Need Some Advice On Central Florida

[Osprey39]

Hey all, I am going to be visiting my folks down in Central Florida over the Memorial Day Weekend.  My dad is not really into bass fishing (he's a saltwater guy) but he is going to take me bass fishing while I'm there.  I need to know where is a good place to go and what are some general patterns for this time of year?  My folks live in Merritt Island so somewhere within an hour of there would be preferable.  Thanks in advance.

[FD.]

Toho is the best lake I know of that is within an hour of Merritt island.  I'm fishing Saturday so I will let you know what's working.

[Osprey39]

Thanks, appreciate it

[Tartan34]

I was out on the Butler chain yesterday (Orlando area)...from 2:30 until 7:00.  We threw spinnerbaits, topwater, swimbaits, cranks, lipless, and lizards.  There were some schooling fish that hit the occasional topwater, but other than that it was a lizard bite.  Nothing else was working.  Clear day, high pressure, warming water.....they were in the shade/near docks/grasslines in pretty shallow water. 

[Osprey39]

Did you do any good FishinDaddy?

[FD.]

tstone and I had 19.52 lbs in a local tournament.  Flippin and Froggin in shallow water was the ticket.  We did not get up to Toho, as we found fish in Hatch on the way north.  Everyone else seems to be fishing the shad spawn bite.  Deeper  outside lines either flipppin or spinner baits. We missed another six and a four.  The big fish were biting on Saturday.

[gar-tracker]

Cypress has monsters roaming the middle but you have to find them, its hard to find them but if you do its the winning sack.

 

Thats how BFL was won and my buddy won the Extreme with 28lbs there, he came in 2nd yesterday at the seniors classic with 20 but I think he stayed in Toho for that.

[Osprey39]

Thanks for the info gents!

[Tartan34]

Out again today in Butler....3-7ish and had a very productive day.  The largest of the afternoon, 5lbs or so, was caught on a chatterbait with a Rage Tail Grub off a point with submerged grass.  That was the only fish on grass we caught, but we caught a load of fish around wind blown docks and shady areas, with lizards, trick worms, and spinner baits.  

[Fishing Cowgirl]

^{Tartan, you should try a blk and blue swim jig, with a green pumpkin trailer on Butler. We had the bigger fish on them. placed 3rd with just 3 fish on a 6 fish limit.  I couldn't catch even a cold that day and my step son culled from 8-1pm. (Couples-ladies must catch 3 and guys must catch 3 nd can't cull for each other)}

[Tartan34]

Cowgirl, I will give that a shot, thanks!  What type of cover were you throwing it into?

[james 14]

tstone and I had 19.52 lbs in a local tournament.  Flippin and Froggin in shallow water was the ticket.  We did not get up to Toho, as we found fish in Hatch on the way north.  Everyone else seems to be fishing the shad spawn bite.  Deeper  outside lines either flipppin or spinner baits. We missed another six and a four.  The big fish were biting on Saturday.

 

You must've been in the same spot I fished on my two previous trips out there. The only thing you had that I didn't on those occasions was a South wind blowing into the spot and activating the baitfish/bass. Anyways heck of a job. Any idea what the guys were doing that won? I heard they were in Cypress.

[Fishing Cowgirl]

It in front of the grass lines or the lily pad, grass mix,

[FD.]

You must've been in the same spot I fished on my two previous trips out there. The only thing you had that I didn't on those occasions was a South wind blowing into the spot and activating the baitfish/bass. Anyways heck of a job. Any idea what the guys were doing that won? I heard they were in Cypress.

 

We were headed to Cypress when we stopped and decided to try this spot.  I would guess they were in the pads with a swim jig trying to look like a blue gill.  I'm just glad it took an 8 pounder to beat us. We almost had it.

 

Jamie check out the club web site.  I just published some of Nicoles photos for the background.

[james 14]

We were headed to Cypress when we stopped and decided to try this spot.  I would guess they were in the pads with a swim jig trying to look like a blue gill.  I'm just glad it took an 8 pounder to beat us. We almost had it.

 

Jamie check out the club web site.  I just published some of Nicoles photos for the background.

 

We were headed to Cypress when we stopped and decided to try this spot.  I would guess they were in the pads with a swim jig trying to look like a blue gill.  I'm just glad it took an 8 pounder to beat us. We almost had it.

 

Jamie check out the club web site.  I just published some of Nicoles photos for the background.

 

Photos look great!

 

That's a pattern that certainly works this time of year...I just didn't see anywhere they were bedding and went a different route. I ran into a batch of little ones on topwater first thing but couldn't get a bigger bite. Even went back later on to flip the grass and got nothing. I'm hoping those guys were planning on sticking with the club because what I was told is they only fished Kissimmee cause they won out there the week before on a different trail. If that was their motive it wasn't very smart since they probably didn't make enough to pay for their gas just to fish one tournament.

