It’s a great season to be an Ohio angler, as all of the most popular fish species are at peak activity levels in preparation for the inevitable arrival of winter.

Whether you are fishing for Lake Erie’s monster walleyes or marauding steelhead, or crappies, walleyes and bass at Mosquito, Pymatuning and other reservoirs across our region, you are on the home stretch of the 2024 fishing season.

Cooling waters have created a criss-cross of opportunities for anglers interested in hooking up with whatever happens to spy their baits. The baitfish in Erie and our local lakes are ganged up in giant schools that in turn attract hungry predators like walleyes, trout, bass, pike, muskies, perch and crappies.

Weather permitting, the first weekend of November is prime time for limits on whatever species catches your fancy. Anglers who specialize in each of the game species have their favorite lures and techniques, but some who take a more generalized approach stand good chances of catching a variety of fish on jigs rigged with plastics.

Steelheaders employ productive trolling tricks with spoons and plugs, cast spinners and drift flies with high likelihood they will hook up with acrobatic trout off Erie’s breakwalls and in the tributaries. Walleye anglers can score big on bruiser-size fish trolling Erie’s near-shore water and casting from breakwaters and piers after dark. Inland reservoir specialists will pick off nice walleyes and bass from the sand bars and weed edges at Pymatuning and Mosquito.

If there is any one-size-fits-all lure for Ohio’s autumn game fish it is the venerable jig and plastic combo. In earlier times, jigs and twisters were popular.

Today, a new school of forward-facing sonar advocates have developed techniques that enable them to target individual fish up to 60 feet from their boats and deliver jigs to their exact locations, all the while watching their lures’ fall and the fish’s reaction.

Their preferred lures are jigs with various styles and sizes of plastic bodies. In general, the plastics are shaped like shad, alewives or perch with tails that are tapered, forked or paddle-shaped.

A fourth option is the so-called Ned worm, which is a 2- to 3-inch stick worm that has little or no action on its own. It is meant to mimic fish like round gobies and other small critters that move in a glide-like manner rather than by aggressive tail kicks.

Game fish love all of the jig-and-plastic combos, so it is entirely possible for an Erie angler to hook up with steelhead, walleye, smallmouth bass and other species during a single fishing trip.

Anglers at Mosquito and Pymatuning stand a solid chance of bagging walleye, bass and crappies on the same rigs.

Ned rigs and jig-and-paddletail combos have been productive for me this fall.

Three trips in October on the Ohio River produced smallies, walleyes, saugers and sheepshead on chartreuse and green-pumpkin Ned worms threaded on 1/6-ounce jigs.

For reservoir bass and walleyes, I like to swim 1/4-ounce jigs dressed with 3-inch paddletail worms in white or perch colors through the remaining strands of aquatic vegetation.

November fish have one mission: eat as much as they can until cold weather shuts down the food chain. Anglers can hardly go wrong if they choose to feed them jigs with tantalizing plastic bodies.

Jack Wollitz has been fishing for Ohio game species most of his life and has written about his experiences for nearly 50 years. Contact him at jackbbaass@gmail.com.