As bookings begin to slow down now that hunting is on people’s minds, the kids are back in school, and cool weather is setting in, I keep right on fishing even on days with no clients aboard so that I can keep up with the seasonal movements of the bait and gamefish.
I caught this screen shot on my Lowrance HDS-10 as the bite was tailing off around 10:35 this morning. As I worked my slab in long sweeps, two or three fish perked up and chased the bait. One was hooked while the other fish (possibly two other fish) spooked and headed to bottom.
Today I fished for a short while, spending more time studying sonar than fishing, but still managing to put a nice catch of fish together.
The “big event” right now is the fall “turnover” where the water temperature becomes uniform from top to bottom and the fish scatter from 0 to 45 feet vertically, and do a lot of moving horizontally, as well.
The “bite” turned on abruptly around 9:45 and lasted for about 50 minutes. During that time I caught 38 of the 40 fish landed during this trip.
Two areas, Area 1138 and 767, gave up fish today. At both areas the fish responded well to an “easing” and a “smoking” tactic, both done with my go-to slab the TNT180. Today I used the 3/8 oz. in chrome while the bite was tough before and after the feeding window, and used the 3/4 oz. in white once the fish began perking up.
Sometimes I just shake my head at how good AND comfortable the fishing is in the fall compared to the hot summer time and can’t believe more people don’t take advantage of the autumn-time fishing. Add to the comfortable, dry weather the fact that some of our best fishing “under birds” happens in the fall, and that is an unbeatable combination.
If you’re itchin’, let’s go fishin’!!
TALLY = 40 fish, all caught and released
TODAY’S CONDITIONS:
Start Time: 8:30a
End Time: 11:15a
Air Temp: 71F at trip’s start.
Water Surface Temp: 75.5F
Wind: WNW @ <6.
Skies: Skies were fair.