How to Catch Shallow AND Deep Bass This Fall | Neko Rig Guide

Hey guys, Brian Schmitt here with Bassresource.com. It's time to talk about fall fishing and Neko rig. Early to late fall. We're going to talk about kind of transition. A lot happens in the fall. It's kind of like the spring. We're going to share some tips on what to look for and some overlooked deals there. And then what we like to fish and how we like to fish the Neko rig.

So first we're going to talk about what to look for. What to kind of relate to, you know, pattern wise. So you know, we'll start with early fall, early falls tricky anywhere you go around the country, early falls tricky. But I will say over the years I have seen. And it's kind of hard to find, but it's somewhere on each body of water. Man, that early fall there is a weird super, super shallow bite and I don't know if the fish are up there looking for better oxygen, but all summer we've been concentrating offshore super, super deep.

In early fall, there's some weird stuff going on. It's almost like a false spawn sometimes. But there there's some fish, super, super shallow coves, main lake pockets. There's some stuff going on. So you kind of want to cruise around, look for that. I would start kind of mid lake and look in some really short pockets just right off the main lake and just visually look for these fish. They'll kind of cruise the bank. You know, if you're on a fishery that has grass or a river fishery. You know, start to look to some really, really thick, thick vegetation really close to deep water, something that I look for, you know, somewhere where just that early kind of shot of fish coming back in, you know they're going to stop at something pretty quick.

Late fall is totally different, OK. I think late fall there starts to be a major change where these fish are really after bait, bait, bait, bait, bait and a lot of times the bait, the pile, the bait will pile up a lot of times early to mid fall in the back of creeks. You know the last kind of deep water, not super deep, but they'll just pile in the back of creeks to bait and so will the fish. You know, you could see some schooling activity and stuff like that. So I think as the winter goes on, they'll start to pull out just a little bit deeper. But the back of creeks heavy with bait is a big thing.

So I'm going to try to imitate bait a lot of times in the fall man, it just seems like. Day in, day out, more fish in the fall are kind of keyed in on—it can be gizzards, bigger, bigger shads, small shads, some form of bait fish. Crayfish could be a player too, but I'm going to mainly imitate the bait fish.

So here's a cool little thing guys. So this is a bait from Missile. It's called the Missile Baits Spunk Shad. This is a bait designed for like a jig head. This is a bait design for a scrounger head. This is a bait design for a vibrating jig trailer. It's a really cool bait. It has ribs. And it has a really cool tail that really quivers around a lot.

Buddy, this is one of my tricks that I'm sharing with you guys right now. I like to Neko rig this. This is the frosted purple color. Excellent bait fish imitating color. This is something that I, I catch a lot of fish on when they are really keyed in on bait fish. Guys, I throw this out and just let it fall and it has this weird kind of like swimming on its own sink. It won't just go like this, it'll just kind of, it's almost like it's chasing a fish and just let it free fall.

OK, but then if you want to start shaking this. It's so cool the way this thing reacts with the tail, the head being so much wider. It's a unique action that these fish are not seeing. It's just something that imitates the bait fish. I can fish this from 1 foot to 50 foot guys by controlling our weight sizes, you know. If you want to get it down quick, put a 1/18th in there. If you want to slow it down, 1/32nd nail weight put in the head here.

I have this rigged up with an o-ring. Very tight fit O-ring on here. It keeps my hook stationary. This is a special wacky hook from Hayabusa with a very very light weedguard here. This is a 1 ought. 10 LB P-Line fluorocarbon, 10 LB braid, 7’2” medium heavy Vursa rod with the SPRO. This is a SPRO Jason Christie series MG Elite 3000.

So I'm concentrating on super shallow to start early fall, you know, kind of like those main lake pockets. Like I said, sometimes you'll see some schooling going on early fall. It could be a super early morning bite. Skipping this up guys, it can act like a fluke. It's just so natural the way it looks in the water.

How many scenarios I could give you early fall. I've seen, you know, some docks get really, really good. Main lake docks can get really good early fall. It just gives them something, you know, just off the main lake they could pull up shallow on. You know, if you have some grass. Absolutely early fall is an excellent opportunity. Looking for some of the deepest grass and then every once in a while getting super, super shallow, like in the back of a creek somewhere. If there's a little bit of a drain running through the grass, some fish might get in that little drain. This can be an excellent tool.

And then like we talked about the back of the creeks, man, late in the fall, that bait piles in there, guys. It'll black your screen out. It'll actually black your sonar out with how much bait can get in these places. Embody the fish are there with them. The problem is you are competing with that much bait. So you know, you can know how tricky that can be, but those start that really want to feed so it won't be as tricky as you think.

You know, they start to know winter's coming. Fall, late fall and winter's all about feeding for bass, I believe, and finding a bait. So you know. Picking just a major creek off of one of your systems, going to the back of it, the last available deep water. It has the bait, a lot of times it has the birds. You know lots going on.

Start there. If you don't see it in that one, go to another one. Go to another one of those creeks is going to have it or the main deep basin. So like if you took a lake like Lake Hartwell and you picked a beautiful huge pocket, somewhere in that pocket out there in like 20 or 30 foot, there's an underwater, you know, underwater bowl where everything kind of funnels to a point and starts to come up. Everything will push into that final little trough of deep water. Something else you can look for.

But I'm looking for the bait and I'm looking for the fish big time in the fall. Hopefully this can help you. Fall could be tricky guys, but if you simplify for yourself. Just know you need to be around the bait. It will help you a lot. Apply these techniques. Apply the Neko rig when you're out there in the fall. Turn those tricky fish into catching fish. Have fun. Stay tuned for more from Bassresource.com.