The Best Fall Fishing Lures for Each Species

8/19/2014

There is still plenty of summer left all across the United States depending on where you live.

However, the nights are getting longer and the days are getting shorter. Soon we are going to be forced to focus our attention on the colder months ahead, but if you still want to catch fish before the ice arrives, here are the best fall fishing lures you need to catch your favorite species of fish.

Largemouth Bass – If you aren’t using a crankbait in the shallow water near green weeds, you are missing a lot of fish.

Bass go shallow during the fall following schools of baitfish. Bass will school up and casting crankbaits will imitate exactly what those schooling bass are eating. Match the color of the baitfish the best you can.

Switch back and forth between a tight wobble crankbait or wide wobble crankbait until you find success. When you do catch a bass, more than likely there are at least five more in the exact same spot.
Smallmouth Bass – Find shallow water boulders or concentrate on drop offs with shallow water nearby. Use topwaters such as side-to-side lures or poppers.

Finesse rigged worms or minnow baits such as BioSpawn’s PlasmaTail, can absolutely crush smallies in shallow weeds as well. Crayfish pattern crankbaits can also be highly effective when fishing around boulders too.

Luckily for us fisherman, smallmouth are normally extremely aggressive so a variety of lures will get bit, but some are a better choice than others.

Musky - When muskies are ready to hit the feedbag right before winter, large slow moving baits get a lot of attention.

With this in mind, jerk baits are the name of the game. Baits like Bulldawgs, Suicks, Manta’s, Jerko’s, or Reef Hawgs always catch a lot of fish. For big fall muskies, follow the schools of baitfish.

If your graphs shows a school of fish in very deep water, fish those schools just like you would fish a depth wherever the bottom of the school is located.

For example, if a school of fish is suspended at 20 feet down in 80 feet of water, act like you are only fishing at a depth of 20 feet. Don’t ignore shallow weeds either. Just follow the food chain and muskies will be there right at the top of it.

Bluegill – During the fall, bluegill go to shallow weeds and rocks and hang right on drop offs and normally suspend. They aren’t schooled up as much this time of year and jumping around the lake is often in order.

Livebait is the best way to go. Lures just aren’t as effective as they were in the summer months when the cool nights of autumn begin to turn a lake over. If it’s midday and bugs are hatching, using a sinking fly can also get a lot of strikes.

Crappie – Just like all the other fish mentioned so far, crappie head to the shallows as well.

The best tactic to finding and locating fall crappies is to go right back to the area where you caught them during the same water temps in the spring.

To catch them, make sure you are using small tubes and grubs in the 2″ range. Casting to structure and swimming either the tube or grub back to the boat will garner a lot of strikes.

Trout - Throughout most streams across America, fall is a time frame that rivals early spring for dry fly fishing. Ants, hoppers, and beetles are fairly abundant this time of year as well as some mayfly hatches in the afternoon.

Trout will be active the most from early morning to mid-morning then again in the evening. Pay attention to hatches throughout the day though because they still will happen on warm days.

Carp – If by now you haven’t given carp an honest shot at being a respectable fish to catch, you might be missing out an amazing fish catching experience.

Once the weather turns colder, carp will haunt the same flats they covered in the spring expect this time of year they will be in larger schools. They will be eating just about anything that they can stuff in their mouth’s but crayish patterns will pay off best.

Use smaller plastics or jigs up to even crayfish pattern crankbaits. Some carp can even be taken on the surface will grasshopper imitators. Once you hook one, you will know. Carp don’t exactly nibble.