Northwoods Bass Fishing Report – September thru Mid October 2022

Hi everybody! Apologies for the lack of reports during the past month of fishing. All brief activity was relegated to Facebook page only. Throughout September things were consistent almost daily. Now into October, fishing conditions are changing on the fly! It’s difficult to stay abreast of what is happening now because the next day could be completely different from what I am writing today!

For what we had in September – good weather, lots of short strikes, some Indian summer, very low fishing pressure – fishing was good. October has been a different story, with enduring boat troubles and now lakes in turnover phase.

As we now enter middle of October, we just finally settling into typical fall patterns and post-turnover fishing. In about a week, many lakes and their bass will begin the pre-wintering phase. Good bites will continue through the end of month, and my fishing year will conclude then.

I’m off the water now through at least October 20th. Will be back for the last dance then.

After end of summer vacations, and dealing with dog’s health issues, I returned to the water again on September 14th thru October 9th.

Customers and I enjoyed several good days of fishing. Our best days produced 20-30 fish, with a few 4 and 5 pounders to show for it. Each day, I let the weather forecast (and your skill levels) dictate where to travel and fish to. I feel the calculations were done correctly.

Ever since mid September, the lakes have been in a nice, slow and steady, gradual water temperature decline. We’ve also enjoyed consistent weather which has made for several successful trophy hunts…… minus the huge winds some days. With the two going hand in hand, its been an excellent fall season to date. This has resulted in very good fishing, predictable patterns, and making smallmouth easier to locate.

Water temperatures stayed the same for almost an entire month, ranging from 62 to 69. Right now, most places are in the mid to upper 50’s. Besides the few coldfronts, smallmouths haven’t had too many triggers yet to feed. However as of last week, we were finally displaying short feeding frenzies and much ferocious strikes.

Below is a photo dump of many noteworthy specimens.

Turnover has now come on FAST.

The recent coldfronts got the bass retreating to deep water. It was just a short week ago where shallow and mid-depth fishing produced the best results and biggest fish on every trip, and our bites were coming in 5-10ft on many casting presentations. At this writing, mid-depth from 14-18ft, and deep water fishing from 25 to 30ft is now producing the best fishing results. Now, we are mostly vertical jigging, quickly getting our baits to the bottom, and position fishing.

With turnover completed, the next phase of fall begins and pre-wintering follows. You will want to focus most efforts on deep structure and potential wintering areas. The shallows will vacate, and when the lakes fully clear themselves up, the shallows will mostly be empty!

You will want to rely on electronics to find fish. When you do, you’ve struck bronze.

After turnover settles next week, vertical jigging and dragging presentations from deep water will outfish all casting. 90% of the fish will then be concentrated in 10% or less of the lake.

For timely, real-time, up to date and almost daily fishing reports, PLEASE LIKE AND FOLLOW me on Facebook at NORTHWOODS BASS FISHING ADVENTURES. You will get the daily scoop delivered there!

Bass Bling

Here’s how my boat has been rolling from mid September through the first week of October.

Fish fast, burn gas, and cover a lot of water. Finding very active pods of fish, but each of the biggest we’ve caught have also been loaners and rogues. We don’t live-scope, livewell, or hero shoot them for end of day photos. All of our successful fishing has been accomplished while in search mode with horizontal presentations. Swimbaits, paddletails, and lipless cranks are the jam. This will continue as water temps cool into the mid 50’s.

Despite the several daily short strikers and tail nippers, Z-Man Fishing Products Diezel Minnows 4” and 5” sizes, Rage Swimmers, and Keitech’s are catching. Really like fishing them all rigged with the 1/2 oz. Freedom Tackle FT Swimbait heads. The double collar is awesome. Prevents slipping, prolongs life.

For the jerkbait aficionados, the Dynamic Lures Z-spec is the real deal. This bite will improve shortly.

In the last few days, football jigs and hula grubs began working. This will get better as October starts.

The tackle box is closing rapidly.

The new St. Croix Rods Legend Tournament Bass are working hard for us this month. Two specific models to look at are BOTH the 73MHXF (workhorse) and 75MHF (warhorse). They’re doing all of our smallmouth slinging.

Buy Here – https://stcroixrods.com/…/legend-tournament-bass-2022…

Meanwhile for October…..

I can write and talk about the great casting and flats fishing we enjoyed in September with swimbaits and minnows, but that’s old news already and will not be the winning strategy at most lakes in October.

To catch majority of our fish right now, vertical jigging around main lake basins in 20-30ft rock, and due diligence with my electronics is getting best results. This is what I call ‘video game fishing’. It’s not the most engaging method to catching fish, but if you’re patient like me and like to employ vertical presentations to catching fish, this deep water stuff with aid of good electronics is very fun!

Blade baits, damiki rigs, football jigs, and live bait rigs are my go-to’s.

And when you hook into fish from 25-30ft depths, play each hooked fish up from the depths slowly and methodically to avoid barotrauma injury such as bursting of their swim bladders.

With fall patterns quickly coming on, football season is on deck. Now’s about the time I start to religiously cast and jig a variety of football jigs. My picks are Freedom Tackle’s FT Series football jigs (1/2 oz. for shallows), (3/4 oz. for depth) and their swinging football jigs. Others are 3G Smallmouth Solutions hand-tied by Gregg Kizewski, and Motion Fishing football jigs.

