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.

Mid-Fall Locations

Once water temperatures fall into the 40°F to 50°F range (though some waters never reach this chilly temperature range), submerged vegetation thins even more. In the North, emergent plants like bulrushes, maidencane, cutgrass, and wild rice dry up and rattle. As their cover declines, bass begin congregating in the fewer remaining locations suited to them. This means slower fishing, until you find where they’ve concentrated. Then you can catch a bunch, but only by fishing slowly.

Cover

In natural lakes, inside turns that harbor the remaining cabbage and coontail patches concentrate largemouth bass, particularly when the plants are located on steep breaks near large flats. At this time of year, water temperatures in the shallows may fluctuate 5°F to 8°F between morning and afternoon. Largemouths shy away from such instability. Inside turns, with their more even temperature, draw bass. Weedbeds thrive there, enriched by silt and organic materials deposited from the shallows, and this living cover draws bass from points, humps, shallows, and other windblown structure. If a few large rocks are present or there’s a change in substrate, even better. These remaining weedbeds provide cover and prey, even when the plants themselves are withering. In some dark, eutrophic lakes, even after plants have become reduced to black, slimy stalks in midfall, bass still hold next to them. Poor cover is apparently better than no cover at all.

In dark waters, bass may stay relatively shallow. Fish in clearer water—on sunny days with rising barometric pressure and/or rapidly falling water temperatures—sometimes shift deeper, past the stalks of the deepest weeds into 20 to 25 feet of water. Mild, sunny days with warming afternoon temperatures often pull bass shallow, where they hold in springtime spots like lily pads and fallen trees.

During mid-fall, bass abandon offshore humps, no matter how fine their weedgrowth. This pattern appears to be universal, once temperatures fall into the 40°F range.

Weather

Don’t overlook wind direction when seeking mid-fall bass. Calm water and sun increase their activity. They rarely bite well on the windy side of the lake at this time of year. Moreover, the need to fish very slowly (even deadsticking baits) makes windy spots unproductive. As the water temperature approaches 40°F, the largemouth’s metabolism slows significantly.

Late Fall Locations

Bass are as concentrated as ever in remaining optimal locations after water temperatures drop toward 40°F, but their metabolism slows markedly. They are far less aggressive than in summer. Nevertheless, some of the finest fishing for big fish can occur weeks after the water dips into the 40°F range, as late fall doesn’t change the largemouth’s need for cover, stable water temperature (warmest available), and prey. Largemouths feed heavily in fall to fatten up for winter. Where their needs can be met they concentrate in great numbers, producing some of the best fishing of the year, particularly for the biggest bass on the lake.

Cover

Once cover has dwindled, largemouths gravitate to deeper rock or timber areas. The best flats are extensive, often more than 50 yards across from shore to the first break. Most taper gradually to 10 to 12 feet before breaking, a depth at which pondweed and coontail can be found into late fall. There, amid clouds of baitfish and mixed weeds, largemouths feed as far into the season as they can.

Below 40°F, largemouths show little inclination to move into the shallows. When they move, they can be found holding near the base of remaining weedstalks or along steep inside turns. At some point between late fall and ice-up on northern lakes, some largemouths move onto 20- to 30-foot-deep flats in the basins of bays, where they spend the winter beneath the ice. Often fish remain in vegetation as long as oxygen is sufficient.

In deeper reservoirs, bass favor vertical structure, such as bluff banks and deep outside turns on creek channels that offer stumps or standing timber. As water temperatures drop, largemouths hold deep, in the 18- to 35-foot depths in hill-land reservoirs, and deeper yet in highland or canyon impoundments.