First Fall Fishing Trip

Fall is upon us and as I write this, cool air is making me feel like I need to be on the water! Fall fishing is one of my favorite fishing times. In addition to being a whole lot more comfortable than fishing in 95 degree heat, it's a time when the fish are really turning on, and they are actually easier to catch.

Summer heat puts most fish onto a lethargic funk. They just sort of exist through the hot months and feed because they have to. With cooler weather comes cooler water temperatures and those cooler temperatures have fish really feeding up.

The Comfort Zone

Fish are no different than humans in some respects - one of them being comfort. If the environment around them is too hot or too cold, they are going to move and seek their own comfort zone. Find some cooler water and you will likely find some fish.

• Temperature Breaks

  Whether you are fishing offshore or inshore, you need to look for a temperature break. It could be as subtle as a couple of degrees or as much as five or six degrees. But look for that change in the water. In the winter, Gulfstream temperatures remain warm and it's easy to find. In the fall, cooler air chills the shallow water more quickly, and that cooler water will be a magnet to fish who have been existing all summer in their "hotsy" baths!

  Fish the edges of those temperature breaks. Work into warm water and back into cooler water. The fish will be doing the same thing, looking for food - and your bait will be the food they find!

Follow the Bait

Baitfish migrate north and south with the seasons. In the spring, they will be headed north up both coasts and the Gulf of Mexico. In the fall as water temperatures begin cooling in the northern climes, they will begin heading south.

• Mullet

  Perhaps the favorite bait/food fish for all kinds of "catching" fish is the mullet. Silver or black, huge schools of them can be found migrating southward down the beaches of the Atlantic in the fall. Tarpon, striped bass, big bluefish and big red drum follow these schools, gorging themselves along the way. In the fall, almost every inlet will see these mullet being scattered by a tarpon busting the surface, or a redfish along the bottom in shallower water. They are following the bait south, and they are easy targets this time of year.

• Stay with the School

  These schools of mullet will move into an inlet on the incoming tide, and actually be surprisingly far back into the river or sound. On the outgoing tide, they move right back out into the ocean. River mouths and jetties are alive with feeding fish and huge schools of mullet. "You can walk on them," is a term often heard this time of year.

A freelined mullet fished around these schools or around the jetties or piers can be deadly.

Enlarge Your Tackle

Because most of the fish following the mullet schools this time of year are large, you need to make sure your tackle is large enough to handle them. Tarpon in these schools, while averaging around 40 pounds, can easily top 100 pounds. Bluefish in the ten pound range, and stripers weighing in around 30 can really test your light tackle. So gear up when you plan to go. You have to figure that a one pound bait in the form of a live mullet is going to attract a fish much larger than 1 pound! The breeder reds - those in the 20 to 50 pound range are in all the inlets spawning right now. August, September, and sometimes all the way to late October, you will find these bruiser reds. Light tackle might catch them, but it will wear them out. They will literally fight to the death. They require a lot of reviving, even when you catch them on heavy tackle. So, my advice is to use the heavier tackle and take particular care with them. They are the future reds!

Bottom Line

Find the right water that has a lot of bait and use the right tackle this fall. Find that cooler water and you will find fish. And it will be far more comfortable than those hot summer months. Now is the time to be out there!