Zcoker

FFS is not just on boats, lot of kayakers are using it nowadays in tournaments. I've seen some awfully large fish (26 inchers) popping up in a lot of kayak tournaments, just over the course of a year or so. And all those guys who are catching them had just started using FFS. So it's impact is all over the charts. The pro angler quoted here is right: folks are forced to adapt and use it or just lag behind, trying to keep up.

I've dealt with these guys directly. I even took some of them fishing! This was all related to the current LBSF shark fishing regulations in the state of Florida. They called upon me for assistance with their regulatory agenda. It's not so much with getting them ALL to agree, but if you can persuade at least one of them, then you've just made MAJOR progress!

The irony here is that a lot of this "basic" technology existed years ago and no one had a hissy over it until the technology blossomed into what it is today, which, btw, is going to keep evolving into oblivion. It's here to stay and folks are going to make use of it in tournaments, as long as they are allowed to. It's like automobiles, some are super duper outright pinnacles of achievement worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, and yet, ALL automobiles still have to stop at red lights, no matter what they are made of or no matter the technology achieved. Rules are what it's all about. The blame and/or solutions need to be focused there, not on FFS itself.

I agree! Something is better than nothing--anything! Yet no voice is heard. Lotta chatter on these forums and on social media about a lotta things with strong resentments. Yet no one makes any sorta attempt to voice those concerns. I leaned that with saltwater fishing. I was totally involved to the point of speaking directly with the FWC commissioners! I saw first hand how a voice can influence their decisions and outcomes. Don't have to attend any meeting, either. Letters are very power! Without any objections, the rule makers "assume" that everything is all peachy and rosy.

$19million is a LOT of money needed to kill weeds. Next thing ya know they'll be using Napalm lol Seriously, though, we (as fishermen) need to get busy voicing our objections. If not in person, then by letters, which do help BTW. Any FWC/Water District ordinance or concern usually requires some form of public hearing. Be surprised how many folks complain about stuff yet when there's the opportunity to voice those objections, no one writes or shows up!

None of those places are like they used to be. Only been two years for Kenansville, which was my first trip there. I’ll never forget that morning. Local fires had smoked out the entire area. We had to wait for the smoke to clear up. My first turn onto the main lake with my very first warmup cast netted a 9 pounder.

A lot of it has to do with social media. The guides often advertise “fish of a lifetime”, which is basically true because most all those guides (combined) fish with thousands and thousands of shiners. Yet folks don’t see that. Only thing they calculate is but a small investment to beat the odds of getting a fish of a lifetime. Shiners floating around in a trophy fishery do present with the highest odds for a fish of a lifetime! Supply and demand at its finest. Problem is, sustainability. As mentioned, HW is only 10k acres and half of it is freely accessible, which is where most guides fish. All that focus in one small area shall take its toll, only logical. I don’t know what the answer is, but I suspect someone’s gonna have to do something someday to preserve it, maybe a closed season, something along those lines.

Always “enough”. Life is life, whatever it may be. As far as happiness goes, I try to find it in most things I do, even fishing. Even after thousands of bass out in the glades, I’ve never tired of it. Always a happy sunrise at every dark corner. The anticipation also fits into that category, the planning, the preparation, the giddiness of a new adventure. Many times I’ve just leaned back in my kayak to take in all the boundless beauty, but also to take in an awe inspiring breather after conquering a giant bass!

I have nothing against guides but places Glad you brought up your experience with Stickmarsh. Most who fish it now have no idea how it used to be. I mean, they may know but only those who experienced it during the day know just how good it was! Ironically, it borders Headwater like a living history, a mirror image for all to see. Much attention has turned to Garcia. Some irony there, too! Used to be a horse track, everyone racing to it to race around it lol

I like the Piscifun pliers. I've had these for a while and find them extremely useful, not only durable, but just plain functional. Not only are they affordable and light weight and corrosion resistant, they have features not found on other pliers, like crimps and a split ring grip. They also have a very sharp braid cutter. The lanyard is a must-have on a kayak. Hey, at $16 bucks, I have ZERO complaints.

