Transition

The change in behavior of warm water species in mid fall is quite striking, second only to the spring, when every species suddenly goes ape-s/#^* within about one month's time, including cold and salt water. But in the fall, some species turn on, many shut off, and most of them move to new structures.

Around here, the perch I catch most often changes from white perch to yellow perch, big smallmouth bulk up before going deep when the lake turns over, smaller bass go shallow and big ones get lethargic. Pickerel stay their nasty self's.

Today I went to the lake. I used to avoid it when the water dropped bellow 55 degrees. Not doing that any more. I caught some BIG yellow perch at the mouth of a stream.  One small one also. I was targeting brook trout that move up to spawn at these small deltas, of course every year the numbers fluctuate. I didn't see any today. Last year a friend saw a good number in a different tributary, and four years ago Dalton caught a 15 incher on a soft plastic lure. In a different spot on the lake I caught a couple of smallmouth.

This year the draw down was pretty significant. If I really wanted to I could probably circumnavigate the entire lake without getting my feet wet. There were many places where, three months ago, carp were feeding that are now bone dry!

After I had enough of the lake I went to my favorite pond. There I attempted to get some pickerel on Galloup's Barely Legal. Perch kept playing with it so I dropped a smaller Ausable Ugly off the back and was immediately into the yellow perch again, with some bonus black crappie. The shallower end of the pond also provided some small bass to round out the outing.