Fall’s the time of year when anglers spend a lot of time chasing bass in the creeks. The shad have moved back there, and the fish know they have to eat all they can to get ready for winter.
You might find fish in just about any creek, but there are some things you can look for to increase your chances.
Whenever we’re getting this late in the season and the nights are getting really cold, I look for creeks that are divers. They give me shallow water options for those warmer times – maybe late in the afternoon – or those sunny days when fish want to get up near the bank.
Most importantly, I want it to have some deep water. This is important because late fall finds fish in several different stages. Some are still shallow, some fish are kind of in-between and some have probably started moving toward their wintertime spots.
When I fish a creek in the fall, I don’t want to limit myself, so I’m looking for creeks with some shallow and some deep water. I don’t want a creek that’s 100 percent shallow and flat, but I also don’t want a creek that’s all deep and has no flats in it.
Before I even put the boat in the water, those are some of the things I’d be considering.
Now, within any particular creek I choose, I’ll break down the opportunity by starting with the conditions. Early in the morning, the temperatures are going to be pretty cool, so I’ll be targeting the deeper water like a channel swing or the flats close to that channel.
I’ll try to establish a pattern based on that, but in the back of my mind, I know it can change. It might change around noon; it might change earlier or later.
Fall is a very volatile time of year, and you really have to fish the conditions at the present moment. Because you have fish in various stages of their seasonal patterns, it’s not that common to find one area or one pattern that will last all day.
This time of year, I’ve caught a lot of big fish shallow. Either it seems like it’s first thing in the morning because there are some fish leftover from the night feed that are up shallow, or it’s late in the afternoon.
Typically, I’ll start deeper in the mornings and work shallower – especially if we’ve had a lot of sunshine in the day. I’ll be looking for your standard fishing structures like docks, wood or isolated wood.
The one thing that you absolutely must have this time of year is bait. That’s the whole reason those bass push into the creeks.
Put it this way: If I pull into a creek that’s perfect, but I don’t see any bait, I’m gone. I’d rather have a creek that may not look the best to me, but has bait over one that has all the habitat features I like but doesn’t have bait.
Whenever you’re exploring a creek, you want to watch for bait activity on the surface. That’s usually limited early in the morning, especially after a cold night, so keep an eye on your electronics and try to establish the depth where the bait is holding.
This is a key detail, because it changes almost daily. You can go out one day and the bait may be at 15 feet, and then you can go out the next day and it might be on top or it might be 30 feet deep.
Fall fishing is day-by-day.
One thing I’ll point out is that we’re halfway through November and we haven’t had a frost yet. It’s still relatively warm in much of the country and that could extend the creek activity.
But once true fall weather sets in, this scene will start changing. When the nights start getting colder, it really starts knocking them back. The fish will become more active in the afternoons and start moving toward that deep water.
For fall fishing, I really like throwing a Booyah buzzbait because I can cover a lot of water with a presentation that gets the fish’s attention. I know I’m not going to get a lot of bites, but I’m going to get some big ones.
If the fish are shallow, I might throw a Bomber Flat A or a 1/2-ounce black and blue Booyah Bank Roll Jig with a green pumpkin Christie Craw. The jig is a good bait for the mornings when fish are still cool from the night.
Overall, my favorite for the fall is a spinnerbait because it’s a bait I can change up. I can fish it a bunch of different ways, depending on what the fish are doing. I can slow roll it or I can burn it. I can fish it up shallow and then work it out deeper.
I guess that’s what I like about a spinnerbait in the fall – it’s diverse, just like a good creek.
