Four Bass Baits For September Georgia Bass
September can be the cruelest month for Southern bass fishermen. Some mornings have a slight coolness to the air, something missing since last April. That gives promise to active bass feeding shallow and good fall fishing, but it is only a promise.
The reality is the water in our lakes is hot, and has been hot for months. The oxygen content is about as low as it gets all year. Bass are hard to catch since most are still holding in deep water and they have been looking at so many lures all summer long that they know the catalog numbers of them. At least they have gotten used to the constant buzzing of pleasure boats and skidoos.
Even if it is tough fishing, bass can be caught right now. A variety of baits will help you catch September bass from the top to the deepest holes where they hang out. Tie on these four baits, follow the tactics using them and you might start to like September fishing a little better.
Zara Spook
No kind of strike in bass fishing is more exciting than seeing a slashing topwater hit. Many of us put away topwater baits when the water got hot, bringing them out for a few minutes early in the morning but mostly leaving them in the tackle box. That can be a mistake.
Years ago on a miserably hot Labor Day weekend trip I had fished all day on Saturday without a keeper bass. Early Sunday morning I headed to a bridge to fish the riprap before the sun came up. Repeating the day before, I could not draw a strike on any bait I tried for several hours.
Remembering a bait I had bought but not tried, I dug out a big Zara Spook and tied it on. Since everything I heard said this bait took some learning to work right, this seemed like a good time to play around with it and try to learn to “walk the dog” with it.
After a long cast parallel to the riprap I started twitching the rod tip and found out it was not hard to make it walk. The lure had gone about 25 feet when a four pound largemouth smashed it. I could not believe it, first cast with a Spook and a good keeper bass, the first of the trip.
It would be nice to say I loaded the boat all day on that trip, but it didn’t work out that way. I did catch another three pound bass and missed two more that looked like good fish, but that was far better than any other bait I used that trip.
A Spook is a great bait for drawing up individual fish and making them hit. It moves slowly but makes a lot of commotion in the water. That makes big bass think it is an easy meal, or makes them come to the action to take an easy meal away from a smaller brethren. It is a great bait for schooling fish, too.
Throw a spook on a fairly heavy rod with a light tip. You need the backbone to control big bass but the light tip helps work the bait. I prefer a short 5.5 foot rod but many fishermen use longer rods. Heavy line on a baitcasting reel also helps so spool up with 15 pound test or higher.
Make long casts and let the bait settle. With some slack in the line, jerk the rod tip and then move it back toward the bait, giving it some slack. The bait with jump to one side then turn back. After a little practice you can make the bait jump from side to side without moving forward much, called “walking the dog.”
Any vertical structure is a good place to throw a Spook this month. Bridge riprap and pilings, docks, standing timber and bluff walls all offer bass a place to hold and move up to the surface to feed. Work the Spook parallel to the cover and try different speeds, from a very slow enticing walk to a fast action that will draw a reaction strike.
Spooks will also draw bass up from surprisingly deep cover, especially in clear water. If blueback herring or other baitfish that stay near the surface on bright days are present, it is even better. Cast across humps, deep timber and underwater ridges to pull bass from the depths to hit your bait. Bass will come from 30 feet deep at times to smash a Spook on top.
Thermoclines often form on our southern lakes this time of year and the bass suspend just above it, holding in the coolest water with enough oxygen to support them. These bass are often inactive but a Spook worked over them can interest them. If you see a lot of fish on your depthfinder suspended out over deep water, walk the dog right on top of them.
Always keep a Spook ready for schooling fish, too. When you see fish feeding on top cast to them, even if it is an individual fish. You can cast a Spook a long way so you don’t have to get too close to the feeding fish, and the action looks just like a fish hitting bait on the surface.
Spooks will catch bass all day long, even on the brightest, hottest September days. It is even better early and late in the day when bass are more active, and they will smash it at night, too.
Big Crankbaits
Bass eat crankbaits and for several years baits that will reach the fish holding in deep water have been available. With the right tackle you can dredge the deep holding spots all day without wearing yourself out too much, too.
Roger McKee loves big crankbaits in September. He has been successful in many tournaments on Southern lakes and says he if he had to choose one bait to use in September it would be a crankbait. Several baits will hit the deep cover and structure he fishing this month and make the bass try to eat them.
One of Rogers favorite crankbaits is no longer made but he finds them for sale on E-Bay at times. The Rapala Down Deep crankbait in both size five and seven work well for him. He also uses the Poe’s LR 4500, Norman DD22-N, Fat Free Shad and other baits that will dig deep. Natural shad colored baits are his favorites and some have a slash of red or orange on them to add to the attraction. He hand paints some of his baits to customize them.
A Falcon composite glass and graphite rod is Roger’s choice and he now prefers it over the older glass rods he used for cranking. Team it up with a Lews or Ambassadeur 3.8 ratio reel that allows you to dredge the depths without wearing out your hands and you have the right equipment. Spool the reel with PLine CX 10 or 12 pound test line and you can get the bait down deep.
Start at 14 feet and then go deeper for September bass, Roger advises. He looks for brush, stumps, rocks and other cover on deep structure like humps, roadbeds and drops. And if the crankbait is not bouncing off something, Roger feels like he is wasting a cast. Bump the cover to make the bass bite.
