Hello Folks,
It’s been a couple of weeks since I put my article together for our readers. I had to have another back surgery and I was out for another 10 days. I’m recovering at home now and will hopefully be on the water real soon.
The fishin’ hasn’t been too bad and folks have been finishin’ up speck season. If any specks still need to spawn, they probably did it this week with the full moon on Monday of this week. There may be a few specks left for next month, but most likely, they are finished and gettin’ ready for their summer pattern. Some folks fish for specks all year long, but when the specks move to deeper water in the summer, you just have to have a lot of patience to find ‘em. Once you locate a school of ’em in deep water, you may be able to get your limit.
Startin’ next month in April, the bluegills will be spawnin’. Bluegills start spawnin’ in April. They will spawn all summer long with the peak months in May and June. When the water temperature rises to about 75 to 80 degrees is when they do their thing.
The bluegills will spawn all summer on each month’s full moon. You will see large slicks on top of the water and you will also see places where the bluegills fan out depressions in the sand. Once you locate the beds, you should be able to catch a limit of bluegills in a real short time. The best baits to use for bluegills are red worms, crickets, and grass-shrimp. You can also catch ’em on Beetle Spins, Road Runners, curly tail jigs, or any other small jig-type bait. These panfish are a lot of fun to catch. When you get on ’em, you will have a blast catchin’ them.
Bluegill time is family time. You need to go fishin’ with your family, especially if you have children. They will have fun catchin’ one right after another when they start bitin’. You will stay very busy takin’ the fish off the hook. The children will be sayin’ “Hurry up Daddy (or Mom). They are bitin’– put another worm on my line so I can catch another one.”
The bass fishin’ has been pretty good as of late. Folks are catchin’ some bass in the Butler Chain, the Winter Park Chain, the Harris Chain, and West Lake Toho. Rick and his brothers-in-law finished up their fishin’ trip before my surgery. They decided on the last day they would fish the Butler Chain. They caught over 40 bass that day. My buddy Rich Niles fished Lake Yale over the weekend and it was a little slow. He only caught 3 bass up to 3 pounds. It was a little windy and he decided to fish the Winter Park Chain. He caught and released around 10 bass up to 4 pounds.
I’m sad to report that our friend Brian Slover has passed. He fished his bass club’s classic on Lake Okeechobee and won the classic. The next week Brian went back down on Thursday to practice for another club’s tournament on Lake Okeechobee. That Thursday mornin’ he had breakfast with Bill Trevino and his fishin’ partner. Brian went to the ramp to launch his boat. As Trevino and his partner were headed out to fish, Brian had a massive heart attack, and passed. There will be a benefit bass tournament in his honor, for his family, this weekend on the Harris Chain. The tournament will be held on Saturday, March 30th, at Hickory Point on Lake Harris. The entry fee is $60 dollars per team and the big bass pot will be $10 dollars entry for the biggest bass. After the tournament, they will hold a celebration of life at 3 p.m. at Hickory Point. Our thoughts and prayers go out to Brian’s family during this time.
Well, that’s it for this week. It’s great to be back and hopefully, I will be back on the water real soon.
See ya next week. Tip of the week: April for Bluegills
Save a few and good luck!
