Harris - Kissimee - Central Florida Fishing Report

[Under the Radar]

January 23, 2008 11:50am - 5:30pm Winter Park Chain (Maitland)

Sky Overcast

Wind 10 -20 SE

Water Temp 66*

Water Clarity  4'

Fished Arucu Shad

1 - 4.25 lbs

2 - 2 lbs

1 - 1.5 lbs

2 - dinks

[alger319]

Harris Chain January 26, 2008

Overcast

wind- 10 NNE

water temp-57

I had a little tourny with some friends of mine this weekend and even though the weather wasn't so great we still caught some good fish. I caught my fish pitching a trick worm blk-blue 1/8 oz. in canals and caught some shorts cranking shallow shell beds at the mouths with a bomer 6A (slowly)..Another friend caught all his fish off beds (16 pounds)- but thats a secret spot of course. my bedding fish weren't there i guess cause the weather. The rest of my friends caught their fish flipping kissimmee grass around staging areas...my buddy Neil caught two 6 pounders off aruku shad (ole glory) tossin it in pockets in the grass.(He won with 20 pounds)

[surfer]

Sunday morning I had an hour to spare and just shore fished at a local pond.  100 casts and 2 bass on casts 23 and 24.  Then the clouds broke and the cold clear blue sky shown.  No more fish after that.

alger,

I would have thought the weather on Saturday was great for fishing.  It was during the leading edge of a front before it got cold.  Maybe not ideal to look at and stay dry, but good fishing?

?

[alger319]

oh it was good fishin surfer..but what i meant was i had some good beddin fish and was hoping the water would stay around 60 degrees but it dropped to 57 and the fish pulled off. it was cloudy and windy so i couldn't see most of the beds also..we did have a back up plan and caught plenty of fish though.

[warmer]

kissimmee: jan 2nd

water temp: never bothered to check.

wind: howling from the south/then west/then northwest

good pre-front. 1-2 ft of water on the south end. all topwater. 12 keepers, nothing under 14.5 inches and nothing bigger than 3.5 pounds.

8,000,000 boats on the water or so, most pre-fishing for a big tournament weekend out there.

[RoLo]

good pre-front. 1-2 ft of water on the south end.

Sounds like Jack's Slough

Roger

[warmer]

Sounds like Jack's Slough

wait a minute! how does everyone seem to know my honey hole?

[FD.]

Hillsborough River Saturday

The wife and I decided to fish close and tried the Hills river.

3 pm to dark

air temp 80 - water temp 63

5 small guys, up to 2 lbs on a purple/brown tiki stick

[FD.]

Kissimee out of the S-65 ramp

Air 60-80 water 70+

Caught a few on shadow blue big stick around bull rushes, red shad tiki stick around pads and the little guys were killing a frog in the shallow pads.

Boated 2 missed 25 on short strikes

[surfer]

Saturday on Lake Conway.  

Absolutely beautiful, but post frontal slowness.  My hangover prevented me from thinking outside of the box and i got stuck in a rut.  One fish on a worm.  Most people I talked to caught about 5 for a half day.  Nothing big reported.  Lots of beds.  One healthy sunburn.

[dave_w]

Harris - 02-03-08

Water temp 61-64.5

Launched at Hickory Point. For the most part, we limited ourselves to flipping worms in the Kissimmee grass. One keeper, several misses, & one break-off. Had a 6+ lbr come up by the boat while I was re-rigging and nearly sent me into a conniption.

[RoLo]

Mom & I decided to fish down the afternoon today (02/09) on Lake Walk-In-Water (our home lake).

We launched at 1:30 pm and fished until dusk. It drizzled on-&-off all afternoon but the surface was relatively flat which made for a nice day.

It's been a while since we've been on the water, so I was pretty shocked to find the flats riddled with bass beds.

A few of the beds were only about 6 feet apart, which is pushing the envelope for territorial dispute.

We boated 11 bass and got cutoff twice (undoubtedly chain pickerel). All the bass came from water between 15 & 30 inches deep.

There was no apparent lure preference, in fact I used 6 different lures and all of them caught bass except the Cavitron buzzbait.

