Hi,
This week is about the fall feed. Read your water: anywhere between the mid-70s and 55 °F, the fish are feeding up for winter, and the bass are shallow enough to reach from the bank.
What's biting this week
Bass feeding up for winter. From the mid-70s down to 55 °F, bass follow the shad onto flats and long points, shallow where a bank angler can reach them. It is the second-best window of the year, after the pre-spawn. Fish all day under cloud and in the mornings under sun: a willow-leaf spinnerbait, a shallow crankbait or a chugger, and a jerkbait as it gets colder. The best time to fish for bass has the whole year in one table.
Crappie back up from the deep. As the surface cools below 75 °F and through the 60s, crappie that spent the summer deep move up the creek arms to feed on shad and hold on mid-depth cover. It is not a second spawn: no beds, just the same fish passing back through their comfort band. Swim a small jig or plastic and keep moving until the school shows. The crappie temperature bands give the depth for each step down.
The big-muskie months. Minnesota DNR says many of the largest muskies come in October and November. As the water cools, read Steve Heiting's ladder from fast to slow: bucktails from about 65 °F, topwater down to the upper 50s, then gliders and jerkbaits, and big rubber, the late-fall standard. The best muskie lures are sorted by the water temperature to throw them.
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Fact of the week
The bass fall pattern starts the day your water cools about 10 °F below its summer peak, and a fast drop fishes best. That is Kevin VanDam's marker: it runs on your lake's schedule, not the calendar's.
New on fishing.info
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| • | Deep diving crankbaits: 9–25 ft, the depth of ten models, and why yours runs shallower than the box says. |
| • | Bass jigs: the nine types, which weight and trailer, and how to fish each one. |
| • | How to catch catfish: the bait, rig, hook and water for channel, blue and flathead catfish, by day and by night. |
| • | Best fishing line for bass: Matt Allen's and Bobby Lane's pound tests and leaders, technique by technique. |
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Tight lines,
Jeroen
fishing.info
Jeroen
fishing.info
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