October angling: An underrated month to fish

A mess of fall crappie that fell for a small white jig on Stockton Lake. (Ken White/Special to Daily Mail)

With the outdoor spotlight on hunting during October, anglers have reason to be active as well. During the fall, many sportsmen welcome diversions such as the baseball playoffs and the World Series; high school, college and professional football and other sports. However, during the autumn months, some fishermen want more than a good football game to keep them indoors, they need to be fishing.

With temperatures in the 70s last week, Jack Crawford and Jim Clark had to go fishing, so they headed for the lake. After a couple hours of fishing, between them they caught a dozen crappie, a walleye and several keeper bass while enjoying the mild temperature.

Many crappie and bass anglers find fall fishing for slab crappie and lunker bass to be very good once they've found how to pinpoint the fish during this transition time. The two keys to catching fall fish are to determine the depth where the active fish hold and to find active fish.

Suspended fish usually are inactive and nearly impossible to catch, so you need to focus your efforts on breaklines, areas where shallow water drops off fast into deer water. Food, available light and cover dictate where the fall fish hold. Food in the magnet that draws the fish to a region while light and cover dictate the depth the fish prefer.

On most of the big lakes in Missouri, threadfin shad spawn in late summer or early fall. The spawning grounds are usually coves off the main lake. These small baitfish in coves come at a time when the spring spawning shad are too large for fish to eat, so these new fish draw the fall fish into the coves like a magnet.

Mike King, Springfield, left, and Brad Phillips, Ozarks, display two of the bass they caught last weekend. Many anglers are finding out that fall fishing can be very good. (Photo by Ken White/Special to the Daily Mail)

Depending on available light, crappie move up and down the water column. On cloudy days or when the water is off color, look for the fish in shallow water, but when the sun is bright or the water is very clear, check out deeper water.

To find where the fish are holding, check your graph for suspended fish. These fish will not be the ones that will be hitting, but it will tell you the depth of the breaklines the fish will be and they are the fish that should be hitting.

The final key to pinpointing fish during the fall is cover.

Where there is no cover fishing will not be good. Cover, like brush or stumps at the same depth as the fish usually produce some good fishing. Jack Crawford and Jim Clark hit Table Rock last week and after finding some brush and losing several jigs, they found the crappie 15 feet deep and finished the day with 20 crappie plus several keeper bass and said they would be back soon.

Crawford noted, "We have found fall fishing can be really good. There aren't as many anglers on the lakes, the weather is usually good and we catch larger fish than during the summer. It's a great time to be on the water."

Since fall is a transitional period and fish do move up and down a lot, you may need to modify your techniques that match the present conditions. Some productive methods include vertical jigging and casting jigs. If fish are positioned with a bunch of stumps in 20 feet of water, vertical jigging would be the best choice.

Using balanced gear will help catch crappie in the fall. Heavy line on stiff rods with jigs will work against you. Heavy line causes the jigs to fall too fast and a heavy rod hampers your ability to feel subtle hits. I have observed some dock anglers using heavy line and catfish rods that get strikes, and they never knew it.

The most productive lure for fall crappie are small jigs. They fall slowly through the water and look more natural. Veteran crappie anglers know that lightweight-matched gear is the way to go for fall crappie.

Last weekend, many bass anglers found good fishing early, but it slowed down after 10 a.m. Brad Phillips, Ozark, and Mike King, Springfield, found the fishing good early, but slowed down after 10.

Harold Farmer and George Hughes, Joplin, hit Stockton Lake early Saturday morning, Farmer said, "We started catching bass right away, but around 10 a.m., it slowed down. We headed home, but before daylight Sunday, we hit the lake and started catching bass right away. Just like the day before, the fishing slowed down to a crawl around 10, but we had five keepers in the livewell.

"The great fall weather made the day even better. I know that as the water cools down, the fishing picks up."

Both Farmer and Hughes are turkey hunters, but with the entire month of October to hunt and with fishing good, they agree the turkeys can wait.

If you don't want to start off the winter without fish in the freezer, use the right methods to catch early fall fish. October is growing in popularity as a good month to go fishing as anglers bring in nice strings of fish.