My Mobile Tackle Shop 😀

[Koz]

I’m off to Kissimmee in the morning for the Bassmaster Kayak Series event next weekend.

 

We’re fishing the Kissimmee Chain and have 12 or 13 lakes to choose from. I’ve never fished there before so I’m bringing the kitchen sink. I haven’t even put my luggage in the truck yet.

 

It should be an interesting week. The weather will be consistent for M-F practice, then a front moves in for the tournament weekend.

 

I’m staying at Toho, so I’ll practice there first. I’m not sure where I’m heading after that.

[GreenPig]

Excellent. Have fun and win us a trophy.😁

[SC53]

Good luck 

[Susky River Rat]

Good luck! Be safe! And keep us posted

[Tennessee Boy]

I always enjoy hearing about your tournament adventures.  I'm also impressed with how organized your tackle appears to be.  Good luck.  

[Cuivre]

Good luck!  I can't wait for the season to start up again for me for my local state club.  Still frozen over here.  I'm the same way as you- I have a lot of tackle from my bass boat (only) days, so I still feel like I'm leaving the key bait at home when I'm in a kayak, despite so many kayak anglers claiming to minimize their tackle and gear.  (part of the reason why I'm moving into a Jackson Big Rig this year).  

 

 

[Koz]

23 hours ago, GreenPig said:

Excellent. Have fun and win us a trophy.😁

I had planned to arrive in the area at 8 am this morning (Sunday) and head right to one of the ramps at Toho. Unfortunately, work got in the way on Saturday and I didn’t finish my pack out until 11 pm. 

 

We had a system failure with the phones at the hotel on Friday night and I had to go in just before midnight and left at 4 am.

 

With all that, I left after 7 am on Sunday and by the time I checked into my rental home it was 3pm. I was too tired to fish.

 

I’m not happy with losing a day of practice, but it is what it is. I’m going to fish somewhere on the Kissimmee chain on Monday. 

 

I’m going to leave out specifics on the lakes I fish somewhere I don’t violate any rules on sharing knowledge.

 

 

[GreenPig]

2 hours ago, Koz said:

I had planned to arrive in the area at 8 am this morning (Sunday) and head right to one of the ramps at Toho. Unfortunately, work got in the way on Saturday and I didn’t finish my pack out until 11 pm. 

 

We had a system failure with the phones at the hotel on Friday night and I had to go in just before midnight and left at 4 am.

 

With all that, I left after 7 am on Sunday and by the time I checked into my rental home it was 3pm. I was too tired to fish.

 

I’m not happy with losing a day of practice, but it is what it is. I’m going to fish somewhere on the Kissimmee chain on Monday. 

 

I’m going to leave out specifics on the lakes I fish somewhere I don’t violate any rules on sharing knowledge.

 

 

Well you made it there, relax and catch a pile of fish. We slipped a Air Tag in your gear, so we've got your coordinates. 

[KSanford33]

Go get ‘em Koz! We’re all rooting for you!

[Fishingmickey]

12 hours ago, Koz said:

I had planned to arrive in the area at 8 am this morning (Sunday) and head right to one of the ramps at Toho. Unfortunately, work got in the way on Saturday and I didn’t finish my pack out until 11 pm. 

 

We had a system failure with the phones at the hotel on Friday night and I had to go in just before midnight and left at 4 am.

 

With all that, I left after 7 am on Sunday and by the time I checked into my rental home it was 3pm. I was too tired to fish.

 

I’m not happy with losing a day of practice, but it is what it is. I’m going to fish somewhere on the Kissimmee chain on Monday. 

 

I’m going to leave out specifics on the lakes I fish somewhere I don’t violate any rules on sharing knowledge.

 

 

Good luck, Koz.  May the force be with you!

Fishingmickey

[bassmedic46]

Good Luck and you certainly have your tackle organized. 

[TOXIC]

Good luck.  Forget the trophy, cash a big check!😂. Leaving Friday for a week on headwaters, no tournament just trophy hunting.  I’m trying to cut back on gear so this is my full arsenal.  

[SC53]

@Koz looks like you picked a good weather week. 

[Koz]

13 hours ago, SC53 said:

@Koz looks like you picked a weather week. 

I was at Toho yesterday and heard a guy mention that the cold weather the last two weeks has really shut down the fishing. With the weather warming, hopefully that trend changes.

 

Because this is a multi lake tournament, I don’t want to tip off any lurkers by giving away any info regarding my pre-fishing other than saying that most of Toho is choked out with hydrilla.

 

It was really bad. I suppose it would be OK if you paddle, but even with my weedless prop it was impossible to go far without having to clear weeds from the prop.

[Bankbeater]

Hang in there, and catch some big mommas!

[crypt]

just slow down.......you'll catch em.......

