GobbleDog

In all my years of fishing lakes and ponds throughout Central Florida, I've never caught one. I wish they would move a little further north because I'd love to catch a peacock bass. Has anyone ever heard of them being caught in Lake Okeechobee?

In calm water my goto topwater bait is the Zara Puppy. But if there's a light wind and I feel like throwing a topwater, the Spit'n Image Jr is the bait I tie on. I've caught countless bass with it, but I don't care so much for the bigger sized Spit'n Image.

We allow Yankees on this site? fine.... welcome aboard Jersey.

Believe it or not, another great aerial map website is MSN. You don't have to register or download anything, and they have something called "Bird's Eye View" which gives an even clearer picture than any aerial. Here's a view of the West Lake Toho boat ramp down in Kissimmee. (I don't know how to convert the image directly to a jpeg, so I had to use my camera to post a picture of it. It actually looks clearer than that!) You can pan around and zoom in and out. The Bird's Eye View only works in densely populated areas - other places only have aerials. If anyone wants to try it, go to MSN.com and click on Maps & Directions. Then zoom close in on any major city and choose between Aerial or Bird's Eye. Check out the Niagra Falls in bird's eye view or downtown New York City or the coast along Los Angeles. Amazingly, I found that it even works in places like London England! Check out Buckingham Palace in bird's eye view. Cool stuff.

West Lake Tohopekaliga - Sunday March 2, 2008 The hydrilla has come back with a vengeance since my last visit a year or so ago. It's completely topped out in some parts and the once barren shell beds around the middle parts of the lake are now littered with off-shore grass. Just after sun-up we pulled up to a spot near Red's Fish Camp and several other boats were already there working the off-shore hydrilla grass. We went to the first edge of the grass we found and started fishing, but with no bites we trolled around looking for something else on the depth finder. We finally settled on an area in 6.5 feet with spiked hydrilla grass (as opposed to the flat hydrilla in most other places), anchored up and started throwing C-rigged worms. We got a few bites, but didn't put anything in the boat until I threw my T-rigged trick worm and hooked into a couple of solid 3 lbers. That little worm in the open water grass seems like a needle in a haystack, but it worked continually popping it over and through the grass. We expected some action on shad raps and jerkbaits, but only had one missed bite to show for our efforts. By 12:00 we'd caught 2 keepers, 3 dinks and a few missed bites. Eventually the wind picked up to 15 mph and the off-shore bite became difficult to feel with a worm, so we headed out to my partner's top-secret spot (somewhere in the southern area of the lake). That's where my fishing partner caught a 4 lber on an ugly firetiger crankbait (normally used in dark water like Lake Harris). Then he started screwing around with a giant swimbait that looked like a sunfish on steroids. I was laughing at his choice of baits, but I shut up and grabbed the net after he hooked into a fat 5 lber. By the end of the day, we had 4 keepers weighing about 15 lbs and now we're pretty confident heading into the tourney in two weeks. The off-shore hydrilla bite is back in Toho!!! On a side note, Sunday was the final day of FLW tournament which started out of the Kissimmee boat ramp. After they launched, the boats were racing towards us and the camera helicopter was hovering right over one of the leaders. Very cool to watch as they roared past us. I heard the winner only had 13 lbs, and caught them all down in Lake Kissimmee in an area with a mixture of grass hyacinth, hydrilla and kissimmee grass.

I believe Alabama boating laws require that each boat carry a banjo, a jug of moonshine, and at least one naked picture of your cousin.

I've wanted to get better at spinner baits for several years now.... maybe next year.

When I first started bass fishing I tried using scents and added them directly to the baits after every few casts, but I didn't notice much of a difference so I quit using them. Although, ever since I got hooked on Chomper worms (which have a built in garlic scent), I sometimes spray Chomper juice into a new bags of worms (which don't have any scent). Does it really help? Heck if I know, but it gives me a little extra confidence. I like to think the bass hold the bait a little longer due to the garlic taste, but who knows.

I do the exact same thing with Zoom Trick Worms, because the end sometimes sticks out too fer.

My lure collection/tackle/rods & reels/etc. aren't worth as much as a lot of things in my house, but they're still my most prized possessions. You have my total sympathy dude. That stinks! If it makes you feel any better, somebody stole the trolling motor off my boat last year. :-/

My most productive top water lures are the Zara Puppy and the Spittin Image Jr. The super spook is too big for my taste, but on the flip side the bigger the lure is - the the easier they are to walk and the longer they cast.

What's the entry fee for this "friendly tournament"? :-?

Why not fish without hooks altogether?

