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Posts: 415
Location: MN | This is a follow-up to the recent thread about catching more big ones before or after Labor day. My comment in that thread was that I've done much better before Labor day, with Oct and Nov being generally tough months for me.
One thing I really struggle with is figuring out when they are going to bite. I feel like I have a decent handle on it mid Sept and earlier. Storms, cold fronts, windows around sunset/rise, weather changes, etc. Often the bigger fish bite when a number of conditions come together simultaneously.
When the water dips into the mid 50s and below, I have not personally seen much correlation between weather trends and fish being especially active. I've had a very small number of days where I actually got 3-4 bites, and I've caught a couple decent sized fish, but none of those events have been connected to weather in an obvious way. I've fished around major weather fronts - before, during, and after, and never really seen the same kind of activity frenzy you would earlier in the year.
To those that find success this time of year - what types of conditions are you looking for? |
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Posts: 1341
| To me cold fronts are a good thing in the fall and I love a north wind. (wind is good along as not too strong) If the wind is strong it seems to at times turn the fish off (with this said I caught my largest fish on a day where I've never seen the wind blow so hard) but we had days we're just smoking the fish and wind comes up too much and it goes quiet. But also has to do with drift speed. Snow is good, rain in the late fall is bad, so bad you can catch more fish in the cabin. Fish will be in the weeds as long as they are green. (yes I've heard of guy's catching fish out of brown weeds too) Rock is good and on the bottom between hard and soft basin. Count down lures and soft plastics or a single spin spinnerbait. Feeding windows are short. Burt, Ernie, Jake, Eddie, Suick and the Raider bunch among others. Wear your life jacket! |
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Posts: 8772
| Warm fronts/S-SW wind are the devil. Great to fish on those days, but it shuts them right down. Typically like to see a steady cooldown and winds out of the N/NW. Feeding windows are few, far between, and short so if you get any action that's probably it for the day. I've had my best luck in the warmest part of the day, but then we usually don't bother getting out super early at that time of year, and don't fish much after dark late in the fall. |
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Location: Walker, MN | Yep, a NW wind for me. The deer are moving, ducks flying and muskies feed. South wind and everything is lazy. There are exceptions of course. |
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Location: oswego, il | Definitely want the water to be cooling off.so.weather that makes that happen seems to be key. There are definitely more defined windows as well and perhaps a time of the year when the majors and minors play a bigger part.
Edited by ToddM 9/30/2022 12:16 PM
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Posts: 1141
Location: NorthCentral WI | I've had so many days where I expected fishing to be great based on conditions and other days with little hope and boated multiple fish. At this point in my life with little kids and limited fishing time I don't care about conditions. I get out and fish when I can because you certainly can't catch them sitting on the couch. I find the less I worry about conditions and having the right lures packed, the more fish I catch. There are always catchable fish so just get out there.
Edited by MartinTD 9/30/2022 1:59 PM
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Posts: 523
Location: NW WI | I'm a novice to the late season game, real quick I learned to slow my roll. Been using my 5:3 for multiple bait types in order to force discipline on myself. Not saying you do,not saying you don't- but for myself, uncomfortably slow seems to be working. |
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Posts: 716
| MartinTD - 9/30/2022 1:57 PM
I've had so many days where I expected fishing to be great based on conditions and other days with little hope and boated multiple fish. At this point in my life with little kids and limited fishing time I don't care about conditions. I get out and fish when I can because you certainly can't catch them sitting on the couch. I find the less I worry about conditions and having the right lures packed, the more fish I catch. There are always catchable fish so just get out there.
Add to that : if you sit on the couch you'll never learn what works under those "poor" conditions. |
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Posts: 580
| The main thing about mid- to late-fall is that bite-windows are shorter in duration and less frequent than typical summertime fishing. The trade-off is that those windows are oftentimes more intense. As has been noted, cooling, rather than warming or stable, is best. My favorite conditions are a cooling air temp (versus water temps) along with a N, NW or W breeze that is light-to-moderate with overcast or at least partly cloudy conditions.
