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Autumn's cooling waters and shorter days trigger a shift away from shallow, fast current areas. As the progression of fall continues increasing numbers of river smallmouth will locate in slower, protected areas, in or near deeper water. Ultimately the fish will stage in wintering areas that provide the necessary habitat for them to survive the harsh elements of winter. Along the way, the best fishing of the year for the river's biggest brown bass occurs. WHERE ARE THE BASS? – To regularly score on river smallmouth during the fall one must be able to locate the types of water conditions that hold them, and also understand why. Water temperature and current are the two biggest factors. Free- flowing smallmouth rivers feature a combination of riffles, runs and pools. The ratio of one to another de-pends on the gradient of the terrain. Riv-ers that hold higher densities of bass tend to have a good balance of all three. Pools contain deeper water with slower current. The downriver sections of pools, where they become shallower, with an increase in current, is the tail- out of the pool. Typically, tail- outs dump into riffles, which are fast, shallow, rocky sections that often produce a taste of whitewater. As the river deepens, riffles spill into runs, which can be characterized as having moderate current and depth. Runs often contain submerged rocks and ledges that deflect current and provide ambush points for gamefish. Gradually runs continue to deepen and slow down, signifying the head of another pool. During the early portion of the fall, when water temperatures are falling through the 60s and 50s, good numbers of small-mouth will still be in current areas. At this time I find concentrations of fish in tail- out sections of pools, and in runs. The best tail- outs often have a scatter-ing of rocks, or tuffs of submerged weed-growth such as water celery ( eelgrass). Rocks and weeds not only provide bass with cover for waylaying prey, it's likely they also give them a sense of protection from overhead predators such as eagles and ospreys. As fall advances, expect weedgrowth to die off, uproot, and be car-ried away with the flow. Tail- outs act as feeding lies for bass; expect fish holding there to be biters, often willing to respond to a moving bait. Runs, especially character- laced ones with submerged boulders and riverbed-imbedded tree trunks, collect cool- water smallies. Often bass holding in these deeper lies aren't actively feeding, so they aren't as willing to chase down a bait. But hover one just above them, or drag a tempting tidbit along the bottom in front of them, and they'll often yield to it. Rivers are suspect to rapidly chang-ing levels. This is true throughout the year, but seems a bit more of a factor during the fall, when much of the country is vulner-able to rains driven inland by way of hur-ricanes. Tail- outs are most productive during normal, stable flows. High, dirty water cre-ates too much current in tail- outs, and wipes out the bass's ability to see prey. Forget tail-outs during such con-ditions. A run can still be productive during mildly higher water, depending on its spe-cific physical makeup. But as rule, the pro-ductivity of runs plum-mets when the water rises. Expect early fall fish to head for the banks when the flow comes up any signifi-cant amount. When water temperatures fall cont. from pg 9