Late Fall Lure Selection

Fall isn’t for covering water. A slow pace is necessary. On a typical day, you might only have time to fish 3 or 4 major areas in totality. Due to feeding windows opening and closing at random, we camp often and frequently revisit the same high percentage spots throughout the day.

Casting deep divers and fast plungers, and ripping and jigging, while running the live bait rods remains productive. Be mindful the tackle box closes and fewer presentations will be utilized and needed by the time first ice approaches.

All artificial lures for casting and vertical jigging must dive deep and sink quickly to fish. The artificial assortment should consist of deep diving crankbaits, heavy paddletails, sculpin imitators, tubes and football jigs, fluke minnows, rip baits, and blade baits.

Most sizes and weights fished are in the 3/8 oz. to 1 oz. category. For detecting bites, getting them down deep and best hooksets, all baits must be presented on rods with fast action and more bend, and reels spooled up with thin braided superline and fluoro leader, or a fluorocarbon main line.

Crayfish burrow and overwinter in mud flats and soft bottom that are in proximity to smallmouth wintering sites. A slow and subtle crayfish imitator such as a Get Bit Baits tube rigged on swinging head jigs, Chompers hula grubs on football heads, and football jigs dragged through deep water are often successful due to this connection. At minimum, my jig weights for these bottom baits are ¼ and 3/8 ounce.  

Consider other craw pattern imitators that include skirted football jigs. I carry a heavy box of them with me everywhere I go in fall, loaded with varieties in most sizes from Jewel Baits, Motion Fishing, Freedom Tackle Corp., and 3G Smallmouth Solutions. On rivers, lighter ¼ oz. and 3/8 oz. sizes will be mainly needed. To target 20 ft. depths and greater on the lakes and flowages, heavier ½ oz. and ¾ oz. baits are recommended. Work them painfully slow on bottom at all times.

When crawling a football jig through deep water, you’ll want a powerful, sensitive rod with a stiffer backbone and taper like the St. Croix Legend Tournament Dock Sniper (LBC70HF). This will aid in bite detection and the requirement of strong hook set to heavy fish. Fish with too wimpy and soft of a rod, and you miss those bites. Also, you can’t bring up powerful large pre-wintering fish located down below. The Legend Tournament Dock Sniper meets all personal requirements. My rod is complemented by a SEVIIN GF series spooled with 20 lb. Cortland Masterbraid. Its high-speed 7.3:1 gear ratio quickly picks up slack, delivering immediacy to the hook set.

My favorite for this time of year, is casting 2.5 to 3.8 paddletails with football heads, and slow swimming and dragging them across bottom. Football jig shapes are imperative for their fast sink rate, and bottom contacting and rock deflecting abilities.

For most swimbait slow rolling and slow retrieving, I recommend casting rods with some extra length and softer tips as most strikes will happen far out and down deep. The St. Croix Legend Tournament Warhorse (LBTC75MHF) is a favorite. Meanwhile on downsized offerings, like a 4-inch Z-Man Diezel Minnow on 3/8 ounce heads, I select a 7-foot 6-inch MF St. Croix Legend Elite (ES76MF) paired with a size-30 spinning reel spooled with 15-pound Cortland Masterbraid.

With all swimbaits and football jigs, do not ever tie braided main line directly to lure. Due to the abrasive nature of wintering areas and high underwater visibility, fluorocarbon leaders are required. I run 2-to-3-foot lengths of 10- and 12-pound Cortland Line fluoro.

In recent years, goby and sculpin imitating swimbaits have taken the smallmouth world by storm. While gobies infest the Great Lakes, native sculpins populate our clean and rock-filled inland lakes. The Megabass Dark Sleeper originated this segment of lures. New for fall 2023, Z-Man created its own goby imitator with its pre-rigged Gobius swimbait and TRD GobyZ.

Deep diving craw and minnow patterned crankbaits such as a Rapala DT-10 to 20 series models, and Strike King’s 8XD and 10 XD, can be retrieved at several feet deep and trigger the most aggressive strikes. Deep divers get commonly worked around windblown breaklines, ledges, and rock piles.

For these large lures, a long powerful crankbait rod such as the St. Croix Legend Glass 74MH Moderate is excellent for casting and detecting every tick. The soft tip and moderate action of its linear S-glass blank helps keep hooks from coming dislodged as a result of the subtle bites common in cold water, and if smallmouths go airborne. You’ll want to pair this slick cranking rod with a 5.3:1 gear ratio reel spooled with 15-pound fluorocarbon.

Casting presentations are worthwhile, but vertical jigging can be most effective. Blade baits and rip jigs are winners when smallmouths are catchable from down below. Vertical power jigging a ½ oz. Damiki Vault blade bait, casting and ripping an Acme Lures KastMaster and Hopkins Spoon, and working ½ ounce Rippin’ Raps gets the best results and most fish interest until they become conditioned. Each has a unique sink rate and tightness to its wobble and vibration on the upstroke. For best hooking percentage, replace the stock hooks on all baits with size 3 and 2 Trokar TK300 round bend treble hooks.

Fall feeding windows are short and sweet. Catch one and you may quickly follow up with 5 more. Then the bite dissipates, only to return with a flurry of more fish a few hours later.

Schooling smallmouth often lack intelligence during the first 15 to 30 minutes at any wintering hole. The simplest forms of vertical jigging and live bait rigging aided by your electronics will catch the most fish with ease until they condition, slow, or stop biting entirely. When exploited and vulnerable to pressure, wintering bass often move in and out from spots, only to eventually return to them again once they have recovered. Since the typical inland smallmouth lake has multiple wintering areas, jump from spot to spot, and revisit all wintering areas and waypoints to keep catching.

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