[Koz]

So, today was an interesting day. I fished a smaller lake and launched from a small, neighborhood ramp.

 

Unbeknownst to me, the soil at the end of the ramp had washed away meaning that the end of the ramp was a ledge. The water was murky and I didn’t see it when I checked out the ramp.

 

So my trailer wheels dropped of that ledge. Instead of launching my kayak first and then pulling up my trailer, I pulled forward.

 

With that, my Malone Ecolight took some damage, knocking it out of square. I parked it, then went fishing. When I returned it was time to fix it with some box wrenches and a big rock.

 

Luckily for me, two retirees from across the street, Roger and Ron, came over to help. Roger brought a few more tools, we loosened some bolts, squared it up, and made it drivable today.

 

In between I had some minor electrical and bluetooth problems that I squared away.

 

After leaving that lake I was headed to another, but there was neither cell phone service nor GPS to use maps and navigation. Half the time on the lake I couldn’t use spot lock because GPS was unavailable.

 

Anyway, I had to drive off a ways to connect to maps and GPS. It was an eventful day.

 

I’m not giving a fishing report because I don’t want to break rules and share information.

[Koz]

Day 1 was a heartbreaker. Heading into last night I wasn’t even sure where I would fish. Most people were struggling to find fish in practice, but a few people said one lake was producing but it was all small bass.

 

My thought was that with the warming trend all week, the bite was about to turn on. So I made a late night call to fish a lake known to hold big bass.

 

I had fished this lake the day before, but this time I headed to the other end of the lake. I looked at my maps, read some history on the lake, and set some waypoints.

 

The problem was the first waypoint was over an hour away. But what made it more difficult was there was a big area where I had no GPS for my navigation unit and no cellular service. With the high reeds and other landmarks in the water it was hard to determine exactly where I was at times.

 

So, after the long haul to the first waypoint and a run to the second I still didn’t have a single bite. It was another long run to my third waypoint and it was already after 11 am. So instead, I cut across the lake towards shore in a 30 minute run. Lines out was at 3:30 and I was running out of time.

 

I shut off my sonar and FFS completely and fished my new, unscripted plan. Within minutes I caught a 16.75” fatty, but it was now noon.

 

The good news was that for the next two hours I was on the bass. The bad news is I caught three undersized ones and I lost SEVEN good fish including two that were 5-7 pounds.

 

The problem was I couldn’t get a good hook set. I was using my Kistler heavy rod and I just couldn’t hook up. I switched to my Expride MHF, but by that time the bite was gone.

 

I should have easily had a limit today. So tomorrow I’m leaving the Kistler in the truck and fishing something else.

 

BTW, @FryDog62 is at this event. He fished the other end of that lake today, but tomorrow we will team up. I’ll let him tell his story.

 

 

 

[Eric 26]

@Koz I know it doesn’t mean much but I’m rooting for you 👍🏻

[FryDog62]

1 hour ago, Koz said:

Day 1 was a heartbreaker. Heading into last night I wasn’t even sure where I would fish. Most people were struggling to find fish in practice, but a few people said one lake was producing but it was all small bass.

 

My thought was that with the warming trend all week, the bite was about to turn on. So I made a late night call to fish a lake known to hold big bass.

 

I had fished this lake the day before, but this time I headed to the other end of the lake. I looked at my maps, read some history on the lake, and set some waypoints.

 

The problem was the first waypoint was over an hour away. But what made it more difficult was there was a big area where I had no GPS for my navigation unit and no cellular service. With the high reeds and other landmarks in the water it was hard to determine exactly where I was at times.

 

So, after the long haul to the first waypoint and a run to the second I still didn’t have a single bite. It was another long run to my third waypoint and it was already after 11 am. So instead, I cut across the lake towards shore in a 30 minute run. Lines out was at 3:30 and I was running out of time.

 

I shut off my sonar and FFS completely and fished my new, unscripted plan. Within minutes I caught a 16.75” fatty, but it was now noon.

 

The good news was that for the next two hours I was on the bass. The bad news is I caught three undersized ones and I lost SEVEN good fish including two that were 5-7 pounds.

 

The problem was I couldn’t get a good hook set. I was using my Kistler heavy rod and I just couldn’t hook up. I switched to my Expride MHF, but by that time the bite was gone.

 

I should have easily had a limit today. So tomorrow I’m leaving the Kistler in the truck and fishing something else.

 

BTW, @FryDog62 is at this event. He fished the other end of that lake today, but tomorrow we will team up. I’ll let him tell his story.

 

 

 

Three days of practice (in my situation) with 13 lakes in play isn’t adequate preparation in post-cold front conditions (which is all too well-known, Florida bass react to very poorly).

Big learning for me is that the people leading this tournament work in teams. I watched them… closely.  They get here a week in advance and work like a syndicate. They break off in teams of anglers that comb each lake like an agricultural combine going row-to-row until they find exactly where each and every bass are located on any of the 13 lakes. 
 

