Pro Fishing Tip
How To Fish The 'Fall Follow'

Photo: BassFan Jared Linter loves fall – the bass once again are aggressive and on the move.

What triggers the change? The bait spawn.

When temperatures turn cool, shad begin to move from deeper main-lake haunts into the shallows to spawn. In reservoirs, they'll follow the creek channels back into the creeks. In lakes, the shad will seek shallow areas or dead-end sloughs.

The bass, logically, are never far behind. Your job is to locate them.

Look for Structure

Bassmaster Elite Series pro and former BassFan Rookie of the Year Jared Lintner knows all about the fall follow. The California pro has spent the last few weeks fishing Clear Lake and his home water – Lake Lopez. The fish in both waterbodies are in the fall transition, he said, and he's been having a blast working a hurt-fest.

"I was just at Clear Lake last week, and I also fished with some folks from Tackle Warehouse at Lake Lopez and the fish were starting the transition," he said. "The transition in California isn't as obvious as it is back east, where you have massive schools of bass running the creek-channel bends. But it's still there."

The key to the bite, according to Lintner, is that bass will follow the creek channels, just like the shad, but the bass will set up and position on structure. At Lopez, he whacked them all day long on a bunch of laydowns along a creek channel that he discovered years ago during a drought. At Clear Lake, he caught his fish off deeper docks, rock walls and rockpiles with big chunk rock, because the fish hadn't yet reached the backs of dead-end sloughs.

Search, Then Destroy

When looking for bass during the fall transition, Lintner starts with a fast-moving bait to scour along the creek-channels and other likely travel routes. He likes a crankbait, 1-ounce spinnerbait or 1-ounce swimbait. He'll work the spinnerbait or swimbait "just like a jig" in order to generate a reaction strike.

Once he hooks up, he slows right down and starts pitching a large-profile worm or heavy jig.

"A big 10" Berkley Power Worm is my go-to bait," he said. "The fish are feeding up heavily, so you can't be afraid to go to bigger baits. Of course I like to throw a 3/4- or 1-ounce jig too, tipped with a Berkley Chigger craw. I like the bigger jig, again, because the fish are very active.

"The water temps are dropping and the bass know winter's coming, so they try to feed up as fast as they can. The baitfish and crawfish and everything else are still real active too. So you catch a lot of fish, and a lot of big fish, with a bigger bait."

His favorite jig/trailer color for the fall is a black/blue jig with a green-pumpkin Chigger craw. If the water's stained, he dips the tails in orange or chartreuse dye. "It looks kind of funky, but it works," he said.

He Texas-rigs the worms with a 1/4- or 3/8-ounce weight for fishing depths from 8 to 15 feet. Deeper than that he goes to 1/2- or even 5/8-ounce. "This time of year, it's not about finesse," he noted.

His color choice for worms is pretty simple and he likes to throw four different patters: junebug, green-pumpkin, watermelon/candy and plum. Junebug almost always gets the nod at Clear Lake.