One of the many things I love about living in Michigan is our four distinct seasons, and we’re in the midst of my favorite – fall.
I love seeing the changing colors of the trees. Right now they’re bursting with bright reds, yellows, oranges and some green.
But as a sportsman, I love late October because fishing gets soooo good now and nearly all of the hunting seasons are underway.
Because our lakes freeze over, the fish have more an urgency to feed aggressively late into the fall. A lot of the big bass that seemingly disappear in the summer re-emerge in the fall and can be found stuffing their guts relatively shallow.
And our lakes are relatively vacant. Most of the cottages have been closed up for the winter and the docks have been removed from the lakes to avoid damage during the ice season. The pleasure boaters are gone, which makes it even better.
You can literally have the lake to yourself.
Southern anglers experience similar situations later in the year, such as in November and December.
We’ve had a couple of frosts and the water temps have dipped into the low 50s which triggers a period when you can catch fish on just about any technique you like.
You can catch a ton of fish on diving crankbaits, lipless models and spinnerbaits, drawing both largemouth and smallmouth to your lure.
We’ve had a couple of Indian summer type weeks and that has really fired up the power fishing bite. It’s been warm but windy and the low pressure systems rolling through seem to get the fish even more aggressive.
As a testament to how good it can be, Michigan’s 109-year-old state smallmouth bass was broken last week by a novice angler fishing Hubbard Lake. He caught the 9.33-pound monster during a local fishing tournament.
Of course, our bow season is in and the deer rut is heating up. It creates quite a dilemma for the multi-faceted sportsman who likes to do both. Which do you do?
To help me decide whether to spend my time on the water or deer hunting, I monitor the weather. The fishing is best on those raw, windy, nasty days as that seems to be when our fish intensify their activity.
But those aren’t necessarily good days to be in a tree stand, so I plan my free time accordingly.
As I write this, I have a trip scheduled to take the Michigan Governor smallmouth fishing. He’s an avid angler, and I suspect we’re going to catch them good. It’s great to be fishing this time of year, and anytime you can take your government officials fishing and expose them to the benefits of the sport, there is a double benefit.
If the wind blows and they’re biting crankbaits and spinnerbaits, I just know we’ll have a ball.
It’s a great time of the year to be a Michigander!
Remember, it’s all about the attitude!
Kevin VanDam’s column appears weekly on Bassmaster.com. You can also find him on Facebook and Twitter.
