Hey, Keith here.

I have to admit. I've started checking the 10-day forecast more than I should.

Football's back, leaves are beginning to drop, and deer season's closing in. Unfortunately, down here in southeast Louisiana we're still stuck in the 90s, sweating through every trip.

That miserable heat is exactly why the first real cold front of the year matters so much.

When that first blue symbol warning of a cold front shows up on my weather app, I just know the next few days on the bank will fish differently than anything since spring.

Today, I break down how to fish the cold front one day at a time, so you won't be caught off guard when it's time for the bass reset.

For most of the country, the first cold front already blew through weeks ago. Down here we're still waiting on it, which is why it's such a big deal when it finally arrives.

A cold front isn't just relief from the heat. It's the first real reset bass have gotten since spring.

It doesn't flip a switch the day it arrives. Instead, it works in stages, and each stage fishes completely differently.

I’ll go from throwing my Texas-rigged Berkley Lab Series Worm to burning my BOOYAH Spinnerbait across the surface of the water.

What I've noticed after years of chasing this front is that most anglers only pay attention to the day it actually shows up.

They watch the radar, see the wind shift, and either fish through it or wait it out. By then you've missed some of the best action.

The front starts working on the fish two full days before a drop of rain falls or the temperature moves an inch, and it keeps working on them for a day or two after it's long gone.

If you only fish the day of, you're missing three-quarters of the pattern.

The reason for that comes down to pressure, not temperature.

In the days before a front arrives, the water hasn't cooled at all, but the air pressure has already started easing ahead of the approaching trough.

Bass have a lateral line and an inner ear structure that make them sensitive to even small pressure shifts, and a falling barometer seems to trigger a kind of urgency in them, like they know a change is coming and they'd better feed while conditions are still good.

Once the front actually passes and the barometer spikes back up under a bluebird sky, that urgency disappears completely and the fish shut down hard.

I've known plenty of anglers who blame a slow post-front day on "bad luck" when really, it's just physics. The pressure did that, not them.

If you follow my formula and fish it in stages, you'll know exactly what to expect—and what to tie on.

This is the stage almost everybody skips right past. The front is still up north, sometimes days away on the map, but the pressure has already started easing off that stable summertime high.

For me, that usually means watching the barometer move from somewhere around 30.00 to 30.10 inHg down toward 29.90.

The water temperature hasn't budged yet, so don't expect a feeding frenzy.

What I do expect is a subtle uptick in activity, just enough that I'll start working ChatterBaits and swimbaits a little faster than I normally would, covering water to locate the fish that are starting to turn on before everybody else even knows a front is coming. A Z-Man ChatterBait or a Keitech Fat Swing works for me. 

If I could only fish one day out of this entire cycle, it's this one.

The pressure keeps falling, often dropping from around 29.90 into the 29.70s, and for me this window has produced some of the most aggressive bass feeding I see all year. 

The water hasn't cooled yet, so don't credit the temperature. It's the pressure drop alone doing the work. 

This is a reaction bite day, plain and simple.

I'll throw ChatterBaits, spinnerbaits, and topwater early in the morning and late in the afternoon, and I keep walking so I can cover as much bank as possible while the window is open. 

The front usually announces itself with a line of wind, sometimes a squall line, before the hard shift out of the north finally hits. 

Air temperature drops fast once that happens, and the water starts cooling right behind it. Pressure typically bottoms out somewhere in the 29.60 to 29.75 range before it starts climbing again just as quickly.

Bass usually keep on feeding right up until the moment that front actually clears the area.

I've fished through downpours on this day because the bite wouldn't stop and I wasn't about to leave it. I remember that day vividly—caught over 20 fish on a Pop-R.

Stick with the same fast reaction baits you were throwing the day before and keep grinding until the sky tells you it's over.

This is the toughest day of the whole cycle, and it's not close. 

Pressure spikes back up into the 30.10 to 30.30 range, sometimes higher, the sky clears to that bluebird blue everybody complains about, and the water sits a few degrees cooler than it was 48 hours earlier.

By this time, bass lock tight to cover, rock, laydowns, and brush piles, and they don't want to chase a thing.

This is where I slow way down. I downsize everything and fish a jig or a Texas-rigged Berkley Lab Series Worm right on top of the hardest cover I can find. 

It usually takes another day or two before that bite loosens back up, so don't panic if the fishing feels dead. It's supposed to.