fishing for Bass in the Fall

If you’re living in California, especially the Bay Area, then you’re probably aware that we really didn’t have a summer this year. Many of us fishing our local lakes were catching spawning bass well past the April and May time frame. My personal take is that the fish this year were confused, and since it never really got consistently hot around here many largemouth didn’t really know what to do. And if you really think about it, we as anglers were almost as confused as the fish. The days and weeks we thought they should be biting, well…. they weren’t.

I guess this is a true testament as to how important the weather is to fishing, and this is the true reason why I wanted to write this article. Before I begin I’d like to offer up my typical disclaimer: Please keep in mind that I am not a professional and everything that I write is based on my own experiences. Basically, I’m just a guy who enjoys fishing like the most of you and our website was in desperate need of a new article.

As most of you know the weather in the Bay Area has changed over the last few weeks. We find ourselves in the mid 70′s during the day and at night the temperature drops into the low 60′s. To us it means that Fall has come about, and that soon we will find ourselves pulling out the jackets and rain gear. To the fish, however, it means one thing: GET FOOD and GET FAT! With the Winter months approaching rapidly largemouth bass instinctively begin to hunt more often during this time of year (other than the pre-spawn). And this is for good reason, because soon it will get cold and the weather will become more sporadic and inconsistent. This is when largemouth bass seek deeper water and “the bite” slows down tremendously. I’ve read conflicting articles about fishing for largemouth in the winter. Some of which say to fish deep and others say to fish the shallows. Whatever you would like to believe there is one thing that hold true – largemouth fishing in the winter is much more difficult than fishing any other time of year. This is why fishing in The Fall is so important…

I’d say over the last three weeks I’ve gone fishing at least six times, and each time I’ve caught fish. I’ll post some photos of what I caught below but for now I’d like to focus more on some of the things I’ve noticed on the while on the water. You can pick any of our local lakes and show up either in the morning or in the late afternoon and you will see why largemouth bass are some of the best hunters on the planet. There is so much action going on – everywhere. First, I noticed an abundance of crawdads walking the shore or swimming the shoreline. In all of my years of fishing I’ve never seen anything like it. I have no idea why, but I do know that they are one of the largemouth’s favorite morsels. Just look at all of the jig trailers and such that mimic the craw sitting on your local bait shop’s wall. There are a TON of renditions of the crawdad, and almost every one that I have tried has produced big fish (especially the jig).

Enough about the craw, let’s talk about the top-water action that’s going on. At any given point during the day, particularly in the fall, you will see and hear largemouth bass hunting bait-fish. Just walk a bank and look around, you’ll see the swirls and hear the splashes. While fishing at Uvas last week with a fellow SJB member we heard a splash that sounded like someone threw a five pound boulder from a helicopter (slight author exaggeration). My buddy immediately threw a topwater bait and it was attacked by three or four smaller sized largemouth. I myself have taken notice and have had GREAT success using Roboworms that mimic shad patterns on my drop-shot setup. With that given combo – the drop-shot and a Shad-Patterned Roboworm – I can pull out fish on any given day. Mostly dinks of course, but just last Sunday I pulled out a five pound bass using that exact setup. Catching anything over three pounds on a drop-shot is awesome, but the five pounder had me running up the shoreline while it pulled line. There are also some swimbaits that look almost identical to baitfish (Basstrix, Huddleston, etc..), and I wish I had more of them but for now I’ve been doing so well with my jigs and drop-shit that I haven’t really added more tackle.

When you get a chance, read some more articles about fishing in the Fall. You’ll find plenty of information out there, but like I said in the forums – THE BITE IS ON IN SJ! GET OUT THERE!

Some of what has been working for me:

1. Drop-Shot with Shad Colored Roboworm
2. Crankbait
3. Jigs
4. Wacky-Rigged Senkos

Here are some photos of some of the fish I caught in the last three weeks at Uvas and Coyote: