Best Fall Smallmouth Techniques

[Mike Clifford]

Granted, we are only approaching a "late summer" pattern, but eventually you know it's going to happen.

 

For those of us that have never really found a steady pattern during the Fall/Autumn months.....

 

What are you throwing, and what segments of the river are going to produce as the water temperature begins to drop?

 

If you are new to the club or message boards, be sure to chime in as well!

Fresh ideas are always welcome.

 

Fly/Spin...share equally.

 

A light at the end of the tunnel?

 

We may be looking at a moderate winter!

 

"A majority of the model forecasts for the Niño-3.4 SST index (Fig. 6)suggest El Niño will continue to strengthen. While there is disagreement on the eventual strength of El Niño, nearly all of the dynamical models predict a moderate-to-strong El Niño during the Northern Hemisphere Winter 2009-10. A strengthening El Niño during the next few months is also suggested by the recent westerly wind event in the western equatorial Pacific, which can lead to additional anomalous warmth across the central and east-central equatorial Pacific during the next two months. Therefore, current conditions and model forecasts favor the continued development of a weak-to-moderate strength El Niñointo the Northern Hemisphere Fall 2009, with the likelihood of at leasta moderate strength El Niño (3-month Niño-3.4 SST index of +1.0^oC or greater) during the Northern Hemisphere Winter 2009-10."

[Guest rich mc]

i just go with bigger lures and flies. best fall luck i ever had was with a cordell redfin almost clear with a red head. i will be casting flies like the whistler, murdered muppet and the murdich minnow 4-5 inches long. rich

[Stan]

I like to use tubes on football jigs dragged and hopped slowly.

[Jonn Graham]

I, like Rich, like to upsize for fall. Any bait that catches fish during the summer I use, but I upsize it. 4 inch tube (instead of the 3 inch), large walking baits (Sammy 100), big, meaty, 5 inch twister tail grubs, bigger hula grubs, and of course my swim jigs.

 

Now, when it comes to flies, this will only be my second fall as a fly fisherman. I will probably start tieing some larger patterns starting tonite. Murdich minnows tied on the big, long #2 Tiemco 8089 should work nicely. Also, I have been tying my Mangy Craw on a 60 degree, 1/0 jig hook. Using this hook makes a bigger fly. Matter of fact, caught a nice smallie last night on this fly. I will probably throw big blockhead poppers and large Fur Strip Clousers.

 

God, I love fall. Hope it gets here soon.

[Steve SPIZ]

yes go big big grub big jig big cranks up size line hold on

[Paul Trybul]

I love fall fishing and my patterns are a progression. They are all more generalities but some fall days its all good. I progress from craw imitators to minnow imitators or even live minnows as fall progresses. I progress from tribs & skinny water to basins and bigger rivers as fall progresses. I progress from fast water rock habitat to deeper slower wood habitat. Rock habitat can still be good but the fish start holding in wood a lot more. The other change I've noticed is the good early morning bite progresses into a good evening bite.

[scotth]

I like to use tubes on football jigs dragged and hopped slowly.

do you insert the head into the tube or just thread the tube onto the hook?

[Norm M]

I fit the technique to match I think the fishes mood to be based on current situation, local climatic condition, fishing pressure and I must admit my given mood at the moment. Sometimes I just get a wild hair up my backside and have to scratch the itch.

 

I generally fish larger lures and more agressive techniques anyway so that doesn't really have to change. Fishing 250 days a years or so already so fishing more often would also be a minor change.

 

I am currently writing an article about cool-cold water fishing so watch for it in an upcoming newsletter.