Fall fishing can be finicky when the conditions are changing almost daily here in the Central Texas region. During the months of November and December, the temperatures can swing from the low 20s one day to the high 70s the next. These massive temperature swings will affect the movement and feeding behavior of bass, so the techniques used on one day to load the boat won’t necessarily work the next day, if the conditions are substantially different. This can be frustrating for anglers because bass love consistency. When the weather is consistent, the bass will hit the same bait in the same place day after day, but when the conditions change, the bass will barely move. Here are some pointers and patterns that can help anglers have a successful day on the water when the conditions are constantly changing during the fall months. I’ve been on the water probably a dozen times over the past two weeks and had the opportunity to fish all stages of the cold fronts. Anglers can pretty much break these weather systems into two stages, each having their own conditions: pre-frontal and post-frontal. I typically won’t fish as the cold front is moving through because the winds on the lake can gust up to and exceeding 40 mph. Once the winds get above 20 mph the conditions can be hazardous on the Central Texas lakes. Before the cold front moves into the area, the winds are usually nice, the clouds are low and rolling in. You won’t really notice a big change in the temperature, and we haven’t had any heavy rains recently. The water’s surface temperature has been in the low to mid 60s and I can see a ton of bait on the banks. It’s time to fish fast and go for a reaction strike! I’ve been sticking to the main lake lately for a few reasons. Whenever the weather changes the bass will move vertically up and down the water column. When the clouds are out, I fish fast and shallow. The bass have been hiding behind all the rocks, tree stumps and laydowns. I’m just pitching a small crankbait on spinning gear to each piece of structure, and some casts may be as close as 10 feet away. I know the bass can see me and still they crush the crankbait as it bounces off the laydown or tree stump. I’ll make longer casts along the rocky bank, keeping the boat almost on the bluff wall, and the crankbait bounces and deflects off the rocks. We’ve caught as many as 15 bass on a single stretch covering about 100 yards! After the cold front, the high-pressure system takes over. The water is a little cooler in the morning, the skies are clear and bluebird. The bass are in the same area but running the banks and fishing fast usually won’t load the boat like the day before. I find the fish in these areas have moved vertically in the water column and are now a little deeper. Using a slower presentation with a shaky head, drop shot, or Texas rig in craw colors has been working great! The high-pressure system pushes the bass deeper into the 10 to 25-foot range so casting to the bluff wall and dragging the bait slowly to the depths seems to trigger a good strike. As the bait is slowly falling down the bluff, bouncing off the various rocks and brush piles, the bass just inhale it. When your line goes slack or you feel a tick, set the hook! When you find a good population of fall bass and fish the conditions, you should be able to have a successful day on the water. On deep water impoundments like Lake Travis, the bass will move up and down the water column when the fronts and pressure system move in to the area.

Fall fishing on Lake Travis continues to be outstanding! Many of the surrounding area guides have moved their trips from other lakes that haven’t been fishing very well over to Travis. This makes for a crowded weekend full of bass boat running from spot to spot. Luckily, you can pretty much fish your strengths and catch quality bass nearly everywhere on the lake. For my midday trips, we’ve continued fishing the same patterns that have been successful for the past two months. You can see my previous reports for a deeper dive into the last summer and early fall fishing patterns on Lake Travis. The late day bite is consistently bringing in the numbers for my clients. 40 bass in a four-hour trip is common. For my morning trips this week, my normal go-to spots had boats on them already. I didn’t want to reveal the offshore brush piles that nearly all the boats overlook as they fish the banks. So, we left and fish some “special” spots that exist in most of the main lake marinas. We fished fast using a 3/8 oz underspin with a 3.5-inch Keitech swimbait trailer. It didn’t take long so find a hungry bass! I went out scouting around more marinas Saturday morning using the same underspin with a swimbait trailing. I found a few more “special” spots in some main lake marinas. After a few casts along the marina’s attenuators, a fish smashed it. It surged away from the marina, and I could feel it rolling over and over. Ugh. A 3-pound channel cat had inhaled the underspin. I was able to get the lure back and the cat was on its merry way. I hit six marinas in three hours and was able to pull multiple keepers out of most of the marinas using the underspin. The key was letting is get about 4 to 6 feet deep. I could see on the PanOptix that the bass were handing down in the shadows at the corners and along the attenuators. Fall fishing can be exciting for anglers of all experience levels. It’s a great time to try new things and explore new areas of this 65-mile-long Central Texas gem. Fish your strengths and you’ll catch fish!