Well, that's just it, doesn't really matter if we're happy or not, they're going to manage things according to their rules/regulations. As far a aeration goes, I've never heard of it in south Florida retention areas or lakes. It may be happening in other places but I've never heard of it here in my neck of the woods.

Headwaters Lake as it was being carved out. This was called the "enhanced area". Enhanced meaning enhanced to grow trophy bass! Opening Day, long line!

Here in south Florida we have an extensive array of canal systems regulated by pump stations, weirs, and spillways. Some of these pump stations can be the size of a 5 story building. Water is controlled or channeled according to storm run-off, water levels, etc. An example of this is the recent draining of the Stickmarsh, some 6,500 acres, which they drained for vegetation restoration. The point here is that they have complete and total control of the water in all of these areas. If these areas get too low, they fill them up, too high, they drain them. They can do whatever they want to do. Regardless, water is usually flowing (in some form or another) through most all of them.

I think it's important to know (for those who don't know) is that Headwaters Lake is not natural. It was DESIGNED for trophy bass. Yes, it was built, curved, molded, and formed into a trophy bass fishing mecca. It now leads the FWC TrophyCatch program, beating the likes of Orange Lake, as the best trophy bass fishery in the state. They--the FWC along with an army of biologist--spent years developing it and then stocked it with over a million bass. A lotta time, money, and research went into making it what it is today. Our hope is that it stays that way, and not go in the direction of some of these other lakes here in the state. Recently, it was closed for half the month of June, closed for repairs along with "vegetation" control. I got that directly from the St. Johns Water Management District. Many reported on the helicopters nuking it. That was a first. From all accounts, it's recovering pretty well. Yep, they don't know things, like how even the wind can drastically dictate on where to go to be successful there. They go there, expecting this or that and then leave with a bad taste in their mouth. If only they knew!

Blue Cypress is a choice place to stay, about the best it gets out in the middle of nowhere waterside! Yes, the Stick used to be the name of the game back in the day, many PB's from there. Seems like these places all start out wonderful and sooner fall victim to some of the stuff that I mentioned earlier up. Bummer. Headwaters is still going strong. If anything, if I were planning a trip down here for bass fishing, I'd definitely have Headwaters high on my radar. Lake Okeechobee is all about knowing where to go, when to go, and how to go. It's a BIG lake. Many variables on that lake and knowing how to work them out is what brings in those big bags. Scott Martin sure does know how to get around on that lake lol

Being able to see the fish underwater is what it's all about for most tournaments nowadays. I mean, if anyone has that upper hand available to them, they'd certainly take it. I know I would. If they say they wouldn't, they'd probably be lying. Why loose when you can win? As far as FFS hurting the fish populations, I really can't see that happening. Most bass fishing is catch/release. The fishing is much the same as it was before but with the added ability to track the fish better. There's also more tournaments on more lakes, and with FFS uncovering BIG fish out in the middle of these lakes suspended deeply, the flood gates have opened. Just more people fishing to get them, recreational as well as tournaments, the mob has invaded!

Fall can't come fast enough here in south Fla. Not only is hurricane season nearing its final chapter (hopefully with no direct hits!) the fishing is so much more pleasant. I mainly fish at night during the summer months but in the Fall I like the daytime sessions, coolness for south Florida standards, which would be upper 70's to low 80's instead of high 90's to over 100 degrees! uggg

My take on things for those three lakes, Headwaters, Stickmarsh, and Kenansville. Between all the fishing guides with thousands and thousands of shiners and all the nuking from the SJRWMD, it's only a matter of time before those places are choked off into oblivion. I don't know how many folks know, but as little as 3-4 years ago, the bass fishing in those places was probably the best in the world. By that standard, even today, the fishing at Headwaters is still pretty good. Before the boat ramp opened at Headwaters, you could toss a plastic worm out and catch 8 pounders. It used to be kayaks only. Rolland Martin showed this off well when he made his first YouTube videos from his canoe. One-cast-boom! The fishing was insane. It was that good. Over the years it's gone downhill. All those lakes have gone downhill. I don't even fish Stickmarsh anymore. They recently drained it--yes, drained it--to plant grass or whatever it was, whatever it was that's not even growing! I never thought I'd say this about Kenansville, either, but I'm not planning any trips to that place anytime soon. That lake also used to be a one cast wonder. I've had my share of one cast 9 pounders from it. The paved road to it is nice BUT it has increased traffic ten-fold. That 12 mile dirt road before was almost undrivable and you hardly saw a vehicle on it, and yet, it had a sorta air about it, a dusty vail of unforeseen bumps and grinds, something mysterious and exciting about it, almost like a safari trip! No, I'm not seeing a good forecast in the way things are going for those three lakes, and I sure hope I'm wrong about them because I have such fond fishing memories from all three.

