October is prime time for bass

Like a lot of fishermen, I can’t wait for October to arrive.

The weather’s usually more bearable and bass are biting a lot better. It’s probably my second favorite month of the year to fish — after June — and it’s a month when I can count on being able to fish the way I like with a crankbait.

There are a lot of changes in October. It can still be pretty hot, or it can be downright cool. But one thing you can count on is the majority of bass in a lake will have moved up into very catchable areas, usually from 4- to 12-feet deep.

You can handle just about any situation you find with a DT-6 to a DT-10 crankbait, or maybe a DT-Flat.

A lot of times, your bigger fish will start biting again in October, and fish will be back in the creeks, where their actions are usually predictable. October is a month when you can really fish a pattern, and there’ll often be several good patterns happening at once.

Some fish are in the main lake year-round, but the majority of bass you’ll come in contact with this month will be back in the creeks. It’s the strongest pattern you can find. They’re moving back, following shad, and while they move back, they’re also moving out of deep water — but staying close to it.

In that regard, October can be a little bit like March. A great tactic for both months is to position your boat in 20 feet of water in places where you can cast into 5 feet.

In March, most of the time you’re doing that at the main lake, and in October, you’re doing that at creek channels where you can sit over deep water and cast shallow.

Bass use creek channels as highways to move back in creeks, but like people, they’ll get off at exit ramps and feed.

You have to find the exit ramps and fast-food places largemouths prefer.

The most important thing in being a successful bass fisherman in the fall is figuring out which creek to fish. If your home lake has eight or 10 feeder creeks, there’ll be a couple of creeks that are really good, a couple that are pretty good, several that are average and a couple that will be pretty slow.

As a rule of thumb, I look first at creeks at the lower end of a reservoir because it’s been my experience the biggest numbers of active fish will be in those creeks, and it’ll be easier to pattern fish at those creeks.

Eight out of every 10 years at Buggs Island Lake, Nutbush Creek will be the best fall creek at the lake. It’s not that Eastland or Grassy or Bluestone aren’t good, but normally, your bigger and better fish will be biting better in creeks close to the dam, like Nutbush.

At Lake Gaston, Pea Hill has always been the best creek in the fall.

At Lake Wylie, I’ve always liked fishing Nivens Creek and the two Allisons in the fall.

Each of those three creeks are are the lower end, close to the dam.

I can’t begin to explain why this occurs. I just know from 20 years of fishing it holds true for most of the Southeast.

I have an FLW Series tournament this month at Alabama’s Lake Pickwick, and I’ll bet it’s won in a creek at the lower end. Even though you’re dealing a lot of the time with fish at the extreme backs of creeks, the fish in creeks closest to the dam will be biting better.

When I start looking in a creek, I’m looking for a hard bottom — something rock or shell or really hard sand. Even though fish will orient at brush piles, you’ll find the better brush piles are at hard bottoms.

There’s no great trick for finding fish: you just put your trolling motor down and fish the edges of the creek channel as the creek goes back.

It’s often hard to locate bass just by where the shad are, because they’ll be everywhere — from flipping on the surface down to about 7- or 8-feet deep. But if you fish good structure at the right depth that’s holding shad, you’re going to run into the bass eventually.

I look for several kinds of places as a rule.

Road beds can be good in the fall, real strong. Short points with rock are good, and points with rip-rap are good.

The key is fishing shallow water that’s close to deep water. If you stick close to the creek channel, you’ll be in those kinds of areas.

Unlike the summer, you normally won’t have to worry about finding moving water. Current is a key to active bass, especially in the summer when power companies don’t always generate and move water on a regular basis. But most of the time, they’ll be pulling water throughout the whole month.

A lot of lake levels are starting to drop because they’re headed toward their winter drawdown levels. You can generally count on having moving water most of the time, so it’s not as big a variable.

The fall “turnover” is normally behind you in October, which takes care of the problem of clear water. You can count on water being at least a little “milky” in October, so you can fish a crankbait with line that’s anywhere from 10- to 14-pound test.

I recommend 10- to 12-pound test Rapala line, and I use 10-pound test as much as possible.

The lighter the line you can use, the more active and lively your crankbait will look to a bass. It will dart around better, and you’ll almost always catch more fish on a bait fished with 10-pound test than 12- or 14-pound test.

I still recommend fishing a soft, fiberglass rod such as the American RodSmiths cranking rods I use, matched with a Bass Pro Shops cranking reel. I’ve already mentioned the crankbaits you need.

Colors are a different story. Because bass are so concentrating on shad, your shad-colored baits will be dominant.

You can still catch a few fish with chartreuse, but bone, shad, off-white, gray ghost — all of the dull shad patterns — are going to work the best.

David Fritts is a 50-year-old pro bass fisherman from Lexington, N.C. The 1993 Bassmasters Classic champion and 1994 BASS Angler of the Year, he also won the 1997 FLW Tour Championship. The owner of David Fritts Outdoors, he is sponsored by Ranger Boats, Evinrude outboards, Rapala, Zoom baits, VMC hooks, Bass Pro Shops, American RodSmiths, Chevrolet, Minnkota and Solar Bat.