The fall feeding frenzy has finally arrived in Central Texas! A series of recent cold fronts this month has dropped the waters of Lake Travis down into the mid-70s. Combined with the super clear water, the bass are moving a long way to attack fast moving baits like spinnerbaits, flukes, and whopper ploppers. With the cold fronts and low-pressure systems, the bass are spread out from the main lake to about half way up the major creek arms. The lake is full of hungry 2-pound bass which put up a good fight on the medium spinning gear most of my clients use. Targeting the secondary points up the main creeks like Sandy, Hurst and Bee Creek have been good for several keepers all week long. Where the wind is blowing in the area, throwing a spinnerbait would get the better strikes. We are still able to catch some bigger fish in the 2 to 3 pounds range throwing a ¼ oz shaky head with a trick worm against the rock walls and ledges. When the sun was out, the bass were predictably in the shadows. Some stretches in Sandy Creek alone have yielded 7 or 8 bass with a few keepers in the mix all caught on drop shots. Most of the guided fishing trips this last week have yielded 15 to 20 bass for the beginner anglers and pushing 30 bass for the more experienced anglers. Now is a perfect time to take out the kids or beginners and just have a great day on the water. One of my clients was able to take is son out the next day and caught nearly 30 bass using the tips and techniques we covered in his trip. Let Captain Randal with Central Texas Fishing Guide help guide you to success in fishing! Tight Lines.

It’s starting to feel like fall! Sort of…. We finally had a few small cooling fronts move through the Central Texas region in early October. This allowed the water temperatures to drop into the low 80, which triggered the shad migration in parts of Lake Travis. Over the past several weeks, we’ve continued to catch a good number of bass at the entrance to major creeks and some offshore structures. However, in recent days we had some very nice cooler weather move in briefly where the daily high was in the 70s and 80s! Combined with a low-pressure system and some good wind, the bait along with the bass moved about half way up the major creek arms of Cypress Creek and Sandy Creek on Lake Travis. The key to a successful trip was targeting shallow points where you could see brush sticking out of the water or shad being chased by bass. I used a variety of baits depending on the wind and depth I was fishing. On these days, 5 or 6 feet was going to be deep fishing. Most of the bass fell for a ¼ oz sexy shad spinnerbait, a ¼ oz Texas-rigged tube in bluegill, or a 1/8 oz belly-weighted white fluke. All three baits could be worked from a few inches to a few feet of depth without getting hung up on the brush or rocks. You can’t be too shallow this time of year. At times, I had the boat sitting in 3 feet of water and was casting a spinnerbait or fluke right at the bank into inches or water. When I came to a ditch, I would switch to a ¼ oz shaky head with a speed craw to go after the bass hanging out a little deeper. This made for some great, fast-action fishing for about two days until the region was once again consumed by another high-pressure system and rising temperatures. Don’t overlook main lake pockets this time of year. Not all bass are going to migrate to the major creeks. A large portion of bass on Central Texas lakes are resident bass. They will live out their lives in a very small area of the lake. The biggest bass of the week was a 3.85# caught on a very shallow, wind blown rock pile next to a catwalk after dark! I threw the ned rig a little too far and it got hung on the rocks. When I popped the lure free from the rocks the rod immediately loaded up with a bass. After several spectacular jumps I was able to get it into the net. I’ve caught some big bass on net rigs up to 6 pounds. Be sure to use the heavy wire rigs if you’re going after bigger bass. A three pounder can straighten the hook on the light wire ned rig hooks. We are expecting another cool front this weekend. Keep an eye on your electronics and look for the bait balls. They will continue to move further and further up the major creeks. As the waters continue to cool, keep that bait moving! You’ll find your trips will be successful! Tight Lines.

