Fall is the time of year when everything can be at its best in California: the weather, the harvest, football season (if we have one), fewer crowds on the rivers, beautiful scenery, and some of the best fishing to be had all year. Bass fishing is no exception, because bass are focused on consuming as many calories as possible to get themselves through winter. For the bass fly fisher, this is prime time for some great bass action before these fish go into their winter lethargy mode. And these days, for fly fishers who need to get out while also staying close to home, it’s perhaps your best chance for a successful day on the water.
Bass Behavior
Bass behavior in the fall can be pretty predictable. Like most species of warmwater fish, bass have a comfort zone with regard to water temperature, the availability of food, and protection. During the summer months, when water temperatures are at their warmest, bass usually go deeper to find cooler water. They will move into the shallows to feed, however they don’t remain there for long periods of time unless there is cover — aquatic grass, lily pads, weed mats, overhanging riparian vegetation, reeds, and docks that provide shade, protection, and water temperatures. All of this begins to change as the days get shorter and summer transitions into autumn.
In the fall, to prepare for winter, bass target baitfish as their primary food source and expose themselves more often in their quest for calories. They continue to eat other aquatic vertebrates, such as frogs, an occasional unfortunate mouse, and anything else that provides calories, including aquatic insects and crawdads. However, baitfish are the main course.
During the transition period between summer and fall, baitfish stage near points and shallows, especially at the entrance to coves and inlets, and the best place to look for early fall bass is around inlet and cove openings. Water temperature and baitfish availability dictate the pace of their migration, which can take several weeks to a few months. The bass will position themselves so they are not likely to be detected by the baitfish, but can easily intercept them as they swim by. The lee side of a rocky point or structure where there is some form of current, whether created by the wind or by other flows, is a good place to look. Bank structures and riprap also hold early fall bass. Another good spot to look for fall bass is along the edge of a shallow flat that shelves into deeper water. A creek channel that flows through an inlet is likely bass territory, as well.
Further into autumn, in addition to moving into deeper inlets and coves, bass also move onto shallower flats and closer to shoreline to look for food sources, which become less available in deeper water as a result of cooler water temperatures. The baitfish are following their food, and the bass are following the baitfish for the same reason. Target all of these spots to find fall bass.
Fall Techniques
When bass school up in the fall to follow the schools of baitfish, big fish school with the smaller ones, but usually, the big bass hold deeper, below them, so they can pick off baitfish disabled in the melee caused by the smaller fish feeding above. Consequently, fishing a weighted baitfish imitation on a sinking line or shooting head is the smart way to go. Electronic fish finders can be a big help in spotting schools of bait, bass, and the larger fish beneath the school. In the absence of such electronics, or if you are fishing from shore or a personal watercraft without a fish finder, the tried-and-true countdown method works well, too: knowing the sink rate of the line or head you’re fishing, vary the time you allow it to sink, counting down each time, until you begin to hook up with bass. If your offering is harassed by the smaller fish, and you are looking for bigger fish, not lots of small ones, switch to a bigger, heavier fly and give it more time to sink.
What fly? When bass are schooling in the fall may be the one time that matching the hatch is not necessarily the best option. There are generally thousands of baitfish available to them in the schools they chase, so it is best to show them something that stands out from the crowd. A fly that’s a little bit larger and flashier is the ticket to get bass to choose your offering when there is an abundance of baitfish. For fishing shallow flats or over submerged grass beds and submerged wood, I just use an unweighted baitfish pattern that will stand apart from the naturals, fished on an intermediate sinking or floating line, depending on depth. Bass are very aggressive in the fall, and I have found that faster strips with pauses to imitate wounded prey work well. If you are not experiencing grabs, simply slow down the retrieve until you get results. You will probably need to experiment with your retrieve each outing. I pick up a lot of fish on the pause, and for this reason, I sometimes let the pause go for three to five seconds. If you fish a pattern tied with red eyes, the pauses in the strip give it the look of a wounded baitfish and an easy meal. The strip-pause technique also is highly effective in deeper water when you are using weighted baitfish patterns on a sinking line or shooting head.
When bass school up in the fall, if you catch one, you are likely to catch several. I don’t leave bass until they leave me. When that happens I usually move a little farther into the interior of the inlet that I am fishing until I locate them again. Bass can also be found schooled in open water, so give that a shot, as well. A weighted baitfish pattern on a sinking line is the best way to prospect open water. Again, use the countdown method and go a little deeper with each successive cast until you get bit.
