Fall Locations

The season we commonly call “Fall” includes two distinct subsections of the period during which water temperatures descend to their annual lows. The first phase begins with cooler nights and crisp days that may climb into the 70°F range but lack the feel of summer. In Minnesota, such conditions may begin in late August, while in Alabama, it may be in mid-October.

Gradual cooling coincides with shorter days that somehow signal many fish species to feed actively. In warmer regions, water temperatures have fallen from the excessively warm range into the optimal range for bass, crappie, walleyes, sunfish, and other species. In northern waters, an instinct must exist that urges bass to feed heavily in preparation for a long winter of near starvation. Largemouth bass feed actively for longer periods as waters cool, and they're eager to strike large lures.

Increasingly cool fall weather further cools surface waters, and their density increases with the drop in temperature. Eventually it becomes heavy enough to mix with the cooler, deeper water of the thermocline, on which the surface layer has floated since stratification began in summer. Though cooling alone can bring about the fall turnover, more often stormy, windy days bring turbulence that enables the entire lake to mix, an event called “fall turnover.” Once water temperature has become more or less uniform from top to bottom, turnover is complete.

Not coincidentally, the crowds and boats have left on many lakes and reservoirs, and many anglers have morphed into land hunters. You may have the water to yourself. Chances are excellent that if you stay with fishing through fall, you’ll encounter the largest—and the largest number of—bass for the year.

Throughout the largemouth’s range, turnover narrows down the fish’s optimal locations. Fish crowd into those areas that offer them what they had in such abundance throughout summer: cover, prey, and protection from other predators.