September Fishing Tips

September on Pickwick and Wilson is that in-between bite where summer ledges are emptying out and the creeks are loading up. If you catch the shad right you can have a career day.

Baitfish first. Threadfin are the engine. Early September with water still in the low 80s they’re still out on main river humps and the ends of long points, but the first cool nights and a little rain push them to the mouths of the creeks. You will see them flicking on top in the first third of Bear Creek, and Second Creek on Pickwick. And on Wilson in Town Creek and Bluewater for instance.

The shad are small right now, an inch and a half to two inches, so bass are looking up and corralling them. By mid to late September if the surface temps slip into the mid 70s that migration moves deeper into the creeks and up onto shallow flats with a ditch or creek channel close by. Follow the birds and the flickers, not just your FFS.

Transition zones are where you win. Forget the very backs of the creeks until October. The field-tested spots are those first two secondary points inside the creek mouth, any channel swing that touches a flat, and any isolated rock or stump on that flat.

Look for current breaks below Wheeler Dam, the shoals below the dam, and the ledge that drops into the Town Creek channel and other Wilson creeks. Smallmouth will set up on the downstream side of those breaks waiting for shad to get swept over.

On Pickwick the offshore stuff still matters early. The humps and shell bars at the mouth of Bear Creek hold mixed largemouth and smallmouth until about 10am, then they slide up shallow. That 8 to 12 foot to 3 to 5 foot move is your daily pattern.

Lures for September are all about covering water and matching that little shad. For first light topwater is king and that blow-up bite you like is at its best right now. A walking bait like a Spook or Sammy in shad or bone, a single prop bait or a plopper style for the flats. Try a white buzzbait when if have a little chop in the creeks.

Once that sun gets up, switch to moving baits you can keep in the strike zone. A 3/8 ounce double willow spinnerbait in shad with silver blades burned over grass or around laydowns, a 3.8 inch swimbait on a quarter ounce head, and a green pumpkin shad ChatterBait with a small swimbait trailer around ditches are good choices.

When the bass get pressured, or you see them swiping but not eating, a squarebill crankbait in sexy shad or chartreuse/black back banging the secondary points and a light Carolina-rigged swimbait can clean up the same points with bigger bites. Color is simple this month, keep it shad, keep it small.

A run this time of year is start on Pickwick at a main-lake hump like at the mouth of Bear Creek until about 7:30, then push in and hit every secondary point on the way back with topwater and spinnerbait. By 10 on Wilson, look for current, and do the same transition points in Town Creek and Six Mile (or your favorite creek).

Early September equals mouths, late September equals halfway back, and always fish a ditch. That is exactly what you have been waiting for after the summer grind.

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