Fall transition

Read the “fall migration thread” and it got me to thinking. My experience has been - during the transition from summer to fall there is an adjustment period where the bass just don’t bite much and fishing is usually pretty tough. Maybe 2-4 weeks depending on weather? Is that pretty much everyone else’s experience?

It definitely is mine right now!

Here's how my fishing this past week went....

Bridgeport-fish up shallow doing their fall thing from mouths of creeks to back. Main lake and river. Good quantity and decent quality. Lots of shad all around. Fair topwater bites. Good crankbait bite.

Grapevine- lots of shad in backs of shallow pockets and coves. Very few bites though and lacking on quality. No topwater bites.only got bit on crankbaits.

Tawakoni- fair amount of shad and fish on points to backs of creeks. Few topwater bites but lots of bites and solid quality. No crankbait bites.

Bob Sandlin- fish on points but not much shad, zero dock bite and lacking in quality but a good number of fish caught. Topwater was best as was a crankbait.

Cypress Springs zero shad found, slow bite, few fish, no quality. No topwater otmr crankbait fish. Just dock fish.

Bridgeport and Tawakoni were by far the best of the week.

Frank....I haven't had a good fish in 3 weeks.
I struggle every year in the fall.
Confidence is zilch.

I see you skipped Fork. Good job.

I am all about fishing Fork in November and December...get that jig bite going then.

You covered a lot of area lakes. Nice post.

What do you mean in your Tawakoni post by “ few topwater bites, but lots of bites”?

Think he said "topwater" not "tipster" Frankie.

The last week has been tougher on Fork for me by far than it was at any time this summer.

Pretty simple. Had a lot of bites doing other stuff but very few came on topwater.

I just tie on junk baits and a jig and run and gun,docks rocks and points near creeks

Ahhh. oK. I see what you mean now.

The fish really spread out this time of year. They can be 30' or more all the way up to the dirt.

Fall fishin sux for me. I beat the feeder creeks real hard in the fall.

I'm with ya.

Fished Fork, Twak, and Lavon twice in the past 10 days. Caught 1,3,0,0. Crappie bite is strong right now, hard to make myself bass it.

I hate this time of year. I can usually catch numbers but getting any quality is a real challenge. The fish are really scattered out right now. Main lake, back of creeks, docks, points.....you can find a few fish on any of them but never seem to find numbers in any given spot. The one consistent thing for me is I can't find a catchable bass in anything over 8ft of water recently. The deep bite for me has been near non existent.

The Mark Perry 2018 Tour of Texas lakes! Love it and good info Mark. Thanks

Fished Lake Worth from daylight till about 2:30 today. Good number of bites with some good quality mixed in. Would have been happy to bring in the best 5 for a tournament. Biggest was 4-5lbs. We caught fish all day but had to stay on the move. Typical stuff for Worth. Mostly flipping/pitching and squarebills. Reeds, rocks and docks especially on or around points. Saw very few shad at all no matter where we went. Had one small fish on a buzzbait. That was it for topwater.

Did you retire?

Nope...took a shift off and trying to fish as much as I can on a bunch of different lakes before BC Championship on Texoma this week.

I witnessed the perfect example of fall fishing over the last 2 weekends. Last weekend, the bait and fish were ALL shallow...like nothing less more than 3-4' with big numbers of fish in the dirt. Water temps were in the 75-78 range. Well last week's temps getting back in the 90's raised the temps on the same lake to between 78-82. That change moved the bait and a much bigger portion of the bass out further. We struggled Saturday then figured it out Sunday. Just had to find the bait again. I'm guessing most lakes will be awesome in the next few weeks as the bait moves up shallow and fast with the temps that are coming.

I ain't catchin nuthin...........

It’s tough. Theyre scattered.