Fluke (albino): 3

Rat-L-Trap: 3

Shakin Worm 2

Tiki Stick: 2

Culprit Worm 1

Water Temp: 72 deg (cold for Florida-strain bass --- just kiddin')

Wind: WNW variable at 1-10 mph

Catch Depth: 1½ to 2 ft deep

Key Plants: Maidencane (slang> Kissimmee Grass) Spikerush (slang> pencil reeds)

Key Pattern: From the weed-line to 2 feet behind the weed-line

If I were looking for numbers I would have stuck with the albino fluke, because they really walloped it hard!

One bass actually launched himself into the air to pounce on top of the fluke, which he did with a loud splash!!!

On the downside, we only caught buck bass, the largest measuring 19 (didn't bother weighing him).

Roger

[warmer]

2/09

kissimmee:

water - 70ish

wind - up to 7 mph out of the nw with periods of calm

my number was called 7:15

1 13 inch fish in the boat (exemptions) by 1pm.  carolina rig on pads in 3ft - missed two good fish: one 3.5, the other just snapped on hookset, but felt solid.

from 1pm - 3:45 i caught about 15 keepers. same approach, just found some nice hydrilla mixed in the pads.  nothing big, but i culled out all the 13 inch stuff.  9lbs 9oz. 35th out of 98 boats.

tough day out there. 20lbs won it, but dropped off hard and fast from there.

[FD.]

ABA Toho out of Southport Ramp.

Air 65-80  Water 64-70

Wind out of the S-SW at 15

Boated 5 - only 3 keepers - 4lbs

My Nonboater got 3 - 2 dinks and a 8.6 #er, he finished with 10+ lbs which was good enough for 2nd place and Big fish.

Black/bl flake big stick in the am in madencaine 4ft, purple/bl flake senko in the afternoon in the pads, and a cane toad in the pads boated fish.  The big girl came on a Hula grub/ green pumpkin in isolated madencaine clumps.

10+ lbs won the ABA and 19+ won and ext tourney out of the same ramp

[John C]

Fished a benefit tournament out of Camp Mack Saturday-48 boats.Water temp at take off 7 AM-60.The highest was 66 at 1:30 Pm.12 + won,11 and change took 2nd.My buddy had 1 fish -10.44 good enough for 3rd & Big Bass.We were in the same area,caught bucks all day.The fish hit close to weigh-in time which was 2PM.I think the warmer water temp was a factor.

[GobbleDog]

Lake Butler

Water temp: Too cold fer swimming.

Weather: Partly cloudy with 10 mph winds starting around noon, but it was generally a nice sunny day.

Fishing: Fantastic. But it didn't start out that way, as we only had one keeper in the boat by 10:00 am.  But we stayed on the spot and patience paid off when the afternoon bite really took off.   We were fishing off-shore pepper grass which is scattered around in 6 to 12 feet.  Lipped crankbaits were basically useless from bringing back wads of grass every other cast.  But the T-rigged Trick Worms did really well.  By the end of the day we'd caught a total of 10 keepers, the biggest at 2.5 lbs. Our best 5 only weighed 10.5 lbs, although not many boats caught anything.  The few that did also reported the bite picking up later in the day.

[alger319]

St. John's River saturday

water temp. 68 deg.

sunny

wind on and off 10 mph

bed fishing was on! started culling by 9:30 but couldn't get big momma in the boat(biggest was around 4 lbs). finished tourny with 10 lbs--lost a seven, a five and a three, all were hooked but jumped and spit the hook. i used a variety of baits all t-rigged, bb crickets, paca craws and little dipper(lime ice) winner had 26 lbs swimming producto buzz tail red shad in eel grass in lake dexter. big bass was 10-7

[John C]

Great job Alger319!!!,Culling? What does that mean and how does one do such? ;D  In case you didn't notice you have a message and AOL mail.

[warmer]

kissimmee:

friday feb 23

hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of empty beds.

fished w/out a hook so as not to stick them before a friends tourny.

i had several topwater bites in the 4+ lb range, but not overwhelmed by the ammount of fish.

im starting to wonder if the spawn has moved deeper, or we are moving into a post spawn scenario, but didnt have the tackle or time to switch up and see...

