baits - Bass Fishing Florida

Lake Toho Bass Fishing Live Bait

Lake Toho Bass Fishing Video

This day we used some live bait and caught a few good Largemouth bass before switching to artificial baits.

Central Florida Bass Fishing will cover many lakes. From Butler Chain of Lakes to Conway Chain, on over to Lake Toho. All of these lakes are within 20 minutes of all three major theme parks. Butler Chain is the closest lake to Disney World and can offer some very good bass fishing. Live wild shiners are typically one of the best baits of choice out here, or on any lake in Central Florida for catching those trophy largemouth bass. I get many clients that come down on that Disney vacation and they also love to bass fish, and this chain of lakes has everything they could ever want in Central Florida Bass Fishing.

This particular video was done on world famous Lake Toho. Lake Toho as everyone knows is probably the best place for bass fishing when it comes to catching the trophy bass in central Florida. Mix in Lake Cypress, Lake Kissimmee, Lake Rosalie, and lake Hatchineha and you have what is probably the best bass fishing in the world hands down.

Kissimmee Chain of lakes is well known to many as a place that will produce some serious trophy bass year round using the wild shiners, but it will also produce them using artificial baits as well. Some of the best baits out here are the zoom horny toad, the senko’s and prop baits. With the vast amount of vegetation out here, the areas of catching bass are unlimited and the techniques you can use are endless out here. Hydrilla is one of the key areas of many anglers focus, as the bass will relate to this cover, and when they do, one of the best options is flipping a meaty Gene Larew craw. Check back often as I will be adding more videos of bass catching with the different lures we like to use.

Bass Fishing Forecast for June

June is the start of our heat, and most people think the bass fishing season is over. This is far from the truth. Early morning action is still very good. Live wild shiners will still get good numbers of bass and some scattered size to five pounds. As the temperatures warm up during the day, the bite will get more scattered, but with targeted casting you can still catch largemouth bass during the heat of the day.

Lake Toho bass fishing is world famous for catching trophy bass, even during the summer months. This is where flipping and pitching will come in handy. Your focus in the heat of the day will turn to focusing on grass beds and floating mats, either punching thru or pitching your baits into “potholes” to target trophy bass. Idea baits are creature baits and tube baits.

Open water areas, with deeper waters holding submerged hydrilla will also be good areas to produce bass. These areas you can slow roll spinner baits, use shallow running crank baits and work ten inch worms to keep the action steady.

Bass Fishing Forecast for March

March is always a good month in Florida for Trophy Bass. Not only can you catch them on wild shiners, but you can also catch them on top water lures. Buzzbaits and toads will draw some vicious strikes and some fun action on the waters of Lake Toho and the entire Kissimmee Chain.

Rattle Traps, spinner baits and crank baits will make for some very exciting action on Orlando area lakes, catching bass on a regular basis throughout the day. Lizards, worms and senko type baits will also produce some quality bass and this is also the time of year when our cold fronts are reduced to cool fronts. Largemouth bass will be once again schooling up and feeding heavily on natural lake forage like shad and wild shiners, which also makes them an easy target for us to catch.

Lake Toho bass fishing is one of our main focuses, with such a wide range of cover to fish, from lily pads to hydrilla beds, to floating mats in mid lake, there is always some type of action going on.

Lake Toho, Butler Chain, Lake Kissimmee, Johns Lake and Harris Chain Bass Fishing Report July 2006

Orlando Bass Fishing Report

Butler Chain

Today we had a free day and used it to do some scouting out on Butler Chain.
Waters were 85 to start the day out and very clean as usual. Main purpose of this trip was to work a Carolina rig and see what bite would develop. Turns out it was the perfect ticket for the day.

We started out in Lake Down and Little Lake Down, Carolina rig with ¼ ounce weight and lizards were the big time key. Working the deeper waters, starting at the 6 foot mark and going into the 10-12 foot range we picked up several good bass on both lakes.

With a quick move into Lake Butler, we stayed on the same pattern for the rest of the morning, working the Carolina rig with watermelon lizards we picked up several more quality bass, with the day being capped with 3 very nice and solid 5 pounders. Total on the day was 22 bass with the best 5 going around 21 to 22 pounds. Key to the whole day was to work the deeper waters, hitting the drop offs and working very slow. Bass were picking up the baits and swimming to even deeper waters so you really had to stay focused on you line.

Butler Chain

Butler Chain for the most part this week has been a mixed bag of tricks.
Start of the week, Monday, was some of the best fishing, just about every lake hit fish were caught. Tuesday the front rolled in and the bite had totally changed, having to work a little harder to locate fish and get them to bite. Wednesday the rains really stepped up and we fished pretty much most of the day in either a light rain or a complete downpour.

Bass were very much more scattered than usual, with no schooling activity going on, normally you can troll slowly and ping fish in good groups, but the last two days the fish being pinged on the graph were more of a one here and one there variety. Thursday brought out some serious heat and very little breeze to speak of, which made the day on the water very brutal weather wise.

Baits used during the week ranged, from a day with shiners, to Gitem Toads, Shads, Warlocks and the Gitem Drop Shot. With waters heating up, the deeper water bite was the definite way to go to get your catch, working the 10 to 18 foot range was the best tactic and the best producer. Drop Shot in the deep holes, 18 to 30 foot produced a few good bass, as well as flipping the deeper water grass beds, beds in waters 8 to 12 feet..

