Most anglers who fish in the fall are chasing bass, which are chasing shad, up creeks. But not Mark Davis. "The thing about fall fishing is that you're usually catching fish either very shallow or very deep," he says. "I like to have both of those patterns working at the same time.

"A lot of fish are still deep" in the fall, he notes. "Depending on the lake, all of the fish don't go to the creeks. A lot of them do, but a lot of fish stay out on the main lake too. On most lakes, the thing that makes (patterning main-lake fish) tough in the fall is that the fish are scattered. Most people target the fish in the backs of creeks because they're easier to find and catch. But there are also deep populations of fish that never really left where they were in summer, and you can catch them.

"If they all went to the creeks, we'd know where every fish in lake was."

Find Shad, Find Bass

Just like in the creeks, the deep fish are keying on shad. "I use shad to help me find them," Davis says. "I try to stay around where there's a lot of shad activity (on his depthfinder). That really is a big clue as far as telling you the depth and where to look for bass.

"If you're not seeing a lot of shad in deep water, that pattern may not exist. But if I'm seeing a lot of shad in 20-plus feet of water, you can bet I'll be trying to key on them."

Structure also is important, perhaps more so. "You need to find shad around structure, be it a hump, point, creek channel or whatever the case may be. Just fish the structure," he says. "The shad are just a piece of the puzzle. If the shad are over the structure, fine and dandy, but you're still fishing the structure. You're fishing the drops and all those things where the fish ought to be. The shad are just telling you what depth to fish, and if shad are present on the structure, I think your chances go way up for locating them quickly."

He also advised never fishing shallower than the shad. "If I see shad at 25 feet, I won't fish in 15 feet. I'll fish in 25 feet, or maybe slightly deeper. If I see a lot of shad at 30 feet, I'll start fishing at 30-35 feet."

As far as electronics go, he says: "If you see balls of shad with 'hooks' (sonar representations of predator fish) around them, they usually won't be bass. You're looking for shad, you want to know the depth, and you're looking at the structure," he says. "If you see fish on the structure, that's great. But many times you won't see many fish on the structure and you'll wind up catching them.

"If I see 'hooks' around the structure, I get excited. But if I see them around shad, I don't pay them any mind. I pay a lot more attention to the structure than anything else."

When and How

"To me, the best fall fishing occurs in the afternoon hours," Davis says. "There are some exceptions to that, but day in and day out, early morning becomes less significant as the water gets cooler and cooler."

His favorite ways to catch them are on jigging spoons or tailspinners, like the Strike King Thruster Tail. He notes: "Sometimes a finesse worm on a Carolina rig is good, or a jig can work as well."

Notable

> He uses a homemade 3/4-ounce chrome (or silver) jigging spoon with a single treble hook. But "a lot of times I'll remove that treble and put on a short- shank (2/0) single hook," he says. "Usually when I do that I'm fishing around a lot of submerged timber or brushpiles. That way I can fish it much more effectively and shake it loose. It won't hang up as much, and you lose less fish because you can put all that pressure on the fish. It's like fishing with a jig or worm."

> Deep-fishing gear: 6' 6" medium-heavy Falcon Cara-series rod; Pflueger President reel; 20-pound Ande premium mono (clear). He doesn't use a swivel: "If you fish (spoons and spinners) right, they won't really twist your line."