[RoLo]

im starting to wonder if the spawn has moved deeper, or we are moving into a post spawn scenario,

Warmer, I kind of doubt that it's either of those scenarios.

Each buck sweeps out many nest sites, I think it's like eating popcorn to a sex-driven male.

Anyway, based on years past the post-spawn in Lake Kissimmee

should not reach a peak before April, at least I've never seen it.

Roger

[warmer]

rolo,

what is the scenario w/ the beds im seeing? they are well defined. and vacant.  does that mean: front moves in and they are waiting to move back in? one wave has come and gone and another is coming behind it?

also, it seems to me that in early spawn like this i see a lot of beds shallow, but soon i dont see them as much, but i still catch spawning fish in a little bit deeper water.

[RoLo]

rolo,

what is the scenario w/ the beds im seeing? they are well defined. and vacant. does that mean: front moves in and they are waiting to move back in? one wave has come and gone and another is coming behind it?

also, it seems to me that in early spawn like this i see a lot of beds shallow, but soon i dont see them as much, but i still catch spawning fish in a little bit deeper water.

The act of nest-building is fueled by a strong hormonal drive, and every sexually mature buck will fan out many beds, not just one.

It's the same with some species of birds. They'll build a half-dozen nests but will only nest in one and abandon all others.

            The last time I was out (over a week ago), I seen hordes of bass beds in Lake Walk-In-Water, but something caught my eye.

Many of those nests were within 6 feet of one another! Parent bass in an active bed may claim a territory that extends up to 20-feet.

When I see nests crowded together in February (too early for bluegills), it tells me they were made by the same sex-driven buck

(like buck rubs in a sapling grove). Keep an eye on those light-colored discs and you'll probably notice

that most of them will begin to slowly silt over. For the pre-spawn period, this is pretty much business as usual.

Bass cannot change their spawning depth at will, it's dictated primarily by water clarity (27" mean).

During inclement weather, bass will definitely move off an active nest. During the first opportunity however,

they will pickup where they left off. Whether or not consecutive days of adverse weather

can cause a missing year-class is debatable, but in my opinion it can.

Roger

[FD.]

Feb 24 out of Camp Mack

Weather - Foggy and 60 in the morning, mostly cloudy and mid 70's in the afternoon.  Water - mid 70's

7 bites, 5 fish boated.  12lbs with 4 legal fish - 14"+

1 fish in am on a blue/black chatter bait- 4-5' water on isolated pencil reed island in lake Hatch

2 fish around 11 on a frog in the deep madencaine in Canoe Creek

1 fish at 1pm on a frog in 4' maidencane in Hatch

1 fish at 2pm on a frog in 4' maindencane in the main channel near Camp Mack.

Saw lots of beds with no fish on them.  Seems that I caught all staging fish.  Reaction baits is what was working.   Not 1 hit on a soft plastic.

[warmer]

feb 25th kissimmee, south end. noon - 3:30

2 in the 3lb range pitching 10" worm to visible fish on beds. females.

2 in the 2- 2 1/2 range on white spinner bait in 3-5 ft of water outside good spawning area and one large missed fish (just saw the boil and felt him for a moment)

3 2lbers on toad in clear water pads w/ grass mixed in.  and about 6,000,000 gar following and/or striking.

[RoLo]

Feb 25 - South end of Lake Kissimmee (I must have past Warmer today)

> Rat-l-trap: 5

> Culprit worm: 1

> Zoom Fluke: 1

All bucks again, nothing over ~2.5lbs >

Though I spent most of my time with the fluke, the lipless plug was today's winner.

At boat-side I lost what may have been my PB chain pickerel!

His head looked like a northern pike (fell for a rat-l-trap).

Get this, my wife caught a 12" crappie on a rat-l-trap.

All but two bass came from maidencane, one from spikerush and one from spatterdock.

Most of our action was along the south side of Brahma Narrows and at the South Lagoon near the 60-bridge.

We bombed at the slough, which was lousy with boats but we didn't see one bass taken...go figure.

Roger