Thee Fishermans Soap

Folks I have to tell you I see a lot of new product all the time in the fishing industry, but this one really has me excited. I spend a lot of time on the water, which like many of you means taking some kind of snack or even a sandwich out on the water so we can eat during the day. Now you start catching bass and unhooking them to release them back into the water, or worse yet you have to handle live wild shiners, your hands will smell like bait or bass for the rest of the day.

Along comes Thee Fisherman’s Soap. The bottle is only 4 ounces so it will not take up any space on your boat and this soap gets rid of all that odor that comes with bass fishing, or any fishing for that matter. Good friend and professional bass fisherwoman Mary DiVincenti, the 2003 WBFA World Champion sent me a bottle down to try it out and it was awesome. Two small drops on your hands, a little water and you were good to go. That means no more thinking you’re eating a fish sandwich when it really a ham sandwich because the soap has eliminated all that fish smell from your hands.

Thee Fisherman’s Soap is also biodegradable so it is safe for the environment and does a great job of cleaning out the live wells on the boat to make sure the bait or the tournament bass are not in a dirty live well that could cause them to die off. All too often I have heard of guys cleaning their live wells with bleach to get them clean, and then having troubles getting rid of that bleach smell. Well here is the perfect product to solve all those problems.

You don’t have to limit yourself to just on the boat things. If you do fish fries, hopefully crappie and not bass, or you love any kind of sea food and handle it to prepare it for cooking, this is the perfect soap for getting that fish smell off your hands, it even gets that smell of onions out too! With the wide range of options to use this soap, I would have to say the options are unlimited. Get yourself a bottle at www.Fishermanssoap.com and see for yourself, trust me, you won’t regret it.

Brush Hog Bass In Florida

Today was supposed to be a day of pond fishing on some private waters, but that got shot down with no phone call as to when we were supposed to meet up. I loaded up the boat, even though it was a day off and headed to Lake Jackson.

The day started off close to the ramp, an area that has always seemed to hold a handful of bass every time, and always makes for a great start for the day. It is also a very good indicator as to how the bass are going to be biting. Water temperatures started out right at 60 degrees and the bass played right off the bat.

First five bass of the day were boated in the first 30 minutes of bass fishing. This makes for a great day. Tossing nothing but artificial lures, mostly Zoom Brush Hogs in Junebug Red color, which has been a great color for us out here.

I checked out several areas, mostly in less than 2 foot of water to check on bass beds and if anybody was home. Saw several buck bass lingering around the beds but no females. Started tossing a spinner bait and picked up a few more smaller bass, then I switched up to the Lake Fork Live Magic Shad.

This was a great switch up, that turned heart breaker. Tossing her past some reeds and swimming it back she gets hammered, wrapped around the reeds in an instant and SNAP goes the line. After making one last move for the day, I started out again working the swim bait and spotted a buck bass sitting on the bed, tossed the Live Magic Shad past the bed and swam right up to the bed and BANG the buck is on.

Released the buck off the opposite side of the boat and quickly tossed the Brush Hog to the bed, a few twitches and a couple ticks of the line, I was hoping the buck bass had not got this lure too. Line felt light and moved slow, I set the hook and it was the female. This folks is what bass fishing in Florida is all about. Tight lines and nice bass.

Florida Bass Fishing on Lake Jackson

This is a quick video of Bass Fishing in Florida. Tom Martin was on the boat with me for the day for some bass fishing action on Lake Jackson which is part of the Kissimmee Chain of Lakes and is located just south of Saint Cloud Florida. This body of water is in the Three Lakes Wildlife Management Area and has probably some of the best bass fishing action going on right now in Central Florida.

We had mixed the day up some using live wild shiners as well as some artificial lures to catch our bass for the day. The live wild shiners were doing great as they boated over 20 bass for us in under six hours of bass fishing.

Artificial lures we were using were wacky rigged senko type baits, zoom brush hogs and spinner baits. Main areas of focus for us was Kissimmee Grass and areas with a mix of Lily pads and hydrilla. These are areas that seem to always produce bass for us out here, and with this body of water being strictly catch and release with largemouth bass the fishing is always great out here.

