Hello Folks,
I hope you had a great weekend and you got a chance to do some fishin’. The bluegill and shellcrackers should fire off this weekend. We have a full moon today, Friday, April 19, so the panfish bite should be good.
Kyle at Bitter’s Bait & Tackle reports that folks are catchin’ some bluegills and shellcrackers in Lake Jesup and Lake Monroe. Lake Jesup has been the hot lake for panfish. East Lake has been good for bluegills and shellcrackers, too. Most of the panfish are bein’ caught on red worms. If the weather is good over the weekend, the speck fishin should be real good, too.
The bass fishin’ is still doin’ good in most of the lakes in our area and the bigger chains as well. Kyle reports some bass bein’ caught in the local lakes on shiners, plastic worm,s and slow-sinkin’ Senko-type baits.
The bass in the Harris Chain and the Kissimmee Chain have been bitin’ on plastic frogs and toads. You need to get on the water early and fish the shoreline cover like grass patches and pads. Kyle reports some nice ones bein’ caught offshore as well. The bass offshore have been bitin’ on shallow-runnin’ crankbaits, the Bitter’s Vibe. The best colors has been junebug and watermelon-seed with red fleck.
Rick and I got on the water last week and we fished a chain we haven’t been to in 20 years. We decided we needed to fish somewhere different, so we fished the Conway Chain last week. We caught most of our bass on plastic worms and Senko-type baits. We caught and released 17 bass. We didn’t catch any big bass but we had a good time on the water. There is a ton of small bass in the chain. If you go fish the chain, just know that you are gonna catch a lot of small bass but you could catch 6 pounder as well.
I also wanted to share an update for all of you folks who don’t have a boat but you still like to go fishin’ that the FWC has partnered with the Lake County Water Authority to install six underwater LED lights. These green lights will be installed at the Hickory Point public fishin’ pier on Lake Harris. These underwater lights will attract the baitfish and in turn will attract predatory fish such as largemouth bass, specks, and sunshine bass.
Over the past two years, the FWC has stocked Lake Harris with approximately 450,000 sunshine bass. The newly installed underwater lights will offer anglers improved nighttime pier fishin’ and an opportunity to catch some fish. Hickory Point is located off State Road 19 in Tavares.
The park is a muti-use facility and is open to the public 24 hours per day, 7 days a week. The great news is it’s free. So if you want to go fishin’, especially this summer when it’s so hot durin’ the day, maybe a night time trip to Hickory Point to fish will be on your agenda.
That’s it for this week. Hope to see you on the water.
Tip of the week: full moon.
Save a few and good luck!