For the past month, I’ve been rotating my clients through several offshore spots where the bass have been feeding and hanging out since mid-summer. We are still throwing two or three of my “go-to” baits on Lake Travis: dropshot with a robo-worm, ¼ oz. shaky head with a zoom speed craw, and ¾ oz. structure jig with a big bug bait! I’ve had to double up the weights on the dropshot to get the bait down in the 30+ foot range to trigger good bites. The extra weight helps to make longer casts and the bait sinks like a rock. The quality bass have mostly been on the very edge and sometimes suspended just below the edge of major offshore, ledges, ridges and walls. In order to trigger more aggressive strikes, drag the bait until you feel it fall off the ledge, then quickly let out more line so the bait continues to fall through the suspended bass! Texas anglers look forward to the first cooling fronts as the days of summer begin to shorten. These fronts along with the longer, coolers nights, start to drop the waters from the high 80s down to the low to mid 80s. A change in water temp as little as 5 degrees can trigger the bait to start moving towards the mouth of the creeks and away from the offshore structures. This past week, I started to explore some of the channel swings that lead to the major creeks around the lake. Mostly using the dropshot and shaky head, I had my clients throw as close to the bank as possible. The bait is starting to really stack up in the first few feet of the water column. Within a 50 yard stretch we probably boated 10 bass, with most being keepers! Some of the bigger bass were throwing up tiny shad, which is a good sign for the fall feeding frenzy. Small swimbaits, squarebills and spinnerbaits should start catching good numbers of bass in the next few weeks. Today’s trip began with some welcome cooler weather, along with some rain. We were delayed for about 30 minutes, but I knew exactly where I wanted to start: the first major channel swing just off the main lake. There was a high school tournament going on, so we had to start in the middle of the area, instead of on the point that I preferred. As usual, I started with a demo cast to show my clients the mechanics of using a spinning rod and a dropshot rig. The rod quickly loaded up! It was a 2.85# largemouth bass which I had to lip because the net was still stowed, and I didn’t want to boat flip it with such a small hook. We proceeded to catch some nice largemouth and several fat Guadalupe bass in that very small area throwing both dropshots and ned rigs. The main channel swing going into Sandy Creek was our next spot, which was nearly identical to the first. The position to the wind was identical, but the water is about half as deep. We proceeded to boat a few short bass, another largemouth keeper, and many more Guadalupe bass. The difference from last week to this week was clear. The bait and bass are starting to slowly migrate through the creek channels on the way to their fall feeding grounds. You can still find quality bass offshore, but be sure to spend some time fishing from the offshore hangouts to the secondary points in the major creek arms. Knowledge of fishing patterns, as well as what’s under the water, are key to catching bass this time of the year. Let Captain Randal with Central Texas Fishing Guide help guide you to success in fishing! Tight Lines.

As the heat of summer takes hold here in Central Texas, the water temperature has stabilized near the upper 80s on Lake Travis. In the past few weeks, the largemouth bass have settled down and can be found in their deep-water summertime hangouts. This time of year, it really pays off to have good quality electronics like Garmin PanOptix on the boat, as well as an understanding of seasonal fishing patterns. Bass tend to be more lethargic in the hot summer waters and won’t necessarily go chasing down their food. We have caught some schooling bass recently, but the more predictable bite has been on deeper offshore structures. This week I’ve had the opportunity to guide for a nice variety of clients who have a wide range of skill levels: from seasoned saltwater anglers to youth anglers to everything in between. I rarely have the chance to get my line wet while I’m guiding so it’s a treat for me when the anglers have some skills. In between netting my clients’ catches I can try a few different baits, which is then more knowledge I can share with my clients. Our first stop on Friday was a place I checkout out the night before the trip, and it was loaded with bass. An underwater point in the 25 to 35 feet deep range was holding large numbers of bait and bass, but these bass were slow and not in the feeding mood so a slow presentation along the bottom was critical. I had my clients slow down their retrieve by doing very long and slow sweeps with the rod, then slowly reeling up the slack. They were a bit too quick on the hook set so I had them wait until the rod loaded up, and that did the trick! In the four-hour evening trip, they were about to boat almost 20 bass of up to 3 pounds using a variety of baits. However, the go-to baits were bottom baits that were retrieved very slowly so dragging a Texas-rigged trick worm, shaky head with an imitation craw, or a drop shot were the big producers. Saturday morning’s trip was a close repeat of the previous two days. I had a few youths on board, so I was mostly helping them cast, netting their catches, and giving them a few instructions followed by supporting congratulations as they set the hook! We stuck with drop shot rigs, since I believe they are the easiest for younger anglers to set the hook. They did lose a few fish, but everyone managed multiple catches of both largemouth and Guadalupe bass. Towards the end of the trip we tried a point that was 20 feet on top and had a sheer drop down to 60 feet on the windy side. I could see the bass stacked up on top with my Garmin PanOptix. I positioned the boat in about 60 feet while both boys made casts across the top of the point. That’s when I saw one of the rods bend so hard the tip went into the water. I don’t think he every had a chance to set the hook, but it looked big. We were excited when the youngster threw back in the same spot and hooked up a 3.8# largemouth bass. It was probably the same bass that came back for a second attempt! There are many factors that can make fishing during the dog days of summer a success. Knowledge of fishing patterns, as well as what’s under the water, are key to catching bass when the water temp is in the upper-80s. Let Captain Randal with Central Texas Fishing Guide help guide you to success in fishing! Tight Lines.