Hello Folks,
If you haven’t been fishin’ in the past couple of weeks, now is the time to go. The fishin’ is really in full swing and folks are gettin’ on the water and catchin’ plenty of fish. The specks are bitin’ and so are the bass.
Danny at Bitter’s Bait and Tackle reports that folks are catchin’ plenty of specks in Lake Monroe and Lake Jesup.
Just about all the specks are bein’ caught on minners. You can even catch a few specks off the seawall in Sanford. Folks are catchin’ some specks in the Harris Chain as well.
The bass fishin’ has really been good especially in the Harris Chain. BASS held a tournament there last week and they weighed in lots of bass. Congratulations to Buddy Gross on his win last week. Buddy weighed in 77 lbs. 11 oz. of bass over the course of four days. Buddy won a nice check of $100,000 for his efforts. Congrats to John Cox from Debary. John made the top 10 and also caught the biggest bass of the tournament. John’s big bass weighed in at 11 lbs. So, lots of bass caught and released to fight another day.
The bass fishin’ is still good in the Butler Chain. Folks are gettin’ on the water and catchin’ plenty of bass in the 1-pound to 3-pound range. My neighbor John and his nephew Chet fished there last week and caught and released 22 bass up to 2.5 pounds each. They caught most of their bass on jigs, speed worms, and slow-sinkin’ Senko-type baits. I’ll say one thing, those guys love to fish, and they are pretty doggone good at it, too.
On the Kissimmee Chain, the bass fishin’ is goin’ great guns. Folks are catchin’ lots of bass on top-water baits early in the mornin’ on West Lake. Lake Mary Bassmasters held its club tournament on West Lake last weekend.
The tournament was won by Debbie who works at Bitter’s Bait and Tackle. She caught a six-pounder and a five-pounder to go with her other keeper fish. Debbie reports that she caught her two biggest bass on top-water baits. If you go by the store, she might tell you what lure she caught her big bass on that mornin’.
I got a chance to go fishin’ last week. I fished with my buddy Rich Niles from Mount Dora. We caught and released 12 bass durin’ our trip. Rich caught most of the bass includin’ a four-and-a-half pounder. I was able to get a couple of bites and one of those bites was an eight pounder. She was full of roe and I released her so she could do her thing. We all want to keep our bass populations growin’ and the best way to do that is supportin’ the catch-and-release program that really helps the bass continue to multiply in all of our lakes and rivers we get to fish, especially durin’ spawnin’ time. If you do catch a female, take a quick picture and get her back in the water as soon as possible.
Well, that’s it for this week. I hope you get a chance to go fishin’ this week and I’ll see ya next week.
Tip of the week: Fishin’ is good.
Save a few and good luck!
