Water temps 45-50 degrees

[ub2m4]

Best choice of lures, colors and depths for these fall conditions? Between 55-50 degrees a 4" swimbait was fantastic, but these falling temps are new territory for me. First year at fall bass fishing. The last 15 years have been steelhead fishing from early Octobre on. Thanks.

[Got Fish??]

 Fish slow and deep! Natural colors. Find deep weed beds off breaks.

[djkimmel]

Watch the section of our GreatLakesBass.com video Smallmouth in the Fall where bass pro Scott Dobson covers fishing blade baits correctly. Scott does a mini-seminar on cold water blade bait fishing at the 3:30 minute mark of the video.




I don't provide the excellent detailed explanation that Scott does in one of our videos - Video Bass Fishing Report Upper Grand River Lansing - but you can see how I fished it that late fall day on a river for wintering cold-water smallmouth bass. I use blade baits in the spring and fall for both largemouth and smallmouth bass in cold water.



Quite a few bass fishing tips, particularly for spring and fall bass fishing in our GreatLakesBass.com video library on GreatLakesBass.TV.

[ub2m4]

  DJ, thanks for the tip. I was definitely over working my Silver Buddy. By slowing way down and just barely lifting my rod tip I managed 16 bass on Wednesday. Water temp 48 degrees and depth 20-21 feet. 2 were 4 lbs, 5 3plus, the rest 2-2 1/2 lbs. never felt a single hit, just weight when lifting. Thanks again.

[djkimmel]

Wow! Way to go! I missed this earlier.

That's some real nice results. I LOVE fall fishing! It's a little different from lake to lake (and in rivers) but the colder it gets, the more similar it seems to get from lake to lake too overall. I still tend to creep for them shallow when I can, but definitely the deeper bite is more consistent on many inland lakes.

Another great lure I see real good cold water anglers use a lot is the Erie Darter. It's a good deep water presentation on a jighead when they blade bait slows, or isn't working.

If I'm not fishing deep, I still will tie on the venerable old black and blue jig and real pork trailer. I had a real, real fun day in November doing just that on Lake Erie. Who doesn't like putting the steel to quality bass with a jig and pig?!? It was an awesome day to break in my new Grandt C11 7' Hvy casting rod too! Bassmaster hooksets!!!