With temperatures continuing to fall, both air and water; we start to sense that old man winter is right around the corner. But lets not jump too far ahead as many great opportunities still remain in the dwindling days of fall. The opportunity I am thinking about is excellent bass fishing. With the remaining days of fall bass will continue gorging on any forage that comes in sight as they are putting on the extra weight for the winter months. This means regardless of your location in the country, you will find the bass in your area are on the hunt for food making it a perfect time for a person of any skill level to try their hand at catching some fall lunkers. Here are a few tips to help you be successful and drive that lure home while chasing Mr. Bass.  To start off, it is important to consider what the baitfish are doing when starting to locate bass. Most baitfish have been hiding in deep water hangouts avoiding the mouth of any ravenous fish roaming the water. But now with cooling water, baitfish tend to group up and return to the shallows giving bass the option of an endless buffet. These groups of baitfish tend to move into areas such as; creek mouths, coves, harbors, grass flats, rocky shorelines, and docks. With the baitfish returning shallow, those fall bass are not far behind as they will often claim the shallows as their hunting ground. So locating the baitfish can definitely improve your odds of finding these feeding bass but do not get locked in on this strategy as the fish are cruising around looking for an easy meal., meaning they are not necessarily sitting still.   Now to the techniques used to catch these fall feeding frenzy bass. There are many techniques out there that are successful during the fall as pick eaters do not fit into the vocabulary of a bass. One particular technique I implement when targeting these bass are shallow water crank baits. By using shallow running square bill cranks, it allows me to cast around various pieces of structures, such as rocks and docks. Retrieval speed is also important to take into consideration as this type of bait gives you many different options. You can have a quick retrieval giving you a erratic fast moving action, slow things down and you get a slow rolling action from the crank bait, but a stop and go retrieve can be deadly as the sudden change in swimming action can have fish inhaling the bait. Vary the speed of your retrieval and let the fish tell you exactly what they want. So get out on the water today and try your hand at catching some fall lunkers. It is important to remember that safety comes first while fall fishing as cold water temperatures could lead to hypothermia if you get wet. If you are faced with a situation of getting wet on a fishing outing, you need to find a safe, warm place and get dry. Please stay safe on the water and catch that trophy you have been waiting for. Good Fishing.