Fall Pond Fishing Secrets

Early fall pond fishing. This summer, especially when you get into the dog days of summer, it can be downright tough. Sometimes these fish, you can plop a lure right in front of their face, and they just don't want a bite. Well, the fall, it changes. The season is beginning to change. Your days are getting shorter. Your air temperatures are coming down. The ponds' water temperature is starting to come down. These bass, they got to get ready for the winter, and they put the feed bag on. So now they're going to be going after baitfish. Doesn't matter what kind of baitfish you have in the pond, they're going to be going after it. So bluegill, yellow perch, any kind of shad, that type of stuff, they're going to be chasing around and feeding on them. So they get more aggressive, you can be a little more aggressive in your approach. Faster moving lures, for example, horizontal lures, spinner baits, crank baits, top water lures, things like that. You can be a little more aggressive with that, and you're going to catch more fish.

What I would target when I'm in a pond...It doesn't matter if it's a small pond, or I like bigger ponds where I can get my boat on it, it's still the same thing. You're going to start getting these fronts that come through early here in the season, and that's going to blow a bunch of plankton and microorganisms up on that side where all the wind's blowing. And it's also, if it's a strong wind, can stir up all the organic material and color up the water a bit. Man, that fires up the whole food chain, and you can have some incredible fishing in those conditions. I first target windblown banks. You can easily do that from the bank. If you're walking the bank, it's a lot easier to actually fish these areas than you are trying to control the boat and the wind. You bank fishermen having a distinct advantage here. But again, spinner baits would be my number one choice when it comes to that. That flash and vibration and those windy and murky waters definitely work really, really well.

Lipless Crankbaits, like a Rat-L-Trap or a BOOYAH One Knocker, they're the perfect baitfish size, and I would be throwing those definitely in those conditions. Jerkbaits, shallow water jerkbaits, and if you're fishing today a point, a windblown point, a deeper diving, suspending jerkbait can work extremely well in these conditions. Just imitates an injured minnow, which is exactly what these bass are keying on right now, so don't leave those out. When the water slickens out a little bit, that's when I break out these top waters, such as poppers, chuggers, Smithwick, Devil's Horse. There's a lot of different types of top waters out there, but the idea here is it looks like a baitfish that is injured, floating around on the surface, or it's stunned, or maybe dying. And this is what...bass are predatory and they will nail that type of lure easily any day or night. And when it's really calm out, that's when you can really get their attention because it's not camouflaged by the winds, the waves from the wind, or when the water is all murky and stirred up, that's when a top water like this works really, really well.

You can also downsize your baits a little bit. I would fish tubes and grubs, in particular this time of year, and also Hula Grubs. Those imitate a baitfish/crawdad imitation. And you can crawl those on the bottom. You can swim them along. Those, again, are small baitfish size. That's the thing about this time of year, guys, the smaller size baits. This is the fry, the young of the year, the fish that are that were just hatched in the spring. They've now gone up to that 2, 3-inch size, maybe up to 4. That's the size your bait should be. So those full size baits, kind of pull back on that and go with the small ones. The smaller Zara Spooks, the Zara Puppy, I think, is what it's called, the smaller size. Downsize on your lures and you'll catch more bass. So that's how I'd go about approaching my pond fishing here in the early fall. Give it a go, and I bet you're going to catch a bunch of bass. For more tips and tricks like this, visit bassresource.com.