It's not just there. They've been doing it all over the place and, yes, it turns to muck and suffocates everything. They just did a large part of the everglades down south. They're always nuking Lake Okeechobee. Headwaters is not exempt from these practices, either. They just nuked it in June. Let's hope Headwaters doesn't get like Stickmarsh, which a fishless mudhole--compared to what it used to be!

Still topped out and dying. They nuked it into oblivion, so not much of anything left for floating vegetation. The fishing there was horrible. I got there about sundown, stayed until about 4am and then split. The fishing was awful, not so much as a hit. I usually catch 7-9 pounders every trip there plus a ton of other fish. Not anymore! Just gotta wait until it recovers, I guess. I hate these cycles of death and decay.

Yeah, looks like a typical morning yawn lol I was just at Kenansville all night in my kayak and they were all over the place there as well....pretty typical this time of year with the low water levels. To add a bit more info for those areas: the 12 mile dirt road to Kenansville is 3/4 paved. They just finished up the last leg of the paving project.

Lotta folks already know about Headwaters and Stickmarsh and Kenansville. Anything you wanna add?

There's a point of no return for some lakes and wetlands. I agree with the comments about how things are improving in certain areas while falling apart in others. Yet even while improving, they're all drastically a far cry from what the were a few years ago, steadily declining. In other words, they're just on a slower decline and will someday be overrun. I can only speak about places in my area, namely the everglades restoration projects and what they've gone through. They walled off these massive STA water retention areas south of Lake Okeechobee, tens of thousands of acres of natural wetlands, which channel all the harmful water into them. There, the water gets filtered by the vegetation, in this case absorbing high levels of phosphorus and other pollutants. Once filtered, the water is passed south into the everglades. The idea is pretty straightforward and has worked well for years but is gradually in need of newer systems. The SFWMD along with the Army Corp of Engineering has started construction on another one, a massive one, some 240,000 acre-feet that broke ground a about a year ago and is scheduled to be finished around 2030. They're doing this because the thousands of acres that they already have can't handle all the run-off. Those STA's are in fact dying, but dying by the hand of their creators! No more vegetation, which is the grand filter, so to speak, to clean things up. The vegetation gets so dense with all kinds of invasive undesirables, undesirables like hyacinth, hydrilla, and water lettuce, which leave them with no alternative but to nuke the daylights of them. Problem is, they nuke EVERYTHING. They kill off what they so badly need! So it's basically been a viscous cycle down in our neck of the woods. There's no clean-cut answers, ironically. All they can do is try. And all we can do is hope!

One extreme to the next for me. Weightless for my T-Rigged worms. 2oz tungsten for punching. The faster falling bait triggers aggressive strikes. 2oz is also needed to fish the stuff that I fish in.

You're probably right about that, living in MA. I mean, it's possible. Somebody just caught a 13 in NY. Might just need to call it a day and make a trip down south to places that have a ton of them. Always a chance. When you catch one, it sure is a great feeling. The first 8 is a memory of a lifetime! As far as the trebles go, I use them exclusively at night. I use worse ones, saltwater BKK Fangs, absolute razors. Talk about grabbing! I know folks don't recommend them at night and if not experienced enough I probably wouldn't recommend them either. Especially on lures like the Jitterbug. I make my own wooden musky jitterbugs that are much bigger and use much bigger mean and nasty trebles. Gotta have a good sense with those trebles, a good enough sense to keep from getting stuck. So far, so good, knocking on wood!