Hello Folks, I sure hope you had a great weekend and you got in some fishin’. It was a little hot but we had some overcast skies so it wasn’t too bad on the water. The fishin’ right now is doin’ pretty good in most of the chains in our area. Lots of folks are still catchin’ plenty of bluegills and a few shellcrackers in the mix. You need to drift open water with crickets and red worms. A few anglers are catchin’ some specks but we need some cooler weather to get the water temperature down. We have been gettin’ some rain and that’s helpin’ to get the water temperature down as well. Folks are catchin’ some nice stringers of panfish along the shoreline of the St. Johns River. Folks are catchin’ plenty of panfish around the pads and laydowns in the river. Take along plenty of crickets and red worms, and keep movin’ until you get on ‘em. The bass fishin’ in the St. Johns has been good and Lake Monroe has been a good lake to catch some bass. You need to get on the water real early and try fishin’ plastic frogs and toads around the shoreline cover. If you fish in the river, look for feeder creeks and the mouth of the canals for some runnin’ water. You usually find the bass hangin’ around those areas of the river. The Butler Chain has been off and on for a couple of weeks. Rick was out there last week and caught a few bass on slow-sinkin’ Senko-type baits and plastic worms. The bass fishin’ has been good in the Kissimmee Chain. too. Most of the bass are hangin’ around movin’ water that is flowin’ over a shell bed or where the current runs into the mouth of the lake. You will do best to locate movin’ water in all the lakes in the chain. If you get on the water early, try fishin’ the shoreline cover with plastic toads and frogs. Once the sun gets up, try fishin’ the submerged hydrilla and eel-grass beds throughout the chain. Rick also fished the Harris Chain last week and caught five bass up to 3 lbs. each. All the bass were caught on Senko-type baits. Rick and I got a chance to do some fishin’ over the weekend. We decided to fish John’s Lake due to a tournament on the Harris Chain. We got on the water at dark-thirty. We started fishin’ the shoreline cover where the grass line and the hydrilla meet. We got a couple of bites so we left and went to some other spots. We were able to find some fish along the shoreline grass with hydrilla mixed in with the grass. The hydrilla has taken over John’s Lake. It’s topped out in all the lakes. Places we used to flip have got hydrilla growin’ out from the shoreline grass and reeds out in lake 10 feet to 20 feet. In some areas of the lake, you can’t even get to the shoreline due to the hydrilla. We did have a good day on the lake. We both caught six bass apiece. Rick caught all the big bass up to 5 lbs. We caught all of our bass on slow-sinkin’ Senko-type baits. Well, that’s it for this week. I hope you get to do some fishin’ real soon, and let’s hope Hurricane Matthew doesn’t mess things up for the weekend. See ya next week. Tip of the week: Fish real slow. Save a few and good luck!
