October is absolutely one of my favorite months to fish. I'm going to give you my top five baits for fishing pretty much anywhere—but a lot, a lot of lakes, rivers, middle part of the country, down into the South, even up into the North a little bit. These five baits—you can go to so many places and catch a lot of fish. So let's just get right into it.
Number one, first and foremost, probably the most fun—I'm going to go with a big topwater bait. This is a SPRO Walking Haint. It throws a lot of water. It splashes around a ton. I really like the chrome almost all the time. Chrome or bone—great, great colors to throw.
It's got three Gamakatsu treble hooks on it, so you're going to get really good hookups. You can work this bait really hard and you're not going to have the thing catch the front hook. It's so nice—that happens on a lot of other big walking baits.
I'm going to be fishing that on 50 LB Sunline AMZ braid. I really like that braid because you can make super long casts and you can work the bait very effectively. You can make that bait walk back and forth.
I'm gonna throw that on a 7 foot medium heavy Cashion rod and then a high-speed GS model reel by Seviin. I like that faster gear ratio because when you're working that bait, you don't have to turn the handle quite as hard to be able to pick up the slack as that bait's popping back and forth.
I've learned that over the years—if you have even like a 6:1 or slower, you've got to work the handle so fast that it's hard to get the proper walking on that topwater bait. So do that in October with that big walking bait. You'll have a lot better success. That's number one. Number one for sure.
#2: You gotta have a shallow crankbait. I've caught so many fish in the month of October with small flat-sided crankbaits. The Little John for years and years and years has been really my go-to for shallow cranking.
Anytime you've got some stained water and you got baitfish pushed up shallow, just grab the crankbait, go down the bank—you will definitely catch fish. But this is the SPRO Little John Micro 45, so it's 10mm smaller than the regular Little John—still casts very well.
I throw it on a BFS-style rod. 8 LB Crank FC from Sunline, a 7.3:1 gear ratio reel—GS model again from Seviin. The bait comes with sticky, sharp Gamakatsu number six treble hooks on there, so you don't have to mess with anything.
It's got enough vibration that it will draw fish up to the bait. It's not super, super subtle. It's got some vibration to where you're in some stained water, you're around some baitfish—it can separate itself. But it is still subtle enough that you're going to be able to catch fish behind people.
That little small profile is not going to be overbearing for fish that have been beat on all year. A lot of the lakes that we fish—anglers are fishing them all the time all over the place—and you take a little small crankbait like that and you can catch fish right behind other anglers, especially when they're keying in on those little small baitfish. So don't forget about that little shallow crankbait action.
Now I'm going to go old school on this next one. Old school is still a lot of fun. That's right—the ball and chain is back, baby. The Carolina rig is a bait that I catch a lot of fish on in October.
And really what I'm going to be doing here is I'm going to find those areas that have baitfish. You're going to go in creeks, creek arms, pockets—find where the bait is.
If you find where the bait is and you may not be able to get bit or maybe catch one or two on topwater, maybe catch one or two on the crankbait—like, there's so many fish, where are the fish?
Maybe you're in one of those lakes that doesn't have a ton of cover. If that's the case, the ball and chain can really, really come into play.
You throw the Carolina rig—I like a 1/2 oz to 3/4 oz tungsten weight. You can throw lead—it’s fine. I do a bead and then a little clacker to protect the knot. SPRO Power Swivel. 20 lbs Sunline Shooter to a 14 LB Shooter leader—probably about 3 to 3.5 feet long. Gamakatsu 3/0 Offset Shank Round Bend Wormhook. Missile Baits Baby Destroyer—green pumpkin flash. Hands down my favorite color.
I'm going to be throwing this on secondary points anywhere I can find that baitfish. Like I said—catching a fish or two, or maybe not catching a fish with that, but there's baitfish in the area. A lot of times those fish will back off. They're not actively feeding.
They're going to go to the next piece of cover, which might be a secondary type point. If you can find a gravel-type secondary point, you're liable to catch largemouth, smallmouth, spotted bass—where there's baitfish present.
Man, just old school can absolutely be a great way. You can make super long casts with it. You don't have to fish 100 casts with it. You don't have to have forward-facing sonar to fish it.
You can just throw it all the way up to the bank. A lot of times in the fall, I'll catch fish 2 to 3 feet deep with that Carolina rig because those fish might be cruising the bank. They don’t hit the topwater. They don’t hit the crankbait. But that big weight hitting the bottom will absolutely trigger those bites. So that's the third option in October.
The 4th option is the Neko rig. That's right—I said it—Neko rig, not NEECO rig. This is a Missile Baits Quiver 4.5. Any straight-style worm works really good. I've got a Gamakatsu split shot/drop shot hook on there—that’s a 1/0—and then I’ve got a 1/32 oz weight.
In the October fall, I like baitfish colors. This is not something I’m going to be throwing into cover. This is something I’m going to be throwing around where there’s active fish.
If you have forward-facing sonar and you're using that, you see fish out there that are around—the Neko rig is a great way to catch those fish.
I usually throw that on 8 LB Sunline Sniper leader with about a 10 foot leader to 16 LB Almight braid and then the GX reel by Seviin. Cashion Icon drop shot rod. It’s got the perfect taper. It’s got the counterbalance weight.
So you're gonna throw that Neko rig out there, and then as it’s sinking and you're fishing it, you're gonna keep that rod tip up. So you want that counterbalanced weight. I think that’s very important to have in my setup. I think you’ll enjoy it as well.
But that thing—it catches you fish year-round, I’m not going to lie. But in the fall, it definitely excels in that October time period.
Last but not least—in October—I’ve already mentioned a lot of small baitfish in that time period. When they're on small baitfish and you are fishing forward-facing sonar, you might want that little cute 3-inch Spunk Shad.
This is Gobi Bite. It's a natural-looking minnow color. This is on the Missile Baits Eye Roll head. This is the 1/0 hook. It’s a 1/8 oz—that’s a good starting point.
You can go lighter if the fish are higher in the water column or not. You don’t want it to get down too much. You can go down to the 1/16 oz. If the fish are a little bit deeper in the lake that you’re fishing, you can go to the 3/16 or the 1/4 oz.
I’m going to have a 14 LB leader—yes, I said it—14 LB leader. But it's not very long. My leader's maybe 3 feet long. Shorter leader on my minnows seems to be a lot more effective—better hookup ratio, better action.
And again—Sunline Almight. This is 18 LB Sunline Almight. I like a little bit heavier braid—helps keep that bait up there so that when you throw out there towards those actively feeding fish or just those fish cruising around looking for baitfish—you don't have that bait rocket past them. You want that bait to kind of stay up.
So that’s why I have a little bit bigger line. With that welded ring on the front of that Eye Roll, you're not going to have any effect on the action of this bait because the fulcrum point is always going to be in that welded ring against the jig head. So you know—if it was 6 LB test or 14 LB test—it’s going to have the same action. So I'm going to go with 14 LB test.
Then I’ve just got a medium lure forward-facing sonar rod by Cashion. It’s a 7 foot 4 inch rod. It’s a medium with more of a moderate-to-fast action—I don’t know exactly what to call it—but you can see it’s a fairly soft taper. That’s exactly what I want for a forward-facing sonar rod and a little jig rod like this.
That is my last but not least. For all you forward-facing sonar haters out there—don’t be hating on it. It can be a lot of fun in the fall—I’ll be honest with you. And that is definitely a great, great lure to throw in October.
So that’s my top five. In October—I could name another five of lures that I love to throw in October—but those are the top five that I can take pretty much anywhere and go catch fish. If you have any different ones, drop them down there in the comments. We'd love to hear from you.
