The surface is cooling, and on every lake deeper than about 20 ft that means turnover this month. For a week or two the layers mix and the bite slows, then the whole lake opens up and the fall feed is on.
What's biting this week
Bass in the creek arms. As the water cools from 65 down through 55 °F, bass follow the shad into creek arms and coves, shallow and aggressive. A lipless crankbait, a spinnerbait or a walking topwater covers that water fast. If your lake is mid-turnover, stay in water 5 ft or shallower, where there was never a layer to mix. The bass temperature bands give the lure and speed for each step down.
Walleye back on shallow rock. Once the lake has mixed and cools through the 50s, walleye feed hard on points, shallow rock and river current. In many lakes this is when the biggest walleye of the year are caught. Work a big minnow slowly under a 3/8 to 1/2 oz jig, or cast a stickbait shallow after dark.
Last call for channel cats and flatheads. Channel catfish stop feeding near 50 °F, and flatheads feed little below it, so the water you have now is the last of the year for both. A 50-degree afternoon in October still sits over water in the 60s, and every catfish in the lake is eating. Blue catfish never stop.
Fact of the week
Water is heaviest at 39.2 °F (4 °C), not at freezing. That one quirk is why a lake turns over in fall, why ice floats, and why a lake freezes from the top down instead of into a solid block. The lake turnover page lists the seven signs it has happened.
New on fishing.info
- Lake water temperature: how to find it before you go. Live USGS and NOAA sensors, satellite maps and the air-temperature rule.
- Jerkbait: how to fish it in cold water. The twitch-and-pause cadence by water temperature, and why the bite comes on the pause.
- Pike fishing in every season. Where northern pike are from ice-out to first ice, and the quick-strike rig.
- Uni knot: one knot for hooks, leaders, snells and loops. Five turns on mono, ten on braid, and the pull test where it beat the Palomar.
- Are northern pike good to eat? Yes. The five-fillet cut around the Y-bones and which size to keep.
- Noodling catfish: how it works, where it is legal. Pulling a nest-guarding flathead from its hole by hand, and every state's rules.
Tight lines,
Jeroen
Got a question about your water this fall? Reply and I will dig into it.
You get this because you signed up at fishing.info. Unsubscribe.