The water temps have dropped now to the mid seventies. What do you throw at the fish this time of year?

Lipless crankbait (Rat-L-trap) is great about now.

I�m still throwing all my standards: square bill, reg crankbait, TX rig, senkos.

Gear up for the Crayfish mating season. Skirt your jigs and Chatter Baits with the TX. Craw colors. Go to your spawning areas work a Jig along the creek channel bends and points in the deeper water that has grass and rocks close by. Run a Cray imitation Chatter Bait along the edges of the grass lines and through the weeds.

Watch videos of the fleeing Crayfish. Work your jig hops and chatter bait hops the same way. It is a couple of slow ups and downs, not letting it touch the bottom between the two hops. Then let it rest on the bottom. This is when they will look it over to determine how big those claws are. Down size your trailers to less claw for jigs and use a trailer on the chatter bait that has no claws; but curly arms/antenna. I use the discontinued Mister Twister Craw worm. I like the Living Rubber skirting as it keeps moving when the bait is at rest and will hold the Crayfish scent.

Lipless,squarebill, and medium diver in shad patterns and covering water.

I prefer a spinnerbait and a jig.

Jig has been my stand by right now. Seeing lots of fish schooling and usually they are small in size so I normally stick to my standards of flipping jigs in heavy cover near deep water. Have had several days of 20+ lbs doing this in the past month.

Thanks for the advice. I will change up my creature baits with craw colors and work a chatterbait with hops and put a lipless crankbait on the spinning rod.Ready for some successful fishing trips.

I'm a big fan of chatterbaits this time of year. If you can follow the baitfish into the creeks you'll have a shallow 1/2 hour bite around sunrise that's insane. I've gone 18 fish for 18 casts on this bite in October!

I posted this on another thread about Bass eating other species of fish besides the Shad. I truly believe it is a mistake just to gear up with shad baits when Fall arrives and the bait is moving to the backs of the coves. True the Bass are always following the bait; but they also have other interest more valuable than eating Shad all the time.

This is my take on what Bass are looking for:
- They eat Shad and follow them all year.
- The Bass are there; they are only eating what the Pray Fish that are chasing Shad are wounding.
- They are eating all the other species that are there like Blue Gill, Sand Bass, Crappie and Perch.
- Bass do not like the erratic behavior of all these species as they are crazy after the shad.
- Bass are always keyed in on this kind of behavior by other fish and it is a delight for them to deal with them.
- Try throwing baits like a swim jig or blade jig that mimics the other species of Pray Fish.
- Good colors are: Fire Tiger tuned toward the Blue Gill - Yellow Perch with strands of yellow/Black/Hologram - The Sand Bass and Crappie skirts are hit offs of the shad patterns of white/hologram. Just pick one with a dark color in the pattern like Purple or Watermelon glitter.
- Crayfish are present now as their spawn is beginning. Read my article on "Chasing Crayfish". Match the Texas Craws with your jig skirts and mimic the fleeing action with a Blade jig in the same colors.