Late Sept for Bass?

Hey all,

Like many, we scrubbed our usual June plans at Eagle Lake in Ontario and have now booked a week at Island View Lodge on Rainy for late September. Usually chase smallmouth and pike up at Eagle and enjoy June as we can catch many of them pretty shallow. Figure this will be different so late in the season on Rainy.

Wondering if y’all have any suggestions for good bass spots in late Sept on Rainy? It’ll be our first time on that lake so it’ll be a lot of learning/exploring but will just be nice to be able to get out and fish.

Any thoughts about September bass in the river along I-Falls/Ft Frances? Sometimes in June we fish from shore in Ft Frances on our way out of Canada and have caught a number of bass right off the rocks.

Thanks!

P

September is my favorite time to be up there chasing smallmouth.
You’ll want to find rock piles in 10-25ft that are near deep water. Big boulders are best.
As the water cools the fish will congregate on or near wintering areas and feed heavily.
Depending on the weather you may find them all together or very spread out. You’ll want to graph around a lot to locate a school. If water temps are below 55 you can bet they are stacking up together. Above 55 you may find fish in transition and scattered.
I’ll be up on Kabetogama/ Namakan in late September chasing smallmouth for a few days.
I generally use paddle tails, drop shot rigs, jigging raps, or jerk baits depending on the depth they’re at. If all else fails a live bait rig with a minnow works well too.

Hey thanks for the response – that makes sense and figured that we’d be looking deeper for them in Sept vs earlier in the season. Do you find that they’ll head into shallower bays and such to feed when the light drops late in the day / towards dusk at all?

I haven’t really ever found them moving shallower in relation to the time of day. Throughout the day they will move from the top of a rock pile to the bottom edge and back without any real rhyme or reason. Sometimes they’ll even suspend over deeper water next to the rock pile, usually at about the same depth as the top of the rock pile.
If you find a school and then they disappear, they haven’t gone far.