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"The glide bait bite typically starts in the summer when the water temps are 60 degrees and above," says former PWT champ and The Next Bite TV host, Gary Parsons.

"But in the fall I'll start catching fish on Shiver Minnows again when the water temps range from about 40 degrees down into the 30s. And obviously, you can catch fish on them through the ice."

Two Ways to Fish Glide Baits

Parsons says there are two schools of thought for fishing glide baits like the Moonshine Lures Shiver Minnow.

"First, the rage is using forward-facing sonar to make short, 20- to 40-foot casts right on top of walleyes, potentially deadly if those fish are pegged to structure," explains Parsons.

"Second, there's making really long casts in clear water, typically out on sand breaks and long stretches of shoreline. That can be a different ballgame. The fish are little more spooky. I will work a stretch of shoreline with a Shiver Minnow much like I would trolling. It can be super effective."

As a case study, Parsons cites Lake Oahe in South Dakota, where there mile to two mile stretches of water where anglers cast glide baits and catch a lot of fish.

"This kind of run-and-gun, cover water casting can be more effective than using forward-facing sonar and making sniper-style casts. And, if you are going to use forward-facing sonar, set it out to 100 feet and as soon as a fish shows up cast way out to it from a long distance to minimize spooking."

Don't Put Away the Leadcore

Although leadcore gets a lot of use in summer, the tendency is to put those line-counter reels and rods away when the temps drop in autumn. "For me, leadcore has always produced fall fish. Especially on rivers, I like to troll the deep edge of shoreline breaks into sections where the river flattens out. And sometimes the middle channel can be good place to leadcore troll, too," divulges Parsons

"In lakes, I target the same areas I'd fish with Shiver Minnows. I'll clip on minnow-profile cranks or Flicker Shads and you'd be surprised how many walleyes you catch even though the water temps might be down below 45 degrees."

In particular, Parsons and The Next Bite crew worked on a bait specifically for deeper summer and fall walleyes. Called the Deep Hit Stick, it's one of Berkley's newest tournament-winning cranks.

"If I was going out to the Lake Erie Fall Brawl right now, I wouldn't bring any other bait. It simply out-produces other cranks in the fall when fish are a bit deeper. Awhile back, I was fishing the NWT Championship on Erie and was leading day 1 with the bait when the crankbait was just a prototype. All I had were two test baits with me. The baits were hand-glued so they started leaking water and by the end of Day 1 they were unfishable. So, on day 2 I couldn't use them and fell back on the leaderboard. But the first day we had an unbelievable weight."

Parsons is also a big fan of the Berkley Money Badger when water temps hover from 35 to 40 degrees.

"I live close to a heavily-fished lake here in Wisconsin and was able to go out and troll leadcore over the basin right on the edge near the drop-offs and coax bottom-hugging walleyes into reacting to the Money Badger. Fall is a good time to catch those fish. I fished it out there until the water fell to 34 degrees-and there was nobody on the lake except for muskie anglers," says Parsons.

"Talk about fun," concludes Parsons. "Fall walleye fishing can be just outstanding and you don't have any lake traffic to contend with."