We are smack into fall weather here is Canada and fishing out there on the lake is damn chilly these days ! Nothing worse then being on the lake in the cold and not catching fish, so for those of you with a fall season like ours here you will need to find where the fish are holding.
The weeds in the shallows start to die off several weeks after summer ends making the oxygen in those areas weak, therefore the fish will start moving deeper from the shallows to all areas with healthy thick luscious weeds, where the oxygen levels are extremely high.
Above 8ft is where you will want to start and work your way deeper from there, the big boys like muskies will even be double this depth at times so large slow rolling baits are the way to go for them.
Once you locate the depth you can still use similar baits you would normally use for bass and walleye, BUT crank baits that suspend and and either slow sink of slow rise in the water are a great match for the action of bait fish in this colder water.
Good way to locate these spots is to try the spots you normally fish in the spring and summer, just move further out from shore several yards until you can’t see the weeds, those are the areas you will start finding fish in.
Slow trolling through these areas is also a good idea for the bigger fish. For those of you with less colder fall weather like in part of Florida, once again stick to the similar baits but make note that fish will move tighter into the large reed piles come the fall weather, usually following the bait.
In the end you can still fish all your common spots, just make sure to fish the deeper parts of them.
The AMFisH guy…