What’s Happening Now

• Turnover is here, dependent of lake size and type  – Completed on <500 acre or less lakes. Ongoing on big lakes and completing this week.
• Water temperatures varying between 55-59 degrees.
• Some smallmouths still remaining shallow. Some now wintering. Others in-between.
• Largemouths are being found in deepest, greenest available weeds (15-20ft)
• Focus on cribs, ledges, deep rocks if targeting smallmouths.
• Running live bait rigs can save the day.
• Yellow perch finally schooling heavily along deep weedlines.
• Next major coldfront / cooldown will send smallmouths to wintering sites.
• Many lakes are down 2-3 feet. Some flowages down 5-10 feet. River systems don’t bother with.

Conditions are changing daily, so it’s difficult to write exactly what is happening since every lake is configured and operating differently. This time of year you’ve gotta adapt on the fly.

Up until last week, we had been catching all of our smallmouths as shallow as 2-3 feet to as deep as 25 feet. Every lake is different, so check all depths if your lake hasn’t yet turned over.

Following turnover’s completion, majority of the fishery will be migrated and concentrated around wintering sites. Deep-water position fishing will be the daily game.

In October, here’s how we go about targeting trophy smallmouth:

• Going ONLY to places where big fish live in
• Prioritize midday and afternoon hours
• River systems (if fishable) and their flowages (for wintering)
• Deep weedlines
• Yellow perch schooling – and following them
• Jigging, rigging, and position fishing
• It’s football season – football jigs
• Deep diving crankbaits
• Blade baits, spoons, and rippin raps
• Damiki rigging / moping around wintering holes
• Live Bait Rigs

This month, the tackle box closes. So prioritize baits that dive deep and get down into the depths quickly.

Recent cooldowns have finally concentrated yellow perch schools. Find the easy food and smallmouth wolfpacks will be nearby.

October 2022 Fishing Forecast

I try not to host wintering trips because exploitation of wintering holes and sensitive lake locations isn’t of interest. October fishing is similar to September’s strategy. Except now we enter post-turnover and coldwater period.

After turnover mid-month and as water temps creep into the low 50’s, almost 100% of our fishing is over deep water, incorporating jigging, casting, and position fishing. Some days we may incorporate the usage of specialized livebait rigging.

During October month, the tackle box closes. I also limit my lake selection to a rotation of about 5 to 10 different lakes whose fall patterns and locations have been specialized.

• River and flowage smallmouth
• Midday and afternoon fishing times prioritized
• Shallow flats swimbaits and lipless cranking smallmouth
• Deep water position fishing
• Vertical jigging smallmouth
• Football jigging
• Blade baits and rip baits
• Live bait rigging

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

Slow and subtle presentations such as dragging tube jigs, hula grubs, and football jigs are my jam. Vertical jigging and carolina rigging with flukes, spoons and blade baits, and drop shot techniques must be attempted as well. Even deep cranking too. Specialty rigging with live bait (4-6 inch walleye suckers lindy rigged with lancet circles), done as the last resort, is worth consideration too. Usually, a deep diving crankbait such as a Rapala DT-10 and 16, jig and paddletail swimbait, and swimming grub retrieved slowly through mid-depth ranges will trigger the most aggressive strikes and from the largest fish too, but not with same frequency as all these slow and subtle strategies.

October’s bounty is providing many numbers days, when we find the fall mother-lode. This late in the season, I don’t care for numbers unless I can locate schools and fish are of excellent quality average size. We want big bites.

In order to locate most of this month’s biggest bass, I always spend more time motoring around and slowly idle around key spots and wintering locations before fish are confirmed on the screen. Only then, with waypoints marked and a track established, would I even consider fishing and drifting across the specific location.

Remember, 90% of the bass in every lake are only living in 10% of that lake! Right now.

Once these deep water bass are found, they are really easy to catch for the first half hour you’re camped over them.

While deep schooling, non-dormant bass are often catchable, the presence of nearby food greatly enhances catching them. The food needs to be present down deep where smallmouths are beginning to home for the winter. Schools of yellow perch and bait balls of cisco should be nearby. Crayfish also burrowing themselves in deep mud bottom too for their overwintering.

With big fish on my mind in October, I only focus my bass fishing efforts on a half dozen different lakes throughout the month. Due to short feeding windows and thanks to the process of eliminating dead water it’s illogical and poor strategy to drive all over the place and lake hop like normally. The lakes I limited myself to in October tend to fish well for bass in fall. I have systemically patterned their specific fall bass movements, and know where wintering holes are located.

To catch some big bass towards the end of October is a bonus. Every bite to me until the end is precious. You never know when that particular 20 incher could be your last one for the year.

Right now till end of month, fish solely wintering locations, looking for deep rock, saddles, holes, structure, and regions of the lake where ciscoes come up to spawn at during 42-45 degree water temps.

Fish will be wintering. Go find them, and catch them. They might not be active, but if they appear to be suspending a few feet off the bottom, they’re catchable and hungry.

As we get into the latter parts of October, water temperatures will drop into the upper 40’s. This is about when I call it quits on for the season, at the very latest. Some fishing opportunities may still remain for the die-hards, as cisco feeding patterns take place, and there can be some days where big fish and numbers of them can be still caught.

As long as it’s not snowing and colder than 40 degrees I plan to do some more bass fishing.

End of Year 2022 Fishing

Also, as many of you know, my favorite fishing buddy and deckhand, Chubs, has started a chemo treatment program to help control her lung mass. She has been thriving for the past month since diagnosis over Labor Day weekend. She and I thank you for all of your well wishes and support. It has been a very stressful time for me, but we have pulled through it all thanks to a heavy schedule of fishing, and your daily company both on and off the water.

Andrew Ragas
Northwoods Bass Fishing Adventures, LLC
Licensed and Insured
Specializing in Northern Wisconsin inland bass fishing

tel: 708-256-2201
email: andrew@northwoodsbass.com
web: www.northwoodsbass.com