The most important key to fishing for fall bass is water temperature. The comfort zone for bass is 60 to 75 degrees. The drop in water temperature as fall begins is the trigger for bass to transition into their schooling mode. When winter finally arrives, and the water temperatures reach 50 degrees and below, the bass move back into deeper water areas and suspend there as their metabolisms slow. It’s when the water temperatures drop into the 60s that bass move farther into the inlets, following the baitfish. When the temperature reaches 60 degrees, bass go into their heaviest feeding mode, because they sense that the approach of winter is at hand. That is an optimal time to be hunting fall bass. I work the middle depths of inlets earnestly during this period.
Later in the fall, when the water temperatures drop to between 50 and 55 degrees, there is usually one more aggressive feeding period that generally occurs from the middle to the back of the inlet or close to shore. Two things happen during this time. First, threadfin shad die off, which usually occurs around 53 degrees. The bass then can be found at the bottom, feasting on the easy pickings of dying shad. Fish a baitfish pattern that imitates shad, deep and slow with a full sinking line or shooting head. There are also gobies, pond smelt, and bluegills available to the bass during this period, and in the absence of threadfin shad in the water where you fish, patterns that imitate these fish can effective at this time.
The second late fall event that has a big influence on bass feeding behavior is the autumnal crawdad spawn, which occurs when the water temperatures are in the 50-to-55-degree range. Every body of water, from your local golf course pond to the largest reservoir, has crawdads, and they spawn twice a year. They expose themselves by crawling on the bottom while looking for spawning mates, especially if the bottom is broken rock. I think you know what to do: fish a large, weighted crawdad pattern twitched on the bottom.
Schooled-up bass offer the most target-rich opportunities for fall bass fishing, but top-water fishing is also a great way to fish for bass in the fall, and I certainly would not ignore that option. Fishing mat pockets, bank structure, or over the top of a shallow grass bed with a Crease Fly or a frog or mouse pattern can still result in a big bass blowing up on the fly. Low-light or overcast conditions are generally best for this type of fishing, but that said, I have caught bass all day on top.
Divers and crawdad patterns fished on a floating line are also great producers at this time of year, thanks to the crawdad spawn. Swimming crawdad patterns, such as a brown over burnt orange Clouser, also will be attacked by bass when fished around any kind of structure including grass, wood, and reeds. Riprap banks and bottom areas with broken rock are good places to target. Once again, use larger patterns, because the ’dads have had all summer to grow, and aggressive bass are looking for lots of calories this time of year. They can be voracious feeders that will attack anything that looks like food, regardless of the fact that they are already eating something. I have caught bass that have a taken my fly with a crawdad in their mouth or that have regurgitated a crawdad when I landed them.
Equipment
A bass rod needs a strong butt section to deal with big fish. These fish have had all summer to grow and are aggressively looking for calories to sustain them in the months to come. The ability to muscle them out of cover or to get them to hand in any situation requires some backbone. Good choices are 7-weight or 8-weight rods, and I would not go lighter than a 6-weight. I would suggest you use a heavy rod for deep-water applications.
The reel on a bass fly rod has only two jobs. It holds the line, and it balances the rod. In most situations, bass should just be stripped in. Trying to get them on the reel after a hookup results in lost fish more often than not. Line selection is pretty straightforward, as well. I use a 10foot section of T11 sinking line attached to a floating line when fishing streamers and baitfish patterns in water that is less than 10 feet deep. A MOW Spey tip is perfect for this. If I want to fish top-water patterns or use a diver, I can easily remove the sinking MOW section and rerig with a tapered leader.
For deeper presentations, carry an extra spool with a full sinking line or a shooting head. If you have a second rod already rigged with one of these, you can save the time and the frustration of changing lines on the water, especially if you are in a personal watercraft or a kayak. These fish are not line shy. Tippets anywhere from 12to 20-pound test work fine.
A Fish for These Times
Fly fishers are notorious for traveling great distances to fish for exotic species or exceptionally big fish in distant locations. Bass, though, can be found everywhere, from local park ponds to lower-elevation lakes and reservoirs and in several rivers, and good bass fishing is seldom more than an hour away from most Californians. These days of quarantines and pandemic worries, we are staying closer to home. There are a thousand miles of bass-laden waterways an hour or less from my front door — it’s called the Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta. Additionally, there are many lakes within a two-hour drive that offer excellent bass fishing. Southern and Central California waters also offer some of the best bass fishing in the country. Fall is a special time for fly-fishing bass anglers, and social-distancing rules don’t apply to lipping a big bass. In the fall, you can enjoy the best bass bite of the year any day during the week. It’s definitely a fish for these times, and this is a great time to go bass fishing.
