By Scott Norton
The dog days of summer has come to an end and so the next season has come upon us. A new transition will start to happen as soon as the cool night temperatures start to show. Bass will abandon their summer ambush spots to look for shad to feed on. This period will start the process to prepare bass for those cold winter months. They will pack on weight as their appetites become a flame. A steady downward trend of cooler water temperatures will drive this instinct as nature does to all its living creatures.
What bass will start to do is school up and corral shad so that feeding is efficient. You will need a plan that will imitate the forage and moving patterns of what they are feeding on. Topwater baits of all kind will still dominate at this time. Sub surface baits like spinner baits, under spins, a-rigs, swim jigs, and swim baits will be the top baits in this category. You will find other baits not in this list that bass will take interesting as well. You want to pick baits that move and baits that have blades so that your bait will stand out among all the shad. Cover lots of water until a pattern is established and find key features that bass are using to push these fish in. Use a fast cadence to fire up those schools of bass then move on to the next batch. This is what anglers call run and gun.
You will still have hot days during this time period so expect skiers and wake boats to be in those areas. You can use this to your advantage because the waters will get stirred up and create an oxygen rich area for fish. Those who fight the swells will not have much competition. Look for waterfalls and currents in the lake for this oxygenated environment and you will find the fish. If you are in a kayak go to a lake with horsepower restrictions and look for the same thing just without the boaters and wakes.
Big bass will be deeper under the schools picking off the injured shad to save energy. Your smaller bass will be doing the most chasing so now you know which group to target. The best times to go will be during the work week with smaller numbers of people at the lake. This season will be fun so have a blast and introduce new people at this time for some of the best memories.
Scott Norton is a Western North Carolina native. Born in Asheville, N.C., he is a long-time hunter, angler and weekend warrior.