|
The water temperature seems to stay in the 70s forever. Once it starts to slide lower, though, it happens quickly. The temperature is now in the 60s. The temperature drop is associated with the fall season and the length of the day, but it is also due to some cooler than normal weather fronts. It should warm up once more and sport fish should respond quickly to the warmer water.
Cooler temperatures can change how fish react. In the spring, fish wait until the water warms before they become active. You can expect that same sort of reaction as temperatures continue to fall. Morning fishing may be slower after a cold night, but should improve as the sun warms the water.
The best news now is that bass fishing is great bass with topwater lures and other baits that you can throw into submerged brush and retrieve. Bass are in and around brush, so lures like spinner baits (or weedless worms and plastic baits) are working well. Fishing a drop shot bait straight down around wood can also be effective. Do not expect drop shot baits to come back if you cast them out and then retrieve them horizontally toward the boat.
Some of the largest bass of the season are vulnerable at the current water temperatures. Unfortunately, the thick brush in the backs of the canyons may make it hard for you to get a big bass in your boat once you hook it. Even so, the experience is tremendously exciting.
The pattern that is giving anglers the best success involves the shad that are trapped in the trees at the end of the cove. Bass and stripers both stand guard over the shad schools, waiting for them to try to leave or relocate. The predators wait patiently to take advantage of shad in open water and intercept any significant shad movement. The brush makes it harder for them to feed and protects shad. So shad will likely remain in their brushy strongholds until they are forced into deeper water by the surface water temperatures descending into the 50s. For now, check the back of each canyon and cove for shad activity in order to find active predators.
Guarding stripers are suckers for shad spoons. Look for them on the first break, which descends to 30 feet or deeper. Stripers are often right on top of the break, but they quickly move deeper at the first sign of trouble.
|