60 degree water... shouldn't the bass go shallow?

[mallard]

I heard that once the water hits around 60, the largemouths start to come right near the top again in the weeds. But I'm still pulling them in from 6 ft deep outside of the weedline. Little bass, that is, and pickerel.

Do you guys think I should spend more time shallow looking for a big bass, or might they still be deep with the little ones?

Do they stick in the same area, or try and avoid each other? ???

[Rob Mak]

during the fall bass start to school up . and tend to eat more bait fish.


zooker

[macgyver]

[quote author=Lone_Archer link=board=news;num=1095987046;start=0#0 date=09/23/04 at 20:50:46]I heard that once the water hits around 60, the largemouths start to come right near the top again in the weeds. But I'm still pulling them in from 6 ft deep outside of the weedline. Little bass, that is, and pickerel.

Do you guys think I should spend more time shallow looking for a big bass, or might they still be deep with the little ones?

Do they stick in the same area, or try and avoid each other? ???[/quote]


Well IMO it has more to do with the daily conditions. Yes as zooker said the Bass will be eating a lot of baitfish, and it will be hard to get to some of the bigger ones, due to the fact all of the smaller ones are so active. If the fish a schooling on top, many times the bigger boys will be there, just down deeper under the smaller ones. And yes the shallows can produce very well, but it really depends more on WHERE THE BAITFISH are.

Lizards

[Slayem9]

Zook and LR covered it. Bass are cold blooded, plus sudden surface temperature changes don't affect the lower water column until night and day time temps are consistantly below 60. Bass may ignore a cold front as long as foage activity is high.

Horizontal movements can find bass at the same depth, but away from dying and disappearing weed beds.
Clear water (due to dying algae) occurs more noticeably in shallow water and fewer fish are found there, unless the unususal happens.

A large spoon or spinnerbait will work better in open, deeper water, 3' down, than in 3' of water. Ditto for large cranks that dive to 5', cris-crossing points. I've caught 5 bass off of one point in fall.

The forage is where it's at!

Sam

The link below is to a quiz by Ralph Mann's concerning bass and temperature myths. Good stuff!

[ftp]http://www.wmi.org/bassfish/articles/T181.htm[/ftp]

[mallard]

I just caught a 4.5 pound largemouth today! A new record! Huzzah!

It was moderately shallow/deep near some weeds, so I guess maybe they are just moving a lot. I saw a lot of little splashes in the shallows... baitfish. Yet I kept casting around there and didn't get anything good... just a couple little strikes.

One odd thing is that one end of the pond gets more sunlight than the other. You can tell just by the changing trees and dying lilypads and reeds on the shady side.

Believe it or not, the sunny side did better, and that's where the lunker hit.

[singerloo]

What did u catch him on?
...bout' time for me to get another decent sized fish

hope so...


seaphantom