bass talk
 

so lets talk bass fishing. shallow weedy nj lakes and ponds. early fall (right now). as i'm sure we all pretty much know trying to research species/seasonal strategies yields a lot of information that we, in NJ, can't really use as we have a pretty unique fishery in general as far as forage and weeds go.

so anyway I notice a pretty significant decrease in the effectiveness of certain summer patterns as the days get shorter and the nights get cool. Wacky rigged senkos under and near structure will still work but it def starts tailing off.

I'd like to think with fish getting more aggressive (in general...in theory haha) searching lures would be the best bet. I've caught fish on spinner baits, chatter baits, top water buzz lures, swimbaits, etc...but as far as largemouth bass fishing in shallow weed lakes I don't think i've really ever found that go-to strategy for the early fall. at least not to the extent of light jigs in the spring and wacky worms in the summer.

Re: bass talk
 

Put the Bass toys down Chris, you should be stocking up on jigging raps, lead and chicken livers :p.

Re: bass talk
 

Since I only fish form shore/wade, my summer options are limited by weeds The "mats" can extend out 100' or more from shore. Water Lily and Water Shield are the worst as they are quite dense with their leaves overlapping creating zero openings. Good news is that soon they be turning yellow and dying off. Between the time they die off and the first real cold spell(generally late October) can be the best time to target shallow water bass and my personal favorite - pickerel. No mystery for me how to fish - topwater. Most bass and pickerel are slamming schools of baitfish either just above submerged weeds or near structure. Basically I go topwater with buzzbait, surface popper and even a light spoon buzzer(not many types out there but they are effective and cast a mile) in that order. Buzzbait best in choppy water while the other two are best in calm waters. I go gold/black/silver and skip the fancy colors. Summer its early/late; fall its just like spring with mid-afternoon until dusk being best. If its in the 40's early morning, forget it. I don't leave the house until after noon. A cloudy night means less radiation cooling and warm mornings. Those can be the best days.

Re: bass talk
 

besides senko/powerworm (wacky/texas respectively) the only consistent lure for me (lmb) has been a frog but I'm still trying to improve the hookup ratio. added a lake fork trailer hook but the jury's still out on improvement.

Re: bass talk
 

Idk what rod your using but if your timing is good (not setting the hook too fast) most bass worth catching will not let go of the soft frog so you can drop the rod on impact to give them slack and then set the hook. It def takes some practice.

Rob, bass are fish too! Plenty of time for all species! Hahaha

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Some of the lakes I fish don't have great weeds. They're starting to change and float around already

Re: bass talk
 

I'd love to figure this out too. I fish for smallies pretty religiously during summer with soft plastics and topwaters. Last weekend on the Delaware (I.e. 9 days ago) we crushed smallies on those baits after the water temps came up 7 degrees in 4 days. Wanted to use bait with two youngsters on the boat (both of whom got their first bass and many more) but oddly enough medium shiners only caught one fish. By this weekend that just passed water temps had come back down and the same plastic and topwater baits didn't work nearly as well. We still caught fish but they were tentative and not aggressive at all, playing with the plastics instead of engulfing them which resulted in many many missed fish. Only one on topwaters also. And search baits don't seem to be the answer for me at least.

Re: bass talk
 

I caught three nice 18-20" LMB last night in super shallow water using a weightless strike king plastic frog (sort of like the zoom horny toad). I was having most luck on a slow retrieve with frequent pauses and the occasional light twitch. My go-to black/blue wacky rig senkos has also lost all their effectiveness but I am still doing really well with Texas rigged green Pumpkin/black flecks senkos.

I also recently started using one of those lure scents that I bought on a whim at Walmart. It's called Lunker lotion or something absurd like that and is fluorescent green. I caught a nice bass the first cast using the stuff and have been catching way more fish since I started slathering it on all my plastics. At this point I don't care if it really works or the placebo effect makes me fish better because I think it will work - I am catching more fish and therefore most likely am hooked on the smelly green slime for life.

Re: bass talk
 

I went bass fishing twice last week. honestly, things were def slower with the Cooler night temps. No luck on topwater or worms. This time of the year I catch bass on two lures. A big blue or green jig with a crawfish or grub trailer. My next two choices would be a perch or bass colored yozuri rattling vibe rattle trap retrieved slow or jigging. Last would be bouncing a black spinner bait off the bottom. The fish are finicky last week. These in between temps are a killer. I also try to jus tarts the bigger bass who are feeding before winter hits. I hope this helps.

Re: bass talk
 

Caught this fatty on Paulingskill River Sunday on way home from Poconos. Stopped at White Lake since it wasn't far off 80 but shore access there is awful so I decided to try the stream I drove over on my way to the lake. I didn't even know the name of the stream until I looked it up later. The water was clearer than I have ever seen in jersey and the bass were feeding in tight schools. I have seen schooling behavior like this in dinks but never seen a school with 6-8 14-18" bass in it. Ended up just sight fishing a green senko Texas rigged. Even 20 feet downstream with senko at bottom of a 6 ft pool I could still see perfectly the exact moment when a fish gobbled the senko. Then my leader broke and I left the mono in car so tried just tying same senko straight on 30 lb power pro braid. As I suspected the braid completely spooked the same fish that couldn't stay away from my lure when it was on 8 lb mono leader.

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Here's what I get when I targeted big bass last Friday haha

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That a whopper plopper???

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the transition period is tough...the fish have been in a funk the last 2 weeks....all summer i have had good success with t-rigged plastics along the outside weed edge adjacent to rocks...now i can't even get a sniff....i did have some success pond fishing with a small swim bait bouncing it off the bottom last week..

what size plopper did you go with?

Re: bass talk
 

that's the medium sized one. I've never had any success with the smaller ones. the large ones (in various brands same basic lure) have been great for musky and i know guys have had bass hit them but i haven't had anything but musky on large ones. apparently the medium one enticed a smallmouth while i was largemouth fishing...and this lake doesn't really have much smallmouth, only 5-7ft at it's deepest except for 1 or 2 spots.

Re: bass talk
 

i've had minor success with all kinds of search lures like swimbaits, lipless and shallow cranks, spinnerbaits, etc. but nothing that i would call my fall go to lure. this is for shallow lakes. for deeper lakes and reservoirs i go fly jigging all day long!

Re: bass talk
 

any luck on zara puppies or slug-go in 4" arkansas shinner no weight? i have been seeing alot of baitfish activity on the" big pond" in the evening. p.s did somebody steal your reg fishin hat? haven't seen you wearing it, could be a problem.

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haha, no i just went after work and that's all i had in the car. I'll be testing out the large spook today. I'll probably test some kind of soft weedless jerk bait too...though the hard jerk baits have only been getting me pickerel.

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hit it again yesterday. had one lm on a soft jerk bait worked pretty slow then a pickerel took it :mad: after that had a few small fish pop my spook straight out of the water, i'm thinking small pickerel or perch. and my last bass came on a lipless crankbait reeled as fast as i possibly could haha. no multiple bass catches on anyone lure...as usual for this time of the season!

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last thing I caught on a Zoom Horny toad :)

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this incoming front is going to slow them down...good luck at the contest

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yeah that should be fun...someone is going to figure out a bite...hopefully it's me big time cause i'm over 2 lbs back from first place (currently in 2nd) and it's the last event.