John’s Lake

Today we were out doing some early morning scouting on Johns Lake.
The day started out at 5:30 working some buzz baits and managing to pick up 3 good slot sized bass. Schooling activity had picked up good today, better than it has been in recent trip out here. Made a move to the horseshoe area and the bass were schooling up in a big way, you could see several bass in the five pound class breaking water chasing the bait fish all over the place. We had several slaps at a spook but no
hookups with it, as they were slapping it right out of the water.

Made a fast switch to a drop shot and managed to pick up 3 bass before Making a move back to the main lake area. Pitching Gitem Shads into holes In grass beds we managed a few more descent bass, with one other being
Picked up on a frog and calling it a day around 10am as the heat started to Really turn on. Water temps were running 87.9 with pretty good water clearity.

Lake Kissimmee

Saturday the 22nd we spent most of the day down on Lake Kissimmee.

We had made the decision to start out south of the highway 60 locks and check out the river to see how fishing was down that way, we made the run all the way to the second set of locks and slowly worked our way back to Hwy 60.

Hitting the cuts and a lot of flipping did produce some descent bass but nothing to really brag about. There was very little water flow to speak of and with little to no breeze at all.
Most all bass related very tight to cover, with 2 others being caught on a white spinner bait.

Making our way back thru the locks, we worked the southern end of the lake picking up a few more descent bass. Water levels are way down, as was evident by the pontoon boat that got stuck not once but TWICE, pay close attention to water colors as you cruise, you will be able to spot very shallow areas to avoid.

Northern end of lake had some very nice hydrilla but we were not able to get any takers from it. Scattered trees and grass beds did hold some good bass along with an accidental snag of a nice crappie. Baits used were Gitem Shads, K.O’S and rattle traps in Chrome/Blue.
Tonite we start some more scouting to kick in nite trips to help avoid the brutal heat. Lakes we will be working will be John’s Lake and Lake Toho.

Harris Chain

Hello from HOT lake county, we spent the last 2 days out on the Harris Chain with a mixed bag. Fishing lakes Harris, Eustis, Dora, and Carlton had us running pretty much all over the chain. We had reports the fish were “very scattered” and boy were they on the money with that info. Tossing everything under, spinner baits, crank baits, Carolina rigged worms, and which bait was the reliable bait? DROP SHOT!!!!

Sitting up on Lake Harris at the mouth of the Dead River drop shotting yielded 3 bass and one small striper, moving to the opposite end of the chain, and again drop shotting in Lake Carlton yielded the exact opposite, 1 small bass and 3 stripers, big striper came in at 4 ½ pounds. Water a very dirty, but that is pretty much typical for Harris, water temps were running right at 90 degrees, surprised the bass weren’t half cooked at these temps! But as well all know, here in Florida, the temps will get even higher and the bass will still come out and play, we just have to work harder for our catches. Big key, hit the waters EARLY or switch to night fishing. Till our next report, tight lines, great fishing, and drink ALOT of water.

Johns Lake, Butler Chain and Conway Chain Bass Fishing Report Nov 2008

Orlando Bass Fishing Report

Things have been very crazy to say the least. We have had several trips to Johns Lake, Butler Chain, Conway Chain and a private lake.
Johns Lake has seen some good action, with early morning action coming from the Deer Island cut area working SteelShads and trick worms. Once the action slows in this area, we have been going into the marsh area working trick worms and brush hogs, all junebug colors, which have been producing some quality bass. Most of the action has been coming in open waters, with the baits being crawled slowly across bottom around grass beds and hydrilla. Main lake areas that have been producing for us have been the scattered isolated grass beds, once again, a single blade of grass produces a good catch. Jigs and whacky rigged senko type baits also have been producing around docks and submerged structure.

Butler Chain has also been pretty steady for us. Drop offs have been a major focus for us, tossing trick worms, craws and brush hogs into 16 plus foot of water, and slowly crawling the baits up into the shallower waters has been the ticket, most bass we have seen and caught have been suspended in 12 foot of water on the drop offs. Lake Butler and Little Lake Down have been the best producers for us, with Lake Tibet and Lake Louise also producing some good numbers.

Conway Chain faired pretty well, with once again deep waters being the big key to catching bass. Offshore weed beds were holding bass with rattle traps, steel shads and 7 inch worms catching the bulk of the bass. Several docks held some quality bass, with a whacky rig doing all the catching, as the bass would hit on the fall. Bite was light, so watching the line was big key to getting them out from under the docks.

The private lake we have been fishing on occasion has been producing very well. This body of water has seen some limited shallow water action, sitting in the middle of the lakes has been really producing some good numbers of not only bass but some 2 pound crappie. Steel shads have been the main bait for catching bass out there, and if worked like slow rolling a spinner bait, the crappie will slam this bait. Best crappie fishing action has been from 6:30am up to about 8am, then they just seem to shut down only getting a few here and there, very scattered, but you can usually get the limit by 8am. Best fishing waters have been in 12 to 18 foot of water, with bass mostly suspended in 8 to 10 foot of water, go deeper and you can catch some very big catch fish here also.

When we have gotten a good shallow water bite going, it has been mostly on brush hogs and trick worms crawled very slowly on the bottom. Water temperatures have been holding pretty steady in the low to mid 60’s with schooling action going on most of the day as the bass are really starting to feed up good for the spawn. We have been seeing some scattered beds on Johns Lake, Butler Chain and the private waters so get ready for yet another great spawning season.

Lake Toho

Butler Chain of Lakes

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