"Looks Can Be Deceiving"

I still can remember one of the first times that saying ever came home to roost on my doorstep. It was way back when I was a senior in high school. I had a Saturday-night date with this drop-dead gorgeous gal who, as I would learn before having driven just two blocks, had the personality of a rattlesnake. That was the first and only time in my life I ever returned a date to her house within minutes of picking her up. My biggest satisfaction that night was seeing the surprised look on her face when I told her to get out of my car. I'm guessing it probably was the first time anyone ever had talked to her that way.

A more recent example of deceiving looks occurred a couple weeks ago as my tourney partner, Rob, and I took a mid-week practice day in preparation for the weekend Dewey Mullins Memorial Bass Classic to see if we could find some fish.

After working a good stretch of shoreline with absolutely no action at all, we decided to check out a cove, even though we had seen no signs of activity there. In no time, we were catching chunky keeper fish with topwater baits.

A little research after I got home that day revealed that what we had found in the practice session really isn't unusual. With fall being a transitional time for bass, anglers often get fooled into believing that what we see happening on the surface correlates directly with what is happening below the surface. That's not true, though. Longer nights, coupled with passing of the season's first cool and cold fronts, start dropping the water temperatures, which trigger changes in fish behavior.

Where bass may have been busting shad throughout the day in summer, that activity likely will be delayed until late afternoon in fall, when full effects of the sun are in place. It's not uncommon for most of this fall activity to occur in the last hour of the day.

With the cooling effects of longer nights and passing fronts, many bass begin migrating toward the backs of coves, up creeks, and to shallower staging areas--the same places the baitfish start moving. That's why crankbaits, particularly those in white, bone and silver chrome, work so well in early and mid-fall. Be sure to include some lipless models in your arsenal, too.

Topwater baits, including buzzbaits, are another good choice for fall. And on bright days, you may want to try some soft plastics, especially during the mid-day hours.

As late fall arrives, and bass and baitfish begin moving back to deeper water for the winter, crankbaits still get the nod. Here's a crankbait bass my friend, Doc Murdock, boated one day late last season.

Here's another bass he also picked up on a crankbait just last Saturday.

Other late-fall baits may include, depending on the depths involved, such things as jigs and spoons fished vertically. Key factors in finding a productive late-fall pattern are water temperature, depth, wind direction (sometimes), and the color of the bait.

When Day 1 of the Dewey Mullins Memorial Bass Classic arrived, Rob and I returned to the area where we had found fish on the practice day. However, there were a couple of factors that had changed during the interim: a lower water level, as well as a reduced water temperature. And while our first half-hour in the area produced results similar to what we had encountered on the practice day, the bite suddenly shut down completely, and we were forced to spend the rest of the day in a futile search.

The bottom line for fall bass-fishing enthusiasts is that it's generally some of the best action of the year, at a time when the water is cooling off, the leaves are turning vibrant colors, and there are considerably fewer anglers to get in your way on the local bodies of water, so enjoy.