As noted above, a S, SE or SW breeze with warming or calm, balmy conditions are usually the toughest days.
Key thing is to be on proven spots with a baitfish connection tied into the main basin, and then to put in your time. This isn't the time to run and gun. Instead, under better conditions noted above, something will eventually happen and multiple-fish opportunities can and will occur...and what makes it great is that these can be the biggest and heaviest fish of the year.
Once you get into late fall and near freeze up, you're oftentimes just looking for a single bite or two in any given day. Here, I'm concentrating on only a couple of my very best spots and it's really mostly a waiting game.
As to conditions that "make them go", I've caught enough fish under varying conditions that I'd say that it's actually easier to identify the conditions that make fishing more difficult: warming air temps, bright sun, southerly-oriented breeze.
Edit to add: The very first snow-storm of the season can be dynamite. My bro and I had our very best feeding window ever under those conditions where we boated 11 muskies in a 3-hour window in early Oct. Also, one of our most epic days on LOTW was during a winter storm advisory in early Oct.
Edited by Matt DeVos 9/30/2022 11:27 PM
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Posts: 624
Location: S.W. WI | I fish alot in the Fall. Wisconsin. Nothing much worse than a big warming trend. But, I do well with the dreaded south wind, just as long as its not in a multi-day warm up and the temps are on a gradual downtrend.
I find the bites to be scattered through the day, contrary to most other people. Mostly mid-day and very little around sunset or after.
Just how it is for me.
Edited by Rudedog 10/3/2022 10:00 AM
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Location: PA Angler | Seems like when we get a cold front the first couple days are great then they turn off. For me cloudy days help and big lures or big baits. When the water really cools down they seem to get sluggish |
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I like bucktails and topwater this time of year in shallow water but is there a general rule of thumb with water temp when big rubber starts working on the breaks? |
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Posts: 415
Location: MN | Thanks everyone for the input. Nothing overly surprising; I would consider a cold front with NW wind good conditions locally (we have LL strain) any time after mid July. My late fall experience in those conditions just hasn't really mirrored my Aug-Sept experience, but there could be some element of luck there.
The one thing that does stick out is a few of you mentioned gradual cooldown. I have fished around some very sharp temperature drops (20 deg and snow Oct 14) and that didn't seem to really fire them up the way I expected it to. Same for stronger (~20 mph) NW winds.
Anyway, it's not like we get to choose the weather or have all of the options available to us every year!
Perhaps presentation is where I could improve. I've been mixing in casting >50 deg but have mostly been running suckers under 50. It seems the last couple years the fish have become conditioned to minnows or something was just wrong about the presentation. Last fall I took some days off we hit a lake I know well for 5 full days; over that time we had 80+ follows (I counted the waypoints later) but only 3 bites. We were clearly on fish, almost the entire time, but they never ate. It's hard to imagine trolling or casting being much worse - maybe it would have boated more fish. It also could be they were eating at night - I usually fish dark to dark but not much during night time proper.
Follow-up question:
Are there any particular temperature thresholds you've experienced where the fish start. to eat more? To me this seems like it would be lake dependent - lakes with ciscos for example, may have a bite when the ciscos start staging. Whitefish would be at a different temp. Any magic temps anyone has experienced? The only thing I've noticed is when the water is under 40, it seems to get much much harder. |
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Posts: 1341
| We had a post of fishing on the bottom, when the water is 40 degrees fish on the bottom and crawl your lure and better yet live bait. |
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Posts: 351
Location: Vilas County, WI | I agree with MartinTD above. With my hectic schedule and other responsibilities, I gotta fish when I can. Like this weekend for example... here in Vilas County, we've had high temps in the 30s all week with off and on snow. Now this weekend, when I can actually fish, we have a massive warmup coming with sunny days, south wind, and temps in the 60's. Most lakes turned over during this cold snap. I planned on throwing rubber on breaks and dragging meat this weekend. Fingers crossed...
Note: if I could choose my weather this weekend I would choose an air temp in the 40's, N/W breeze, clouds, and dropping pressure.
Edited by TheShow 10/19/2022 9:40 AM
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