Have fun on the water this fall

BY JEFF GUSTAFSON

The fall season is always kind of depressing for anglers across the Lake of the Woods area because it means that another open water season is coming to an end. Fortunately, the fish in our lakes know that another long winter is coming as well, so they want to eat and stockpile as much energy as they can before freeze. If you like to catch fish, fall is the prime time to be out there for most species of fish. On Lake of the Woods, lake trout are the only species with a closed fishing season (closes after Sept. 30) —all other species in the lake are fair game.

CRAPPIE:

Find them with electronics

While crappie don’t get all that big, maybe up to a couple of pounds, they are a popular species for anglers to target because you can find them in large schools, so there’s lots of action, and they are really good to eat. You can use your electronics to find fish and trick them into biting, which is an aspect of crappie fishing that a lot of anglers enjoy, myself included. It’s fun watching the fish react to your bait and then figuring out how to get them to bite.

When it comes to finding crappies in the fall, they will be in deeper water, 20-40 feet, depending on the depth of the basins where they live. They’ll get out on the deeper mud flats in the bays that they live in, mostly eating invertebrates that rise from the bottom. The reason electronics are so effective for finding crappies is because they are typically found in larger groups that show up pretty good on screen. Rather that pulling into an area that you know has a population of crappies, you’re farther ahead to spend some time idling around to find exactly where they are, then drop your jigs down on top of them. Jigs tipped with small plastics or minnows are tough to beat.

Crappies are fun for kids because they can provide plenty of action.

SMALLMOUTH BASS:

Humps and points

While smallmouths disperse along the shoreline throughout the lake during the summer months, in the fall, they start to congregate on spots where they will spend the winter as a large group. Smallmouths essentially go dormant through the winter months, so they feed heavily during the last couple months of open water to conserve energy to get them through the winter.

The places where they like to group up are points, humps, and even flats in the main lake basins, where they have access to deep water and baitfish like cisco and smelt that they feed on. Throughout the summer, crayfish are the main focus of their diet but that changes in the fall when more of these baitfish show up in the same depth range as bass, typically 15-35 feet.

Knowing that, you should choose slender baitfish imitating baits like a jerkshad style soft plastic on a jig head, swimbaits, spoons and umbrella rigs with a variety of swimbaits attached. In Ontario, we are allowed to use four hooks on one line, so on most umbrella rigs that have five arms, cut the hook off one of the top baits. Smallmouths will also show up on your electronics really well on these spots, so save some time by finding the fish while idling before actually starting to fish.

Umbrella rigs mimic a school of baitfish and smallmouth bass really like them. Photo: Shelby Gustafson.

WALLEYE:

Find some current

From my experiences over the past couple of years, the walleye population on Lake of the Woods continues to be excellent and rivals most of the fly-in waters that I have visited in the past. I think the incredible population of crayfish has changed where a lot of the fish show up in the summer. More walleyes remain in shallow water than in the past to feed on the crayfish. In the fall, much like crappies and smallmouth bass, walleyes migrate towards deeper water where they will feed heavily before the lake freezes.

When it comes to finding good fishing spots in the fall, traditional main lake humps and flats in 25-35 feet of water are good but an often overlooked “sure thing” on Lake of the Woods is fishing some of the neck-down areas with current. The lake has a massive current to it and with the low water this year, the flow is much less than normal but it can actually change daily depending on the wind.

These neck down areas are great in the fall because they attract baitfish like shiners that the walleyes feed on. Keewatin Channel and Tranquil Channel are popular locations but there are countless smaller channels and spots that kick out fish. Focus your efforts in 28-35 feet of water and you will run into plenty of fish. A jig tipped with a soft plastic minnow is all I ever use, but jigs with real minnows always produce.

A jig tipped with a minnow is always a good bet for walleye.

Regardless of which species you pursue in the fall, know that they will be biting somewhere so the key is to keep hunting around until you find fish. Do you need new electronics to catch fish? No, but they help speed up the process of finding fish and then catching them. Spending time using your electronics units and learning what they are telling you is important if you really want to improve the catching on your outings.

Enjoy those last few trips on the lake this fall and happy fishing!

BASSMASTER ELITE SERIES SEASON RECAP

Getting to fish competitively is the dream job for me and there is not a day that goes by that I take it for granted. 2021 was my third season fishing the Bassmaster Elite Series, the highest level in professional bass tournament competition.

Winning a first pro-level (Bassmaster) tournament at the Tennessee River in February 2020, came with a $100,000 prize and a beautiful, big trophy.

Overall, it was a good season. I won my first pro-level tournament back in February at the Tennessee River, with it a $100,000 first place prize and a beautiful, big blue trophy. I finished in the money (the top 50) in six out of nine events on the season. There were a couple of tough tournaments in there, but the good days outnumbered the bad and at the close of the season I ended up 23rd in points in the 100 angler field, qualifying me for the 2022 Bassmaster Classic.

Over the course of the season, we get points based on where we finish in each event and at the end, the top 40 anglers in points qualify for the Classic.

Heading in the final two events out in New York in July, I was just outside the cutline so there was some pressure to finish strong and get back on the right side of the line. Fortunately, both events were on really good smallmouth bass fisheries so they aligned nicely with my skills, and I was able to get the job done. Overall, I’m calling it a great season and now we have a nice break before we start the new season again in February 2022 down in Florida.

I’m happy that I get to spend the rest of the season around home on Lake of the Woods.