Crooked Lake aka Lake Caloosa in Winter Haven

[GobbleDog]

Never fished this lake before and I've got a two-day club tourney down there in a few weeks.

Anyone fish this lake? Got any information on the vegetation, water clarity, or depth?  

:-/

[RoLo]

PM sent.

Roger

[GobbleDog]

 You da man Rolo!   BTW - did you happen to see any hydrilla the last time you were there?

I'm going down to practice in two weeks and I'll report back what I find.

[RoLo]

No I didn't, but that doesn't mean there's none there now.

[GobbleDog]

Last chance for Crooked Lake information. Heading out Sunday, in spite of the forecast for heavy wind.

Heck, I'll even take mis-information.  Whatever ya got.  My current plan is to start out fishing the northernmost part of the lake in front of the college (got a hot tip from a friend that a recent tourney was won there), and then work my way westerly to the areas RoLo was talking about.

From people I've talked to, I'm getting the feeling this isn't your typical off-shore grass fishing type of lake.  More of a fish the tight cover type of lake.   Sux for me because when it comes to flipping, I'm the suck.  

[GobbleDog]

Crooked Lake, aka Lake Caloosa, aka Lake Okhakonkonhee, aka the Lake with too many d**n names.  April 13, 2008

The water clarity is stained, but generally clear. The northern parts are almost entirely comprised of exposed Kissimmee grass along the banks which in some places are in water as deep as 10 feet.   The middle and southern parts look like flooded cow pastures which get very shallow along the edges with a mixture of tree stumps, Kissimmee grass, and other vegees. I can attest that there isn't one blade of hydrilla in all of Crooked Lake.

In any case, Bob's Landing 7:00 am - paid the $7.00 launch fee, spoke with the unfriendly jerk running the ramp, and started off.  Early in the morning the wind was calm and we started in the northern areas throwing weightless and c-rigged worms against the kissimmee grass and hooked into several bass, most of which were right at the 13-14 mark.  It seems Crooked Lake has plenty of bass, but not too many big uns.  There was a tournament going on that day and most of the anglers we saw were also working that Kissimmee grass flipping into little holes here and there.  

We eventually worked our way to south-end, but didn't care for any of the shallow tree stump areas.  In between northern and middle parts there's a giant long hump with plenty of off-shore kissimmee grass, but by 1:00 it had gotten ridiculously windy and made fishing that area impossible. On a calmer day, it looked like a beautiful spot.  So we headed back up to our northern spot to hide from the wind and see if the bite was still working.  Sure enough, the fish were still there and my partner hooked into our biggest of the day, a 4.5 lber.  By the end of the day, we'd caught 3 keepers (2 were barely legal) and about 15 dinks.  Overall it was a good practice day.   When we got back to the boat ramp we found out it only took 7 lbs to win that tourney.  It seems getting bites isn't a problem on Crooked Lake, but finding bass with any real weight can be difficult.

[JayW]

Where exactly is this lake?

[RoLo]

Where exactly is this lake?

It's in Frostproof, it's the second largest lake in Polk Co. (~5,000 acres), Lake Walk-In-Water being the largest.

Roger

[JayW]

I see. I rarely go to Frostproof though. I think I may know what lake it is now though.

Thanks!

[GobbleDog]

Saturday and Sunday was my two-day tourney on Crooked Lake. As expected, we caught tons and tons of dinks.  We mainly fished the northern areas I talked about in my last report working the off-shore Kissimmee grass with plastic worms.   Casting along the edges and flipping into little holes here and there.

The first day we caught a total of about 25 bass. But of those only 4 were legal, weighing 6.5 lbs which amazingly beat out a few boats who had limits.  Day 1 winner had 12 lbs.

The second day we caught a total of about 15 bass, of which 5 were (barely) legal weighing a total of 6.7 lbs.  Day 2 winner had 11 lbs.

It isn't difficult to catch a limit on Crooked Lake as more than half the boats had limits on both days.  But getting any real weight is tough.