By the time they get to the 2-day tournament format - they have a plan A and B… maybe a C. But they don’t have too many strategies on how to conquer the tournament. They ideally pick 1-2 lakes with a couple anpproaches and know where the spot-on-the-spot is. It’s a surgical approach and they share info between their teams (which is allowed in practice). It works. If you think the kayak division of Bassmaster takes a back seat in terms of approach, talent, and focus, you’re wrong. 
 

If you added up the fish between Koz and I lost the first day we’d be much further up the ladder. But it is what it is, and all competitors in this format lose fish. The competition is fun, everyone catches and loses fish, but tomorrow I guarantee I will have sharper hooks. Should be fun 👍

[Eric 26]

@FryDog62 Rooting for both of you to kick some 🫏

[FryDog62]

I went into this with low expectations, really doing this first time for the experience and I enjoyed it.

 

A couple key learnings for me… First of all the people that did best were the ones that had the whole week to practice, a couple days just isn’t enough. But hey, I’m a consultant and that’s just the way it goes sometimes as the workflow goes up and down… hard to anticipate time off.

 

The other learning is that having fished in the north most of my life, the approaches are obviously different as you go further south. I fished for decades in the Midwest and Canada which when it came to fishing weeds, the focus was always to find the greenest vegetation, pads, etc. I found out in Florida that during the pre-spawn and into the spawn that is not true at all. As the fish move up to bed, they actually go in the brown, dead Kissimmee grass. And grass is a misnomer… It is not soft blades at all, they’re like miniature little bamboo trees, very stiff and spiney, and very difficult to work lures in and around. Anyway, I wasted a lot of time fishing the wrong stuff.

 

Hats off to Koz, he arrived to practice before I did and keyed me in on the Kissimmee grass, I only wish we would’ve pre-fished together sooner. He was great to meet. We had some good conversations and even shared some water together on the final day. We both have Autopilot 120s, and went the same speed, which is slower than most everybody else… Lol. Till next time! 

[Koz]

TLDR: I’m not good enough to go to a new lake on my own and break it down in a day.

 

@FryDog62 is correct in that these teams of kayak anglers have a huge advantage. They can cover lots of water in practice and share information.

 

In this case, we had 14 lakes to choose from in a kayak that moves just over 3 mph. These lakes are all essentially very shallow with no humps, ledges, drop offs, stumps, etc. There are a lot of lily pads and maidencane (Kissimmee grass).

 

The area had been cold for the two weeks prior to the tournament and with that the overly sensitive Florida bass shut down. But there was a warming trend leading up to the tournament and I suspected the bite would be on by tournament day. I was right.

 

During the week of practice I fished Toho twice, Cypress, the southern end of Kissimmee, Hatchineha, and Rosalie. But come tournament day I gambled and launched at the north end of Kissimmee. I had done a lot of research and marked three waypoints, but the closest was a 90 minute run from the ramp. When I got there I found absolutely nothing.

 

I hit the second waypoint and struck out again. I started out to the third waypoint, a major creek that was another 90 minute run. Twenty minutes in I changed my mind and headed for two minor creeks about 15 minutes away.

 

The entire area was full of dense Kissimmee grass, which is like thick, heavy straw that is both matted and grows upward in the water. By now it’s almost noon - 4.5 hours into the tournament and I haven’t had a bite. The leader already has five fish on the board.

 

I shut off my electronics and I tie on a Berkley Pit Boss and start pitching into the dense weeds and land my first fish right away. I got bit the rest of the day but couldn’t hook up. I lost two between 5 and 7 pounds. I had a ton of bites where I set the hook and the bait came flying back at me. It wasn’t until Day 2 that I figured out it was male bass moving the bait off a bed.

 

For Day 2 I headed back to the same spot. I knew there were big fish there. This time, @FryDog62 joined my adventure. 

 

Within the first 30 minutes I got a big strike in the heavy Kissimmee grass and I saw her turn. She was 9-10 pounds and she was pulling my 400 pounds of loaded kayak through that heavy grass for a good ten seconds-and then I lost the hookup.

 

I then moved to a different area and punched dense hydrilla and managed one keeper. 

 

I went back and fished the Kissimmee grass, had the males toy with my bait, and caught a few too small to submit.

 

I saw the bass move further off shore in the outer bands of Kissimmee grass and they were active along the edges but I couldn’t get bit.

 

One good thing came out of the tournament - I got comfortable with standing and fishing in my kayak. Actually, two good things - I met @Frydog62 and he’s a great guy.

 

He’s also right - you need a team to be competitive. It will also slash expenses. So, maybe sometime we can get 4-5 members here to join up and do some damage in a future event.

 

[Bazoo]

Very interesting, thanks for taking us along.