Baitfish on the cover and structure is a key clue to the bass being nearby, too. Roger says he does not fish a place if there is no baitfish around it. He sometimes sees bass on his depthfinder, holding under bait, but the bass may be so tight to cover they don’t show up. If the baitfish are there the bass are probably there, too.
Current definitely helps. Roger says current moving across cover and structure improves it by 75 percent. He can draw reaction strikes from bass when no current is moving but they are more likely to be active and feeding if the current is moving.
Locate cover at least 14 feet deep on structure with baitfish present and mark it with a buoy. Back off and make long casts past the cover, reeling your crankbait down until it hits something. Bounce it off the bottom or brush and be ready for a bite.
Roger advises you to carry a good plug knocker when fishing like this or it gets too expensive. He likes the Hound Dog retriever, a lead cylinder with a wire arm that goes over your fishing line. When lowered down your fishing line with its heavier line attached, it will bump your plug loose or hang it and you can pull it loose. If you aren’t getting hung up you aren’t fishing crankbaits right.
Big Worm
If the bass are holding too deep to reach with a crankbait or if they are not active, a big plastic worm will often get them to bite. Rig them either Texas style with the sinker against the head of the worm or Carolina style with the worm trailing the weight on a leader and you can hit the deepest cover and work it slowly.
If there is no current the bass may be very inactive and sometimes they bury down in the brush and won’t come out for a moving bait. Drag a worm into their home and let it sit and you may get them to eat it. And the bigger baits seem to make them more likely to hit, as well as drawing strikes from bigger bass.
The Zoom Old Monster is a 10.5 inch worm made in many different colors and works this time of year. Strike King makes the 11 inch Sneaky Snake and the 10 inch Baby Huey Worm. You can get 10 inch long Berkley Power Worms. Most companies make big worms for this kind of fishing.
Worm colors are probably more important to the fisherman than the bass, especially when fishing deep water. Dark colors like Junebug, green pumpkin, redbug and black are always good. Try different colors until you find one you like and the bass will most likely like it, too.
Rig up with 15 pound test line or heavier and use a stout rod to pull big bass away from cover. To get deep use up to a half ounce sinker on the Texas rig and a one ounce lead on the Carolina rig. If the bass are real spooky you can use a lighter leader on the Carolina rig, but don’t go so light that you break off on a big fish.
You need a big hook for these big worms. A 4/0 to 6/0 wide gap hook gives you the space in the bend for the worm to bunch up on the strike but still get some steel in the mouth of the bass. Make sure the hooks are extremely sharp, too.
Find deep cover and get down current of it if there is current. If there is no current sit on the shallow side and bring your bait up from the deeper side of the cover. Drag it along until you hit the cover the fish are in then shake your worm and make it stay in one place with some movement.
Look for cover on deep structure like roadbeds, creek channels, humps and ridges. Many fishermen build brush piles in deep water and many lakes have natural cover, so spend some time riding likely structure with your depthfinder. And keep a marker buoy handy to help you hit cover you find when you back off to cast to it.
Tubes
Small finesse baits like tubes can be a lot of fun this time of year and can get you bites when everything else fails. You will get more bites on them and catch more bass but they are likely to be smaller so you can use light equipment and have more fun fighting them.
For this kind of fishing you need a light action spinning rod and reel loaded with six to eight pound test line. A clear or fluorocarbon line works best. Rig a three or four inch tube on a one-sixteenths ounce jig head so it will sink slowly and use a light wire hook.
Bass often hold shallow this time of year if they can find some shade. This is especially true if the lake you fish had a shallow thermocline with poor oxygen content in the deeper water. Look for shade under docks, bridges and when trees and brush overhang steep banks.
A tube is easy to skip with the light jig head and light line on a spinning reel. Skip it far back under docks and overhanging limbs and let is sink slowly. You have to be careful if there is brush on the bottom because the exposed hook will hang up easily, so watch your line and try to retrieve your tube before it gets to the brush.
If you are having problems hanging up a lot, try Texas rigging the tube. You can use a small #1 or 1/0 hook and keep it inside the tube. Peg a one-sixteenths bullet weight to the head of the tube to make it skip better.
After the tube falls twitch it back. It will jump and dart like a confused, hurt baitfish. You can move it slowly and keep it in the shade for a long time when using a light jig head, so take advantage of all the shade you can.
Bridge pilings are especially good places to find bass right now. They will hang around the piling in the shade watching for shad and other baitfish feeding on the algae growing on the pilings. If you watch you will see shad nose up to the piling and bump it as they feed.
You can make your tube do the same thing. A tube on a light jig head will spiral down as it falls. Cast it right beside the piling and it will bump the piling then fall away, then bump it again as it spirals down, looking just like a feeding shad.
Since you are fishing fairly shallow lighter colors are usually best for tubes. Try watermelon, smoke and even clear to attract the bass. For some reason chartreuse also works good, even in very clear water.
If spotted bass are in the lake you are fishing this tactic is even better. They hang around vertical cover like pilings and are often more aggressive than largemouth. And they tend to like bright colors. A two pound spot will give you a fantastic fight on a light action outfit.
Don’t let the hot days of September get you down. Tie on these four baits, head to your favorite lake and find the bass. You can catch them from top to bottom with the right baits and these four give you the option to fish wherever you locate the bass.