By Vance McCullough – AC Insider

Fall is falling. Even down here along the Florida/Georgia border leaves are dropping, football season is in full swing, and the ladies obsess over anything ‘pumpkin spice’.

And anglers everywhere cling to myths that may not truly explain – but that help to excuse – the inconsistent catch rates that afflict us in autumn.

Most of us anglers are master excuse-makers on par with the best defense attorneys. We often repeat theories that sound reasonable but that may not actually hold water (yeah, pun intended).

“They migrate to the backs of creeks and shallow flats.” Some do. Many don’t. “The turnover shut things down.”  No, it just moved the bait and bass to areas with better oxygen, including the backs of creeks and other shallow environs, as noted above. Many lakes, especially shallow and/or current laden waters, don’t even experience a turnover because they never stratify to begin with.

Another autumnal scapegoat is the dreaded cold front. Indeed, when temps nosedive and barometric pressure skyrockets, fish can get tight to cover. Year ‘round. Except in early fall. ‘Early’ is relative to latitude. I’m preparing to fish a B.A.S.S. Nation event this weekend in Central Florida. Sure, the daytime high will reach 70, but we’ll be paddling out in 40-something degree predawn darkness to be quickly greeted by high skies, a north wind and slick water. Ingredients for a slow bite. Except when these conditions signal the first good cold snap since last spring. In this case, bass should be chewing. Cold weather stokes their fire when it signals the end of a long, hot summer.

Sure, I’m packing a flipping stick. I plan to check the mat bite, but mostly because there are big bass that never leave the mats, not because this weather will pack more of them beneath. In fact, I expect to find numbers of fish, including big ones, cruising the open lanes and holes in acres of hydrilla. I will meet them with a bladed jig.

Fall fishing is not super complex. Don’t overthink it. Not much changes, especially in the South. Many bass are doing the same things in the same types of places and eating the same bait in the fall that they were eating in summer. There’s always a population of fish that roam and follow bait. There is also a group of territorial homebodies that lie in ambush.

The ambushers are generally resident fish. The other bunch may move, but it’s in response to movements of prey. This will absolutely cause the bass to scatter, making them hard to pin down, making repeated, predictable results difficult to achieve.

The remedy? When in Rome . . . do as the Romans do. And when searching for bass in the fall, do as the bass do – get a move on! The game is to cover water in autumn. Don’t split hairs when it comes to lure selection. Don’t waste time digging through your tackle bag. Pick something that gives you a fair chance at provoking a strike and make as many quality casts as you can in a day’s time.

Is a buzzbait the best lure at any given hour of any given day? Maybe not, but if it will keep you moving, then it beats the tar out of finesse fishing or any other super slow technique that will stop you from covering the amount of water required to find a limit of bass.

You will eventually land on a hungry fish. And another. And another. You may have to piece your limit together in fall as opposed to loading the boat in one productive hole.

Simplify your lure selection and keep moving to find fall bass.