Here we are, it's in the middle of the fall season, and the bass are chomping, man. It is go time. This is when the bass are feeding up, getting ready for that cold winter ahead, and it's a great time to capitalize on it. There's five main baits that I throw this time of year, and I think you might want to try them out.
One of them is jerkbait, specifically deep diving and suspending jerkbaits. Jerkbaits do a really good job of imitating the baitfish, which is exactly what the bass are feeding on right now. But the suspending ones especially work really well for bass that are suspending. They do that this time of year. Sometimes they suspend and they're not very active, and you can get a jerkbait down there and just hang it in their face and entice them to bite. So a deep diving jerkbait works really well, like a 110, 110 plus, something like that works really well. I sometimes go to a smaller size too. During the fall, a lot of times the bass are keying on smaller size baitfish, so a smaller size jerkbait can be a dynamite right now. So if you're not getting a lot of bites on the larger size, downsize to a smaller jerkbait and that can really help.
Now crankbaits, you've got to be using crankbaits this time of year because, again, the bass are feeding on baitfish. And I'm not talking just shad here. They perch ball up too. They get in big balls right now and perch, they feed heavily on that bluegill and other forage out there. So crankbaits, they do a great job of mimicking this baitfish, so you've got to have those ready. There's two different types of crankbaits really to use right now. One is a little bit deeper diving. It's like a medium diver, anywhere from five to eight foot deep. And then the others are square bill. You get out to the entrance of those coves and to those feeder creek areas, get on the entrance of that, and that's where it's a little bit deeper. And so you use those deeper diving crankbaits. And then work your way up shallower. And as you get there, then you switch over to those square bills. And you can fish those shallower areas a lot better with the square bill.
And put little pauses in there. Little frequent pauses tend to help a lot this time of year. I don't know why, but a lot of times the bass will chase in it and you pause it, and suddenly it's right there in their face, and boom, they've got to nail it. They have to react. So pause it. That works really well this time of year. Just reel it straight in, give it a pause. With square bills, you can bounce it off of objects, bounce it off rocks, other things like that to give it a little more action. And sometimes when it deflects off something, that elicits a bite.
A fish in a jighead minnow is definitely something you want to be using right now. Because, again, guess what? Baitfish, right? You use a fluke style bait or a little paddle tail bait, something that resembles a minnow. The thing with this is a little bit different from a jerkbait for a couple of different reasons. One, you can fish smaller ones, like two-inch to three-inch. A lot of times the bass are feeding up on those smaller baits, and it's hard to get a jerkbait in that size. So that works. Plus you can move up. Sometimes the bass are feeding up on larger three to four-inch size bait. But that little paddle tail action, sometimes they don't have as much vibration in action, they're more subtle and sometimes that's exactly what the bass want. You can use that jighead. Start with a quarter ounce jighead, but if you want to fish shallower, you go up a little bit in weight, or if you want to fish deeper, you can go a little bit deeper in weight. But really the main thing that I like to use is change my speed of retrieve to adjust the depth that I go at.
And what I want to do here is you're looking for those balls of baitfish. The first thing you want to do is bring that jighead minnow across the top above the baitfish, and you want to make it look like something that strayed from the pack, that's isolated, on its own, unprotected. That's the kind of thing that bass will go after. If you don't get a bite doing that, then do the opposite, bring the bait below the ball of baitfish. This works especially well if you have perch. A lot of times those bass will sit down underneath the ball of baitfish, and sometimes shad too. As they start to die off or get lethargic, the weaker ones will come down towards the bottom, and the bass will just pluck them off. So bringing that little jighead minnow down underneath the balls of baitfish sometimes is a real go-getter. So give those two retrieves a try with a jighead minnow.
Now spinnerbait is something I always have handy. I have those year-round. I love fishing spinnerbaits. Those have kind of fallen off popularity for some reason. I don't know why, because I catch plenty of fish with them, especially in the fall. Why? Well, again, that flashing vibration, it looks like minnows. That's exactly what the bass are feeding on. I use these kind of in conjunction with crankbaits. I fish in the same areas where I mentioned before fishing crankbaits, I'll fish spinnerbaits, Especially if I've got a lot of cover, weedy cover, wood, a lot of docks, laydowns. Those type of things work really well when you're throwing spinnerbaits around them. And you don't get hung up like you would with a crankbait.
So fishing fast, that's what I usually do is I try to elicit a bite. So even if the water is getting cold, I still fish them pretty fast. Sometimes that reaction bite is what you need because the bass are actually using that cover to ambush prey. So something goes by them pretty quickly. They're going to react to it. If that doesn't work, then slowing down can also elicit a bite. But the key thing here is in the fall, again, like I mentioned, they're going after smaller bait fish. So I downsize in my spinnerbait. Do away with that half ounce, 3/4 ounce, even 3/8 ounce spinnerbait. Here quarter ounce can do really well. Even an eighth ounce if you can find them. But a quarter ounce spinnerbait works really well, and oftentimes without a trailer. I just want that compact bait, a small willow leaf, or a small Indiana blade, just enough to give a little bait fish profile, what they're keying on this time of year works really well.
Now believe it or not, topwater baits can be very productive this time of year. Yeah, as long as the water temps are above 50 degrees, topwater baits do work. Now keep in mind, guys, sometimes the air temperature will be colder than the water temp this time of year. So it can feel kind of awkward, it's 40 degrees, 45-degree air temperature, but you're throwing a topwater bait. Believe the temperature sensor. Believe the temperature gauge. Know that that water temperature, as long as it's above 50 degrees, topwater can be productive. Again, go for those bait fish style topwater baits. Typically I like to throw the cigar shape, Zara Spook topwater baits. It looks like an injured minnow. You can fish them very effectively around all kinds of cover and areas. Again, points, bluffs tend to work very well for those Zara Spook style baits.
Plopper style baits, like a whopper-plopper type thing, does work really well. You'd be surprised. The cool thing about this is you can cover a lot of water. You can fish fast with these topwater baits. If the bass are biting topwater, man, you can fish quicker. You can cover a lot of water. You're not trying to finesse it here and spoon feed bass. You can go down the bank and just cover a lot of water very quickly, casting one, and casting one, and casting one, and whining with a plopper style bait, and you'd be surprised how well and effectively that works this time of year.
So with those five baits, you're going to get out there and catch a bunch of bass right now. Have fun. For more tips and tricks like this, visit bassresource.com.
