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Fall Bass at Newton Lake
Fall is my favorite time to bass fish and Newton Lake is a great place to pursue them. The last two weeks of October have been my best time at Newton. Local weather however can make fishing more successful a few weeks earlier or later. Kevin Huprich of Peoria and I headed south to Newton on October 21 with an arctic cold front sweeping south right behind us. Newton is a power plant lake located in the southeastern part of Illinois, about 30 miles southeast of Effingham. The first day of our trip was dark and cold with winds in excess of 20 miles per hour, making most main lake areas unfishable. Fortunately, Newton has many coves that allow fishermen to get out of the worst areas.
Kevin and I caught a few decent bass, up to 17 inches long, but were humbled to see some nice stringers of 18-inch (lake length limit) bass brought to a local tournament weigh-in. The winners had six bass that weighed more than 26 pounds, including big bass of the tournament that weighed 4.85 pounds. This is what Newton Lake is capable of even on the worst of days. Winds stayed brisk our second day as the cold front swept a wide path through the midwest. We concentrated on the warmer, murkier water of the hot water arm of the lake, catching 19 fish on crankbaits, white spinnerbaits, and swim baits. We checked main lake points and pockets as well as the back of coves and their secondary points. Shad were schooled in many places on the lake, but we found feeding bass in only a few small areas. It's easy to find shad, but finding actively feeding bass with them is another matter. Moving around to find the right location is just part of the puzzle to solve, especially when shad seem to be everywhere.
As in any other lake, many colors of worms and jigs will catch bass, as well as a wide variety of colorful crankbaits and topwaters. However, at Newton during the fall, it is hard to beat white, silver, or pearl baits. Spinnerbaits, crankbaits, rattletraps, Flukes, Senkos, and swim baits are among my favorites. The third day of our trip saw the winds ease up and the cold air settle into the area. Nighttime temperatures dipped below freezing and daytime highs only reached the upper 40's. The sun came out and brought more shad into some shallow water areas. We caught three Newton keepers, one each on a Storm swim bait, silver/chrome Rattletrap, and a seven-inch, blue-fleck Berkley Gulp Turtleback worm.
We caught a number of fish in the hot arm from water that was in the mid to upper 70's. We also expanded our fishing area into the southern half of the cold water arm. There we caught several fish from the largest cove on the east side of the arm. Water temperatures were in the mid-60's and the schools of shad were as prevalent as anywhere in the lake. The cold water arm also had slightly clearer water than the hot arm, but we had success in both areas as long as we found the right areas with shad in them. One difference in the two arms of the lake was that we caught most fish on main lake areas in the hot arm, where more shad were located. In the cold arm, we caught more bass and saw more schools of shad in the backs of coves, where water temperatures were lower than temperatures in the hot arm coves.
Our next day saw the cloud cover return along with a chance of rain. We had four or five areas to fish and they were scattered from the large cove in the middle of the cold arm south and up the hot arm to the overflow discharge, located three-quarters of the way up the hot arm. We spent the day rotating between our good areas and searching for new areas that contained schools of shad. Based on past experience, the water temperatures were still a little warm to locate shad in the backs of most coves in the hot arm. During fall when the weather is right and water temperatures have dropped low enough, bass can be caught in the back of most big coves that are on the west side of the hot arm, north of the boat ramp. Fishing is rarely simple, even in an excellent fishery like Newton Lake. At times the fish shut down or respond to only a slow presentation with jigs or soft plastics rigged Carolina or Texas style.
At other times, the formula for success can be as simple as fishing shad-imitating lures where shad are schooled. You just have to experiment with depth, location, and presentation. Our five-part story about Newton Lake from April 2006 (See "You Have to Fish This Lake" on our Articles page) illustrates how lure preferences can change daily. Our final day was dark and followed a night filled with rain. We donned the rainsuits and headed to our best areas for three hours of fishing before heading home. Now was the time to fish our most productive baits and give up the search for new areas. We wanted one last flurry of bass fishing before heading home after a week in the wind, cold, and rain.
We headed to the largest cove in the cold arm with blue shad tandem willow-leaf Nichols spinnerbaits tied on our lines. We concentrated on the very back of the cove where most of our fish were caught during the week. The shad were still there, but in reduced numbers and some bass were still feeding on them. We finished the trip with 13 more bass, six of which measured between 16 and 18 inches long. One thing is for sure- these hot water bass do not care about the wind, cold, and rain that fishermen have to endure. They will still bite sometimes during the worst of weather conditions. Newton Lake Information |
Pearl and white swim baits like the Storm Wild-Eyed Shiner (top) and the generic brand (below) caught bass.
Silver crankbaits like the Bagleys shallow-runner (top) and a chrome/black Rattletrap (below) also worked well.