October 28, 2025

In preparation for the winter months, fish get aggressive and ready to feed, making fall fishing an exciting time for anglers. With a slew of baits to choose from, strategies to implement and water to chart, it’s important to home in on your game plan as the leaves begin to turn.

Garmin pro and 2022 Bassmaster Classic champion Jason Christie gives his tips and tricks to a successful fishing trip once the temperature begins to drop.

What do you like about fishing in the fall? Are there any specific benefits to it?

JC: The first thing that gets me excited about fall fishing is that a lot of people are deer hunting. In the spring and summer, there are a ton of boats and fishing pressure. In the fall, it’s just not like that.

Fish feed heavily in the fall — and primarily on shad. In the summertime, it can be tougher because you’re having to trick them. In the fall, you can go back to power fishing stuff: buzzbaits, spinnerbaits, square bill and things like that.

The trick for me is to move, cover a lot of water and look for bait. Once you find the fish, they’ll be ganged up in an area.

Do any of your tactics or strategies change when the colder weather hits?

JC: Spring revolves around the spawn, summer usually revolves around structure, and fall revolves around one thing and one thing only, and that’s bait.

Typically, later in the day when the sun warms the top of the water, the bait will come to the surface, and you can see it. But if you can’t, you can use LiveScope™ to locate some.

If I run into a creek, put the trolling motor down and in two or three minutes I haven’t seen bait, then I’m out and moving onto the next one. Whenever you get in an area that has some bait, there are going to be some fish around somewhere. Maybe not hundreds of fish, but there will be some.

Are there any indicators that you’re looking for when it comes to finding a spot on the map where fish might be?

JC: The thing that I do in the fall is focus on the creek arms.

I’ll run all the way to the very back and then if I don’t see bait, I’ll start working my way out. I’m going to look for flats close to the river channel or the creek channel, and I’m going to start working my out until I locate one of those. You can look at your map and see flats. They really, really like those in the fall.

A good thing to remember is that wind will drive bait. If wind blew out of the south the day before, I want to focus on some of the northern creeks because I know that wind pushed a lot of bait in those creeks.

Are there specific fish species that are better to target in the colder months? What can you expect to catch?

JC: I love crappie fishing in the wintertime. They school up, they get predictable, and they get easy to catch.

I learn about LiveScope and other species when crappie fishing. When you go out and target crappie, you learn what they look like and how they act. It helps me when I’m bass fishing not to mistake a single crappie or school of crappie for bass.

What are your go-to baits this time of year? Are there particular fishing techniques that you see success with?

JC: For the Midwest region, what you’re going to see in the fall are the days getting shorter and the water temperature falling. That’s when fish get aggressive.

I love just tying on a buzzbait and covering a lot of water. I’m probably not going to catch as many on a buzzbait as I would on a square bill crankbait, but I just love covering water. If I want to catch a lot of fish — some crappie or maybe some walleye — I’m going to go out in the creek channels, put a jighead minnow on, use LiveScope and catch a lot of fish that are under bait balls.

When the water temperature ranges from 50 to 60 degrees Fahrenheit, that’s spinnerbait time — especially if you have some color in the water.

Do you use ClearVü™/ SideVü™? How do you use LiveScope?

JC: The search process starts out broad with ClearVü and SideVü and then gets precise whenever you start looking at LiveScope.

My eyes are on ClearVü 24/7 when I’m fishing. You’re looking for bait, you want to see what the consistent depth of the bait is. If the bait you can see on ClearVü is 20’ deep, then more than likely that’s where a lot of the fish are going to be.

With SideVü, you are looking for bait away from the boat. You’re looking for creek channel bends and structure with bait.

I can cover a lot of water quickly on my big motor to look at those. Then, when I put my trolling motor down, I’m using LiveScope to pick a single shad out of or under a bait ball.

Are there any other tips and tricks that may help someone be more successful as the temperature drops?

JC: If you have LiveScope, ClearVü or SideVü and you’re not sure how to use it, find someone who does because it…