A quick Google search found this article. It's about gut-hooked Musky, but I'd assume bass would probably show similar results: In 1998, a radio telemetry study was done on the Chippewa Flowage, whereby 47 muskies were caught, tagged with externally mounted radio transmitters, and then released. Among other goals of the study, I saw this as an excellent opportunity to finally get a definitive answer to the single hook sucker mortality question. Out of 9 muskies which were gut hooked in this study group, we were able to confirm that at least half of the fish had died; but because the batteries on the transmitters ran out by spring, the degree of delayed mortality couldn't be fully explored on those fish. After this study ended, the urgency to more deeply explore this issue was realized and funding was secured from Muskies, Inc (the Hayward Lakes and South of the Border Chapters) to do a gut hooked musky study on the Chippewa Flowage.... solely to find out what percentage of fish were dying from single hook sucker rigs. After all, a substantial contingent of musky men were still using this method throughout the musky range and it was high time we found out just how bad single hooks really were. Between October 20th and November 21st of 1999, 14 muskies ranging between 33" and 47 1/2" in length were caught on these "swallow rigs" and "transmitted" so that they could be tracked the following spring. Shockingly, we didn't even have to wait very long to begin seeing the the death toll mount. Two muskies had died of hook injury to the throat during the tagging process and two others were later discovered dead.... washed up on shore. Once tracking began in the spring 2000, it wasn't long before all the remaining muskies were located using a radio receiver and their exact location pin pointed. At that point it was simply a matter of repeatedly going back to each musky's locations pin pointed location to check if they had either swum off...or were lying dead on the lake bottom. We soon discovered that most of the study muskies had died - two of which were actually spotted with an underwater video "fishfinder" Two of the study muskies were actually swimming around through July though. How great it would be to actually see these fish - just to be able to examine them. Ironically, it turned out that both of these muskies were caught on hook and line, photographed, and then released by anglers. In talking with them and studying the photos of these fish, it is clear to see that these muskies were not healthy. In fact, they were both dying a slow death. These fish were both much thinner then normal and - sure enough - it wasn't long before delayed mortality ended up killing them.... bringing the total death count to 100% of the 14 study muskies which had been gut hooked the fall before. http://www.chippewaflowage.com/sucker_study.html :-?

Old school thinking has always been to cut the line, but in freshwater that hook ain't rusting out for a year or two. It seems to me the bass has a much better chance of surviving in the LONG TERM by removing the hook, even if it's badly guthooked. How's he going to eat with a hook lodged in this throat for a year? He's going to die eventually! A few bass might be able to survive that way, but I'd bet the majority of them don't. Now with saltwater, that hook will be gone in less than a week so I have no problems cutting it. Of course I'm just shooting from the hip here... I don't have any scientific proof backing me up.

In Orlando there's a Bass Pro Shop Outdoor World.... they have every lure and reel under the sun. BUT, they have the worst rod selection I've ever seen. I don't know if their catalog is any better, but it couldn't be any worse.

Florida If I had to guess, the AVERAGE winning weight in my club tourney (20 boats) over the past 5 years (one tourney per month) is probably around 14 lbs.

Never fished with/nor been a non-boater so I don't know what that's like - I imagine it's probably a little frustrating for the non-boater. Me and my fishing partner have been fishing together for years and we run all over the boat - whereever the best cast is. A lot of times we anchor up and fish the briney deep so we're both on the back the boat casting with the wind. I've noticed when I take a newbie fishing, they're always worried about where they are in the boat thinking they might tick me off if they walk up to the front, but it doesn't bother me. I just want them to catch fish.

I dread fishing the Harris Chain every time my club votes it. Harris has of some of the darkest water of all the Central Florida lakes. I understand that flipping is a popular technique there, but I'm not great at flipping to begin with. So I resort to the only bait that I've had moderate success on Harris, which is the ugliest crankbait in the world (the fire tiger style shown below). I guess the water is so dark that it's difficult to get the fish's attention with just regular worms - at least I've never had much success with worms. The places I've caught most of my fish were generally around canals and areas with moving water.

I've done pretty well with silver/black shad raps in clear water.

Anyone fish Toho last weekend? I'll be out there next Sunday (for the first time in a year or two) getting some practice in and I'll report back what I find. I've heard the hydrilla has made a big comeback throughout the lake. We're going to start off looking for the off-shore bite on shell bed areas and hopefully find some scattered grass clumps. Then we'll start looking for some beds along the shoreline near Wailey's where we've seen them bedding in past years.

Way too many dock side interviews, a lot of which was just joking around. I'd rather watch the top pros just fish, even when they aren't catching anything. It seems like they only cut to the anglers when they get a bite or to show them driving their boats. Also, I wish they wouldn't keep showing the estimated weight totals throughout the final day, because it makes the final weigh-in somewhat anti-climatic IMO.

Move to Florida.

A couple years ago I looked all over the internet to find the answer to that very question - do bass go back home after being released in a tournament? The scientific study I found showed that something like 10% of the bass went all the way back home (a few miles away), while 30% or so made it half way back, another percentage only went part of the way and the rest stayed near the area where they were released. Their conclusion was basically that bass will stay in the new location... IF there's enough food, cover, spawning areas, etc. Otherwise they'll start swimming back home until they find what they're looking for. But it's a double edged sword because you end up with more bass competing for food in the same area resulting in smaller bass. So based on that, there probably are more bass in the first lake of Conway, but there's also less food to go around so they probably don't grow as big compared to the other lakes.

I knew the sheriff department practiced diving on Conway, but I'd never heard about the sunken helicopter and bus. That's pretty cool. I've seen a lot of people fishing the middle of the 2nd lake and figured they must have sunk (or found) something. During the Wed. night tourneys you could see their luminated boeys which they'd drop on em while fishing. A few years back, my MONEY spot in Conway was fishing the off-shore hydrilla along the northeast side of the 2nd lake - from the canal entrance on down. But for some reason, that spot isn't nearly as productive as it used to be. Nowdays I generally catch most of my bass in the first lake and work the open water hydrilla in 10 feet or so, around the dropoffs. I've never had any luck in the 3rd lake. Just dinks along the shoreline.