We've all heard someone say this before... "Bass move shallow in the fall".
Have you ever stopped and asked the question "Why do bass move shallow in the fall"?
As it turns out, this question is answered by having a better understanding of one of the main food sources for bass all across the country... baitfish.
The migration patterns of baitfish (threadfin shad, blueback herring, etc.) ultimately dictates the movement of bass.
Understanding the migration patterns of baitfish, especially in the fall season, can be your ticket to a really productive day on the water.
Fish Need Oxygen Too
Just how all of us require oxygen to survive, the same is true for fish.
Instead of having a set of lungs, fish use their gills which contain thousands of tiny blood vessels to extract oxygen from the water for survival.
It's a strange comparison since we get our oxygen from the surrounding atmosphere and fish get theirs from water but the end goal of obtaining oxygen is the same.
This is the reason why a fish will die when placed in a livewell for long periods of time without any means of aeration.
They simply run out of oxygen.
Why are we telling you this..?
A large part of seasonal baitfish migrations is centered around this very topic... oxygen.
Understanding Dissolved Oxygen
The fancy scientific term for oxygen in water is something called Dissolved Oxygen.
Oxygen makes it's way into water by two ways:
It is absorbed directly from the atmosphere
It is released by aquatic vegetation as part of photosynthesis
Both of the above listed points help increase the dissolved oxygen levels for a body of water.
A large majority of dissolved oxygen in water is absorbed at the surface from the atmosphere.
This alone helps support the argument of why baitfish and bass spend the majority of their lives in 10 or less feet of water.
It's worth noting that things such as wind and current help in raising dissolved oxygen levels thanks to both aiding in the creation of turbulence.
Turbulence is kind of like natures means of aeration.
This is the reason why wind and current are generally considered a good thing when fishing.
Both wind and current produce turbulence, creating oxygen-enriched water and thus attracting fish.
As noted, there are multiple factors that help with increasing dissolved oxygen levels in a fishery but know that cooler water holds more dissolved oxygen and warmer water holds less dissolved oxygen.
Since warmer water holds less dissolved oxygen and cooler water holds more dissolved oxygen this creates a relationship between fishery water temperatures and the amount of dissolved oxygen in particular regions of the fishery.
Baitfish Characteristics
Two important points before moving forward:
The majority of freshwater, schooling baitfish naturally prefer to be in open-water
Baitfish live the majority of their lives between the surface and the thermocline.
This means two things; baitfish prefer open water and they typically do not go any deeper than 25 feet.
In support of the first point, this helps explain why bass and baitfish can be found on main lake structures during the summer months.
Baitfish have the tendency to school up in open-water which causes bass to become concentrated in these open-water, main lake regions of a fishery.
The second point is what drives bait shallow in the fall.
In the late summer months when its scorching hot outside and the water temperature begins rising above 80° the dissolved oxygen levels slowly begin to fall.
This creates a problem for schooling baitfish that have spent most of the summer out on the main lake.
Baitfish in general will not dive to deeper, cooler water when the hot summer weather raises water temperatures and lowers dissolved oxygen levels on the main lake.
Instead baitfish rely on the changing of seasons that make up the fall transition period to migrate to shallower, more oxygen-enriched water that has been cooled down from the span of chilly nighttime temperatures.
Putting It All Together
Take a moment and think about what this means for the life of most baitfish...
For the baitfish that survive the winter - spring rolls around and they lay their eggs and spawn in shallow water.
The shallow water in the spring months begin warming up as summer approaches which begins to lower the dissolved oxygen levels in shallower regions of the lake.
Due to the seasonal change and temperature increase, the baitfish are forced to move out and school up in main lake regions in search of cooler, more oxygen-enriched water.
Once the calendar reaches the month of August, higher temperatures begin to heat up to the lake to the point that even main lake temperatures are surpassing 80°.
Thankfully for the baitfish, the cool evenings of late summer are near approaching which cools down the water temperature throughout shallower regions of a fishery and welcomes higher dissolved oxygen levels.
Because baitfish do not typically dive deeper to find cooler water they are forced to migrate back to the cooler, shallow water regions of the fishery where the dissolved oxygen levels are once again higher.
Do you notice a pattern here?
The seasonal movement of baitfish sounds a lot like the seasonal movements of a bass!
It's the reason so many seasoned anglers, especially in the fall, say "Find the bait, find the fish"!
A large part of these baitfish migration patterns have to do with baitfish ensuring their own survival by always being in oxygen-enriched regions of a fishery.
By means of cause and effect, bass feeding on baitfish will naturally choose to inhabit the regions of the fishery where their food source also resides!
Conclusion
Hopefully by understanding the importance of oxygen-enriched water and its impact on the migration patterns of baitfish, you have a newfound understanding on how these factors also impact the seasonal patterns of bass.
Anglers can learn a lot about bass by simply gaining a better understanding of the food sources of a bass.
Are there other factors? Of course!
Anglers have to deal with weather fronts, rising and falling water levels, what types of cover a fishery offers - and the list goes on and on.
However, by understanding the general migration patterns of baitfish you will have a better understanding of the movement patterns of bass and thus be able to form your own successful fishing patterns regardless of the time of year.
Time to go catch em'!
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