Cooling weather changes where you fish and what you fish for bass in the Carolinas. Here are two experts’ ideas on what you should be tying on the end of your line.
After a long, hot summer, fall — and hopefully, cooler weather — finally arrives this month for Carolina bass anglers.
Largemouth bass are apex predators in lakes, river systems and all other places these green fish call home. And they occur across the Carolinas, from Fontana Lake in the western part of the Tarheel State to the brackish Cooper River system just outside of Charleston in the Palmetto State.
With cooler weather trends beginning this month, fishing action heats up, and some lures fare better than others at landing a livewell full of bass.
Knowing which baits and lures to tie on is directly attributed to a bass’s diet, and that can vary across their geographic range. Bass eat almost anything that wiggles, crawls, swims or even scurries across the water’s surface that they can get inside their bucket-sized mouths. Their diet varies considerably across their range to include crawfish and worms, but undoubtedly, finned prey are their primary food in most habitats.
In order to understand what the best lure options are, anglers must understand what the primary forage species is in their home water and where the food lives in the fall.
Bass concentrate on eating most of the year, and that makes the location and positioning of the food source ultimately the most-important aspect to catching bass. Guide Brett Mitchell of Fishing with Brett Guide Service is a firm believer in considering where the bait is when selecting lures and places to fish.
Food is foremost
“Food is always first,” said Mitchell (803-379-7029). “It doesn’t always mean the fish will be there when the food is there, but the fish will not be there if the food isn’t.”
Bass eat sunfish — bluegill, redears, redbreasts, flier bream, crappie and warmouth — in most bodies of water in the Carolinas. Each sunfish species can be found in different depths and habitats during the early fall. Many are found near creek edges and in shallower places where a substantial forage base is available. The one exception is crappie, because crappie will generally be situated along creek channels looking for small minnows.
In addition to sunfish, bass feed on shad and herring. Most reservoirs have substantial shad populations, and bass will key in on this forage base, relying totally on shad as their primary food. Some lakes will have large populations of herring as well that can be used as their primary forage base. Rivers across both states will have thriving shad populations that utilize every habitat imaginable to forage and to avoid predation from bass, catfish and other apex predators.
As the water cools in early fall, the food base shifts, and the bass follow. Initially, cooling water will invigorate bass, increasing their activity level.
Pro angler Dana Rabon of Conway, S.C., competes nationally on the Lady Bass Anglers Association tour, on lakes and rivers across the country in various seasons. She has had to learn to tackle the specifics of the local prey/predator relationships for all times of the year.
Fall is an exciting season for Rabon to target bass in a reservoir or in a blackwater river near her home.
Stay on top of action
“As waters cool, the bass get aggressive and start feeding heavily on whatever bait is available,” Rabon said. “Most of the waters I fish have shad, and the shad start slowing down in the fall. That makes a topwater lure one of my favorites to use early in the day.”
Rabon will use either a buzzbait or topwater plug as her surface option for fall bass. They work wonders for several different reasons. First, the bass become super aggressive as the water cools. They will be chasing bait, pushing bait near the surface, creating surface action and an ideal scenario for topwater lures.
“I predominantly use a buzzbait, topwater plug or walking-type lure first thing in the morning near shallow ledges and creek banks. These lures imitate injured baitfish up near the surface” Rabon said.
A buzzbait creates a consistent gurgle, and bass can track it easily. Surface plugs and other topwater lures produce a slower, more erratic action. Both can produce bites; some days, one action type can be better than others.
Another topwater option that is great for all action is a Berkley Choppo, a surface plug with a rear propeller. This floating, hard bait can be fished with a consistent cadence or be pulled erratically, creating gurgling noises and vibrations that are similar to a buzzbait.
While topwaters are often the most-exciting lures to use, the response generally only lasts for the first couple hours of the day. Rabon will switch to subsurface options as soon as the topwater bite falters.
Subsurface options
“As it gets cooler, I will try a spinnerbait, because this time of year marks the beginning of the first stages of the shad kill. The steady but slow action of a spinnerbait will trigger a bass to strike when the shad start slowing down in the cooler water.”
Spinnerbaits come in a wide variety of shapes and sizes, but those with large blades and soft-plastic trailers are killer in the fall.
Other shad imitations are good options for the fall. Rabon will use Shad Raps in places where shad are getting herded by feeding bass.
“Depending on the direction and intensity of the wind, I like to use Shad Raps or small, square-billed crankbaits in the mouth of the creeks and up into the creeks around wooded cover,” she said.
Structure and cover in creeks are ideal ambush locations for bass when the shad are slowing down. She will fish these by using a slow, stop-n-go retrieve.
Take it slow
“Slow-moving baits are the key this time of year because they mimic shad behavior,” she said. “I also really like to use Flukes in these areas. They can be fished slowly and are irresistible to bass,” she said.
As the water gets cooler, shad, along with small sunfish, will descend into deeper cover where the water temperature is more stable, but bass are onto this pattern as well. It couldn’t be any more real in many of the Carolinas’ large reservoirs.
“When I am fishing these large reservoirs, I will hit some of these rock and brush piles with a Texas- or Carolina-rigged worm,” she said.
Brush up on things
Bass are typically shooting shallower and hitting the creek arms in the early fall, but the plentiful brush and rock piles on most of the Piedmont, Upstate and mountain lakes are havens for holding bait, and a wolfpack of largemouth bass will not think twice about setting up on these brush piles to fill up on the free groceries.
Brush piles are very common in reservoirs. Rarely established for bass, brush piles are primarily created by anglers targeting crappie; they are very good at concentrating slabs. Brush piles are generally placed on ledges and in deep water. Bass love these brush piles and will fill up on shad, crappie and even pods of bluegill. They should never be overlooked in the fall, and lures that run deep and can be fished slowly are the best options.
The early fall bite can be ferocious in just about every part of the state. From blackwater rivers in the coastal plain to the large reservoirs that put the Carolinas on the map, largemouth bass are feeding and can produce serious fishing results. While tackle shops have nearly endless supplies of lures for the angler to buy, there is a select group of lures that will bring the fish to their knees, if they had knees.
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