Video Testimonial from Keith and his son after their Florida Bass Fishing Trip
Dwayne and Barb
Video Testimonial from Dwayne and Barb after their Florida Bass Fishing trip
Butler Chain and Johns Lake Bass Fishing Report April 2009
Orlando Bass Fishing Reports
The first half of April has seen some good bass fishing action. Most of our trips have been done on Butler Chain and Johns Lake. Although we have seen some rather strange weather for this time of year for us, with a cold front coming thru, the action has remained steady for the most part, with us having to work harder for our bass on the day the cold front slammed us.Most of our action on Butler Chain has come from docks, wacky rigged Gitem KO’s and weightless Warlocks in Green Pumpkin have done a great job catching bass up to 5 pounds.
When docks have slowed in producing bass, we have moved to the cypress trees, tossing baits at the trees and letting it fall straight down to the base of the tree, this has triggered some very good action for us.Johns Lake has seen scattered schooling action fist thing in the mornings, usually just as the sun makes it half way thru the Deer Island cut. Docks have been excellent producers as well as my drift pattern thru the middle of the main lake, tossing Steel Shads, these baits have caught us a ton of bass out there, as well as a few 1-1/2 pound crappie. Offshore scattered grass beds have been holding some bass with the Twin Liz rigged with 1/8th ounce weight catching them all. We have caught a few bass on 1 ounce spinner baits, but that bite has not been consistent enough to keep us using them.The last half of April continued with some good bass fishing action. Butler Chain and Johns Lake have been the choice lakes to catch bass.
Johns Lake has been doing good for my clients wanting to use live bait. Early morning schooling action in both of the cuts have been good for numbers.Steel Shad worked in the middle of the lake on a drift pattern has been simply awesome at keeping the action going steady. Docks have held some quality bass using the Gitem KO whacky rigged as well as skipping a Gitem Sugar under docks.Butler Chain has seen some very good action around docks with Gitem Curly 7’s and KO’s. Areas with grass and lily pads have also been good producing areas to close out the month. Lakes Butler and Tibet have been the top producers, with some very good early morning action, once the air temperature warms up, it’s a lot of flipping and skipping.We have filmed a few more fishing shows which will be airing soon on our other site along with another Skill Zone episode showing how to tie a few more fishing knots. Be sure to check it out as we continue to add more content and videos weekly.
Butler Chain Bass Fishing Report May 2007
Orlando Bass Fishing Report
The past two weeks has seen some good bass fishing out on the Butler Chain. The two main lakes that I have spent most of the time on have been Lake Sheen and Lake Pocket, they have not only been producing some good numbers but some descent sized bass on a pretty regular basis. With the water temperatures on the rise, the bass have gone full swing into their summer pattern, with the early mornings still getting some top water action, before having to really slow down your approach to catching the bass. Most of my recent trips have been using soft plastics, either wacky rigged Gitem K.O’s or 7 inch worms rigged with a Spot Sticker or Spot Remover worked in and around grass beds with deep water drop offs close by. The more quality bass have come with the deeper water drop offs close by, with a few good bass in the 4 to 5 pound class coming on a drop shot.
Two week period ended with Anthony having a good time on Butler, mixing it up between wacky rig K.O’s and some top water action, catching some good bass on top water and he was amazed at how well the bass fought him, and how strong they were, thinking he had a 5 to 6 pounder on, but when he landed her she was just over 3 pounds. We had to work hard for our catch that day, but Anthony caught some good bass and even mustered up some top water action in the heat of the day.
The chain as a whole, has not had the typical schooling action like we had last year, but the top water bite has still been there in the early AM and late afternoon. For soft plastics, watermelon and watermelon red have been the dominate colors.
This past week on Butler Chain has once again seen some great bass fishing. I had spent two days out there by myself mainly doing some scouting working shallows and deeper waters, and to check water levels in all the canals. Canals are getting very shallow, having found myself having to trim the motor way up to navigate thru them, only lake I did not go into was Fish Lake. This canal is ¼ mile long and is usually the first canal to dry up when we go through a drought like we are and I was banging bottom out there back in February. Only canal you need to really be careful in is the canal going from Lake Louise to Lake Butler, just past the overpass, there is that concrete slab that you will hit as it is very shallow to one side.
Main areas that I had fished were once again Lakes Pocket, Sheen and Tibet. I had tosses a few crank baits with very little success, higher winds had pushed me to working calmer sides of the lakes and some slow fishing using T-Rigged Gitem K.O’s and wacky rigged K.O’s. Bill Thomas and the gang were out there Friday with me with shiners in tow and the artificial bite blew away the live bait, 4 hours and only one bass on live bait, but they did get a few hits and a couple misses on top water, with Bill getting hammerer on a High Roller ChugRoller only for this big gal, once again shake off on us. I’ll have to call this particular bass the Possessed bass, as Sid from last week and myself have hooked a bass in the same area with the same results, this gal has a lot of attitude.
