How Seasonal Turnover Affects Fishing

As fall approaches, so does turnover in your local lakes. Many anglers will notice this and think that fishing is about to shut off for a while. While the fish will definitely change their behavior when this happens, it absolutely does not mean that they become uncatchable all of a sudden. 

Instead, you need to know how different species adjust to changing conditions, and match your lures and methods to what they’re looking for.

In most of the bigger lakes in your area, there are going to be three main layers throughout the water column. There will be a warm upper layer, the thermocline where rapid temperature change occurs, and the cold lower layer.

During the summer, oxygen levels are typically at their highest near the surface in that warmer upper layer, and decrease significantly in the lower parts of the lake. You’ll notice that many fish actually spend a good amount of their time in and near the thermocline because it acts as a sort of sweet spot, and they’ll push up or down as they need food or comfort.

During the turnover, this all changes.

When the turnover starts to happen in the fall, the air temps begin to drop and surface water changes. Wind starts to mix up the water column conditions more, and temperatures and oxygen levels become more consistent all throughout the different depths of the lake. This all leads to the thermocline gradually disappearing. 

This isn’t usually an overnight change; rather, it happens over the course of multiple days or weeks, depending on the size of the lake as well as how quickly the weather patterns change.

We’ll dive into how turnover affects specific species in a minute, but let’s start with what generally happens during the turnover. As the turnover progresses, you’ll start to notice that baitfish in the area get far less concentrated and spread out all throughout the lake. Predator fish tend to follow the baitfish as they spread out. 

This makes the spots you loved during the summer far less reliable, and specific areas aren’t going to hold a ton of fish until everything stabilizes later in the fall.

When turnover happens, bass will usually leave the main offshore spots that you would find them in during the day. Instead, they’ll be roaming much more freely all throughout the body of water, following schools of baitfish. If you can find some weed edges that aren’t completely dead yet, those can be great places to hone in on. Wind blown shorelines and fast transition zones can be two other great places that bass spend their time in more commonly during turnover.

Some of the best baits you can use for bass now are going to be spinnerbaits, chatterbaits, swimbaits, and lipless cranks. These four are great search baits, which is what you’ll need to at least start with when trying to figure out where the bass are. Once you’ve found them, you can switch it up to jigs, Texas rigs, and ned rigs if they aren’t biting on the more aggressive search baits you tried.

When turnover happens, walleye are going to be most commonly found on break lines near deep basins, on rock reefs, along deep weed edges, and off of wind blown points. These areas all tend to hold both baitfish that they’re after and ideal water conditions that they like to spend time in. You won’t have to just fish deep like you did in the summer; they’re going to be much more spread out.

Some of the best rigs to use for walleyes during turnover are a jig and a minnow, jigging raps, crankbaits, and live bait rigs. Just like with bass, you can start with a search bait like a crankbait to figure out where the fish are. If you find them and they aren’t as aggressive, focus more on slower, natural presentations that they can spend some time inspecting before striking.

Two of the main species of panfish anglers are going to go after are bluegills and crappie. The difference is important because these fish both act differently during the turnover.

Bluegill will tend to stick close to healthy green weed beds for as long as possible. They’ll tend to stay shallow, and gradually move out deeper as they need to in order to stay in this type of vegetation.

Crappies, on the other hand, will usually spend their time during the turnover suspended over deeper water. Instead of focusing on key pieces of structure or weed beds, they’re more commonly going to be spread out in the lake, relating more closely to the smaller baitfish they feed on.

If you’re going after bluegill, it’s best to use small jigs under a bobber tipped with live or artificial bait. Small minnows, pieces of leeches, and panfish plastics are going to be your go-to options to hook into a lot of bluegill.

For crappies, you can mix things up a bit. Small jigs with minnows are still a tried-and-true go-to during this time of year, but you could also try small swimbaits, crappie crankbaits, and tube jigs. Swimbaits and crankbaits can be great search baits while looking for suspended schools in open water, while tube jigs and regular panfish jigs are best to use once you’ve found the fish and want a vertical presentation to put in front of them.

The consistent oxygen levels that happen because of the turnover allow trout to spend time all throughout the lake, rather than the very specific areas they were confined to during the summer. Trout are commonly found suspended over deep basins, cruising tight to shorelines, along points, and feeding along wind blown structure this time of year.

Some of the best lures to tie on for trout during turnover include spoons, inline spinners, small jerkbaits, and swimbaits. All of these can be used as search baits to identify where the trout are, as well as baits to use consistently once you’ve found trout in the area.