Thoughts for fall?

[Shoot2Kill]

So I have an hour to kill at work and there is nothing new on here to read about so I thought I'd start a new topic.

This will be my second fall chasing these fish and sice fall is just around the corner does anyone care to elaborate on what tactics work best for them in the fall? What do you do differently in regards to baits/where you fish/what time of day, etc vs summer? Is night fishing as effective? What is the key water temp you're waiting for if there is one?

My last fish last year was on Oct 17 on blades....I used every bait I had until the season ended and ended up loosing a fish on the last monring I fished (in Dec!)that T boned a chartreuase and dots Livid Fish boatside. I'd like to think I know a lot more about many of the lakes I fish than I did at this time last year so I'm hoping to improve my #s and extend that last fish date.

Anybody or anything talking about fall fire away!

[Esox_Magnum]

I tend to use the same baits from opener to close, mag dawgs, DCG's Wades Wobblers and gliders. Gliders can be hot in the fall for us. Every lake is different you have to find what works best where you fish. What works for me here in Iowa may not work for you on many MN waters.

[50inchpig]

it already is fall, once the water temps dip below 70 things start to change, mainly with a shallow movement for alot of fish. surface baits and blades, of course.

october has been a little tricky for me picking up on the transition from blades and topwaters to cranks and jerk-baits, also seems a little more touch and go with types of baits and usually shorter feeding windows, this year i'm hoping to stay on top of things. live bait is another option, nothing is set in stone either as far as baits go, i switch alot more in the fall, probably because i can't stand throwing gliders for too long at a time. find the green deep coontail as the milfoil dies off.

same carries into november for me, although after a few weeks of slow blade action during last october/early november last the they were the thing to throw during the last week of the season. figure 8s and personal bests for more than one of my buddies in the last couple of days, my last fish that weekend was also a blade figure 8 fish.

so much of that stuff is lake-specific too it's really hard to generalize. probably the most important thing is to fish hard and stay mentally tough through the cold.

and you put you caught your fish in December, when the season is closed in MN, did you not learn anything from your lake independence thread?

[Shoot2Kill]

and you put you caught your fish in December, when the season is closed in MN, did you not learn anything from your lake independence thread?

Easy there...it says my last fish was on Oct 17th...and that I lost one the last day I fished which was on Dec 1...the last day of the season.

[HugoBox]

Lots of crank bait action last fall. The only thing that seemed to stand out to me was that i would have assumed a slow methodical approach would have been the best which wasn't what I found (even when the water temps dropped down into the 30's and 40's). Trolling believers fast produced fairly well - the more erratic the action the better. I even punched a hole in on and replaced the small rattle beads with a 1/4 ounce steal ball. That thing now swings som wildly it almost ends up on its back and it was very effective last fall. Ripping trolled baits instead of just dragging them also seemed to work (helps keep a guy a bit warmer as well.)

The other aspect of fall fishing is gear maintenance and safety.

Cold weather does strange and sometimes bad things to gear and people - do your best to be prepared.

[RK]

Hiya -

Some random thoughts on fall...

- Sometime around the middle of September, I put a black single spin spinnerbait with a #7 Colorado blade on one of my rods, and don't take it off until I put the rods away for the year. Over the past 20 years, slow rolling a single spin has certainly accounted for the majority of my fall casting fish, including a lot of big fish.

- I stop using topwaters when the season closes or they start bouncing off the ice - whichever comes first. Timing and lure style changes somewhat. I use WTD baits a lot and quieter prop baits like Topper Stoppers, etc. It's often a banker's hours deal (10AM - 3PM), and they don't work as well in wind as they do during the summer...but they can be dynamite at times, especially around the cisco spawn. The coldest water I've caught a fish on a topwater in was 39 degrees. The whole "they don't work when the water's below 65" thing is a load of horse pucky.

- Jigs are underrated all year. They're grossly underrated in fall.

- Flashy minnow baits can be great. Bomber Long-As, Cordell Red Fins, etc., fished fast catch a lot of fish for me in September especially.

- As HugoBox pointed out, just because the water's cold doesn't mean you have to slow down. We routinely troll at 3.5 to 4.5 mph in the fall. Sometimes when they bite's off, speeding up is a way to trigger bites. Cold water or not, they want it, they'll catch it.

- Put the time in to find remaining green weeds. On smaller MN lakes, they're gold mines right until ice up. Location changes from year to year, but the lee sides of points, inside turns and steeper breaks are good places to look.

- Broad leaf cabbage stays standing on shallow weedy flats after all the junk weeds die back.

- Muskies just freaking like sand.

- If a spot is good enough, anchor. Cast until you catch one. Fishing one good spot all day isn't as stupid as it sounds. Ask Jim Flesch on Leech.

Uhh...all I can think of at the moment...

Cheers,

Rob Kimm

[Zelmsdawg]

I agree that you can catch fish till freeze up on top, but I do think other presentations become more efficient - as in a fish that would hit topwater would also hit something else plus a few that wouldn't. If its calm and sunny, a hawg wobbler is a great option.

But I find myself going much bigger and slower with mostly gliders, cranks and the occasional spinnerbait/bucktail. I'll have to try the slow rolling spinnerbait more, just started using jigs more but haven't been successful yet, maybe this'll be the year though

Zelmsdawg

[Castinski]

Some of my best fishing was in Late Oct/Nov last season. I had an awesome soft tail phantom bite going on and kept one rigged up all fall. My second fall go-to is usually rubber and it seems like the bigger the better. It's just so versatile with shallow and deep versions available up to the pounder size. I just started experimenting with tubes this year and they look to have some promise so far. I will admit though, I think I gave up on blades a little too early last season. Plenty of guys were still catching on them right up until the season closed.

Certain shallow flats can be dynomite on those calmer sunny afternoons where the water heats up more than a few degrees. If you move fish on one, be sure to check flats that have similar weed growth/depth and come back often.