Following that miss there was maybe 2 other bass landed on top water, along with a Gar and a Pickeral when we made a move and switched up to the wacky rigged Gitem K.O’s and they guys started catching the bass, with Wes getting hammered buy a sweet one, looking to be every bit of 5 to 6 pounds, she danced and made a mad run right under the boat and broke off. Day ended with a total of 17 bass caught n 4 hours of fishing!
Saturday was a total flip of the action we had seen all week long, higher winds and the look of rain all morning long had the bass bite way off, only catching one here and one there, with several missed hook ups. Most all of the bass caught this past week were on a wacky rig working real slow, with the key being grass beds with deep water drop offs very close by, grass beds were generally in 4 to 6 foot of water, with a drop off of 8 to 22 feet within 10 feet of the grass beds. Most all of the bass would just pick up the baits and make a run straight for those deeper water drop offs, so you really had to keep an eye on your line.
Johns Lake and Butler Chain Bass Fishing Report Dec 2008
Orlando Bass Fishing Report
December has seen some great bass fishing action on Johns Lake, Butler Chain and the private waters we have been fishing.
Private waters have mainly been for crappie fishing the past month, and it has been producing some very nice slabs. Bait we have been using have been the SteelShad and jigs tipped with crappie nibbles.
Most trips have been 4 hour trips with us boating between 20 and 30 per trip and they have been running from 1 ½ pounds to 2 pound slabs!
Johns Lake we have spotted bass beds all over the place! Its that time of year for the big gals to show their faces and make clients very happy, as was the case with a father and son trip of Bruce and young Dave. Bruce had been tossing Gitem Warlocks and getting bass here and there, very scattered around the lake and towards the end of the trip, young Dave working a wild shiner got the wake up call of a lifetime! A beautiful and very solid 10.14 pound largemouth bass, let me tell you, this youngster handled this hawg of a bass like a pro! Our main areas of concentration on Johns Lake has been scattered and isolated grass patches, docks and a few areas of open water holding some good hydrilla.
Butler Chain has also had some good action going on, Bass beds have been spotted all over the chain. Altho the beds we have spotted have been for the most part empty right now, we have caught some very good bass in the general areas that the beds are. Areas we have concentrated on have been grass beds very close to drop offs, as the bass have been staging to hit the beds. Butler itself has been the main producer for numbers and size with several 6 pounders being caught on anything from steelshad, gitem warlocks and spinner baits.
Please remember to catch and release, and this time of year, be especially gentle with the big gals, afterall they are what make fishing in florida awesome!
Johns Lake, Butler Chain and Harris Chain Bass Fishing Report May 2008
Orlando Bass Fishing Report
The month of May has seen some very good bass fishing action in Orlando. For the most part Johns Lake has been the place to be. Even though we have seen very limited schooling action in the mornings, we have caught some good schooling bass in the cuts, mainly Deer Island cut. Bass have been hitting on Gitem Warlocks around isolated grass patches, rigged with a very small bullet weight and worked very slowly.
Several areas in mid lake with hydrilla have been producing some quality bass using 1 ounce Sugoi spinner baits, Steel Shads and 10 inch worms. Several days of higher winds than normal had us working docks that were wind blown, which had been holding bass, some docks producing as many as 3 bass, which makes for a very good day.
Live bait has been producing ok, but we have been out catching live bait with artificial baits sometimes 3 to 1, clients really love this, as it is just that much more fun to catch bass using plastics.
Butler Chain has been fishing pretty good. Lakes we have worked have been Butler, Chase and Blanche. Butler has been a great lake to start the day out early on in the mornings, from there moving over to Lake Chase has been the ticket. Numbers and bigger bass have come later in the day on Lake Blanche, working the docks and the deeper drop offs very slow worming. Altho the bite has been what we call a “small tick” instead of the aggressive hits, quality bass have been caught.
For the most part, water levels on Johns Lake and Butler Chain are not too bad, Johns Lake, we do have a few sand bars to watch out for, one right at the ramp area, one coming off the point going into the main lake area, and one going into the Horse shoe area. Butler Chain the canals could use some water, but the levels are still safe to pass thru, and with the rains the last few days, should help out with those levels.
My tournament partner and I did venture out to Harris Chain mid month to fish a Fishers Of Men Tournament, with no free time to practice out there, we went according to old notes from years past and they paid off pretty good. With some tough fishing, we did get into some schooling bass, but we could only get them to hit very small floating Ugly Duckling crank baits, once we had our limit, we switched up to one ounce spinner baits and covered a lot of water to cull some smaller bass, with a nice 5 and change bass slamming a spinner bait, landing us in 11th place, just 2 spots from the money, which equaled out to a pound, also missing second big bass by a matter of ounces.
Waters at the ramp on Harris were very low, with only one of the ramps open, and apparently a boulder sitting at the end of the ramp making launching and pulling out entertaining to say the least. Next months tournament is State Championships on Lake Rousseau and from there we go to Southeast Regional’s the end of October, site still to be determined.