 

BTW - it's James

[Osprey39]

Hey all, I'm back from my trip and I thought I'd post a follow up on how it went.  We went out on the St. John's Saturday but the wind blew pretty bad and we didn't catch anything but a tilapia.  Sunday we hit Toho and we caught quite a few fish.  Here are the best ones:

 

 

 

 

 

Pretty good day fishing with my dad (photographer) and his best buddy.  I have a question for you all though.  What the hell do you key in on when fishing a lake like that?  I'm used to lakes with lots of contour changes, rocks, trees, etc.  Both Lake Poinsett and Toho seem to be nearly flat bottoms and those weeds are everywhere on Toho.  It all looks the same to me.  The only pattern I was kind of able to figure out was we seemed to catch all our fish where the submergent vegetation (not sure what it was lol) was very sparse.  In areas where it was thick, we didn't catch much.  Anyway, can you all clue me in for next time I am down there?

[FD.]

You figured it out.  It is mostly vegetation patterns.  In Toho it is mostly hydrilla related.  Sometimes in the matted stuff, sometimes in the sparse stuff in 8 ft of water.  Sometimes it's pad, sometimes it's Kissimmee grass.

[james 14]

It's no easy task that's for sure. Each lake in the chain is a little different and each will have their own time when they're the hot lake to be on. In the summer hydrilla is the ticket if you can find it deeper than 3ft or you could plant your own brush piles out in the 10-15ft range.

[Osprey39]

See I have no idea which grass is which.  Lakes in New Mexico are all reservoirs and they have no vegetation in them to speak of.  Part of that is the bottoms are mostly hard and rocky but the bigger reason I have been told is that the water level changes so frequently that it prevents the growth of vegetation (lately it's only going down lol.)  

 

From what I gathered, the grass in the photos we took is maidencane.  There was a lot of submergent grass too which I thought was hydrilla but when I looked at pictures of hydrilla on the web, it didn't look the same so I'm not sure what it was.  I do know it was the same every place we went.

[George Welcome]

Google Kissimmee grass and Maidencane - quite different grasses.

[AK-Jax86]

Great trip and pics man

[gar-tracker]

Hey all, I'm back from my trip and I thought I'd post a follow up on how it went.  We went out on the St. John's Saturday but the wind blew pretty bad and we didn't catch anything but a tilapia.  Sunday we hit Toho and we caught quite a few fish.  Here are the best ones:

 

 

 

 

 

Pretty good day fishing with my dad (photographer) and his best buddy.  I have a question for you all though.  What the hell do you key in on when fishing a lake like that?  I'm used to lakes with lots of contour changes, rocks, trees, etc.  Both Lake Poinsett and Toho seem to be nearly flat bottoms and those weeds are everywhere on Toho.  It all looks the same to me.  The only pattern I was kind of able to figure out was we seemed to catch all our fish where the submergent vegetation (not sure what it was lol) was very sparse.  In areas where it was thick, we didn't catch much.  Anyway, can you all clue me in for next time I am down there?

 

Theres web sites to identify Florida aquatic grass i used to have a great one but cant find it, thats very important.

 

When in Florida you look at small differences within the vegetation, for example take that photo behind you the Kissimee grass field, when you stick a fish lots of times unbeknownst to you there may be a small difference. You have to look and see if its a clump of hydrilla or pepper grass mixed in thats not clearly visible, then you can look and target those areas once you see other clumps. Sometimes it will be a hole like the ones right behind you in the photo. Sometimes the fish will position themselves in a certain area of the grass, try not to to look at the whole two miles of grass and be overwhelmed, look at the details.

 

Same with any vegetation a 5 mile row of cattails looks daunting but look at the base for other small clumps of vegetation when you stick a fish look it may be by a point.

 

Points:

 

Points in other states are large pieces of land or underwater structure the people target and fish, in Florida a point can be a small area were the Cattails or Kissimme grass or even isolated clumps of hydrilla in open water protrude away from the rest. Look down a reed line and youll see small areas coming out into the lake those are points even if it may just be a foot or two farther from the rest.

 

Isolated grass:

 

When you see a large row of reeds and notice a few isolated reeds out by themselves even one stick of the reed, hit it. Thats were the big mamma's love to hang.  If you see an isolated patch of pepper grass try it.

 

It all looks the same but it isn't you have yo pay attention to details.

 

Hope this helps.

[Osprey39]

That's tremendously helpful gar-tracker.  Thanks a bunch!