Overcast skies give some relief from heat

1274

Jim-Keck-Goin-FishinHello Folks, I hope everyone had a great weekend and you got a chance to get on the water and do some fishin’. It was a little windy, but it was overcast, so with the breeze, it wasn’t too hot on the water. Folks are catchin’ some nice stringers of panfish in most of the lakes in our area, including some nice stringers of bluegills and shellcrackers in Lake Woodruff, Lake Monroe, and the St. Johns River. You can drift open water with crickets and if you get on a bed of ‘em, try fishin’ with red worms. There are plenty of panfish on the beds. Rick and I ran across a couple of beds of bluegills while we were fishin’ in the Harris Chain over the weekend. We only have a couple of months left in summer so get your poles and a bucket of worms or a tub full of crickets and let’s go fishin’. The bass fishin’ is still goin’ good if you get on the water real early. The early-mornin’ bite is still the best time of the day to catch some bass. Folks are gettin’ on the water at daylight and catchin’ bass on plastic frogs and toads. You need to fish the grass-points and the pads. You can also fish the edges of the shoreline with noisy top-water baits at first light. If you fish the St. Johns, try fishin’ the feeder creeks and any place that has a run-off from the afternoon rains. Look for schoolers in the river and keep a lipless crankbait tied on to one of your rods. You can also Carolina rig a plastic worm to use around the shell-beds for some good results. The Kissimmee Chain has been good for bass fishin’ the last couple of weeks. Folks are catchin’ some nice bass in the areas where there is some runnin’ water from the afternoon rains. Plastic worms, crankbaits, and spinnerbaits have been workin’ the best. The Butler Chain has been another good chain to catch some bass, as well. Folks are gettin’ on the water real early and catchin’ some bass along the shoreline cover with plastic worms and slow-sinkin’ Senko-type baits. You can also try buzz-baits or a swim-bait fished on or around the cover. Once the sun gets up, you need to move to deeper water and fish the submerged hydrilla or eel-grass beds with slow-sinkin’ type baits. Rick and I got on the water over the weekend after my two-month sabbatical. We decided to fish the Harris Chain hopin’ to catch some bass by flippin’ the heavy cover and docks after the sun got up. Well, as you know, on Saturday, it was windy and overcast most of the day, so we started fishin’ the shoreline on the windy side of the lakes. We figured that the wind would blow the bait-fish to the shoreline and we could catch some bass around the outside cover. We had one of the best days on the Harris Chain ever. We caught and released 14 bass up to six pounds. Rick caught two of the smaller bass and, of course, he caught the biggest bass. The rest of the bass we caught were all good keepers. The bass were in good shape and we were quite surprised how great they looked. We caught all our bass on slow-sinkin’ Senko-type baits. I just hope that this is a good sign of things to come on the Harris Chain. Well, I hope you have a great weekend and I’ll see ya next week. Tip of the week: fish the windy side. Save a few and good luck!