For the most part, the bass out here will run in the two to five pound range and are very good fighters. Not the typical bass, which while fighting will go for that heart stopping jump, these bass tend to go deep, or as deep as possible in four foot of water and pull a lot of drag. Good numbers and good size make for a complete bass fishing day out here, and yes, there are the fair share of trophy bass out here as well, ranging from 7 to ten pounds. Lake Jackson is definitely a must try lake here in Florida, its just an often overlooked body of water.

Jan 2011 end of month Bass Fishing Report

The past two weeks has seen some very good bass fishing in Florida, especially on the Kissimmee Chain of lakes to include Lake Jackson.

Friday some really brutal weather here. Heavy rains, thunder and lightning, not what one would consider a good day for bass fishing. Well we ventured off to check out water levels anyways. Figured if the lightning stopped we would fish in the rain and see what would happen. Things worked out perfect for us. We hit the boat ramp just before 9am and the rain had stopped.

Water levels on Lake Jackson are still down, but with the rains this past week it has kept it steady and very fishable. We opted for fishing the flats and look for spawning bass. Bass beds were scattered all over the place but we really could not see much on them as the waters were muddied up from all the rain.

Spinner baits had tagged a few good bass here and there to help keep a steady bite going, but the bait of choice today was definitely the Zoom Brush Hog. We not only got some good numbers, 16 bass for just a few hours of checking things out, but nailed three very nice bass as well.

For the most part the bite was really soft, watching your line was very important. Most the bass caught were in very shallow waters with Kissimmee grass and lily pads close together. Bass caught on the spinner baits were in the lily pads, casting them to the wind blown side of the pads and working them right thru the lily pads would trigger a strike.

The Kissimmee Chain has been fishing very good this year and with the spawn starting to kick in things can only get better. Weather has been pretty steady this year, with two days of cooler temperatures and then the typical warm up, it is definitely not like it was this time last year.

Harris Chain Tagged Bass

Reap rewards for reporting tagged bass from Harris Chain of Lakes

January 11, 2011
Contact: Joy Hill, 352-258-3426

Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) biologists are requesting angler assistance with a research study focusing on largemouth bass in the Harris Chain of Lakes, which includes lakes Griffin, Eustis, Harris and others, in Lake County. The results of this study will provide critical information needed to improve largemouth bass fisheries.

To carry out this project, biologists have attached yellow tags along the back of the largemouth bass, just below the dorsal fin. These tags carry information detailing the reward value, a printed telephone number, e-mail address and a tag number.

So what can you do to help? If you catch one of these tagged fish, please cut the tag from the fish close to the fish’s body, then harvest or release the fish as you would normally. Please report your tagged bass by calling the number found on the tag.

Biologists would like to know the tag number, date and time of capture, where the fish was caught, fish length, and whether the fish was kept or released. Receiving this information is important for the success of this project, and rewards will be distributed to anglers who report complete capture information and return the tags to the FWC.

If you have any questions or would like more information about the largemouth tagging study, please contact basstags@MyFWC.com.

To view the most current fishing regulations for Florida, please visit MyFWC.com/Fishing.

For more information on fish and wildlife research and management in Florida, please visit us at MyFWC.com.

Week Ending Jan 15th 2011 Bass Fishing Report

Ari and Karl fished 6 hours out on Lake Jackson with me on Sunday and had a pretty darn good day. I believe final numbers were 16 bass boated and a few others missed. Bait of choice was wild shiners and it was a good choice for sure. The guys boated a couple bass that went three to four pounds with the big gal coming in just over six pounds.

Weather was great with a fair amount of wind, but was not bad at all as the day warmed up and the Dig in Anchor held the boat in place perfectly. Bass were relating heavily to structure, and that structure was sunken trees, if you tossed five feet short, you waited awhile for a hit, or didn’t even get one. Big key was placing it very close to the trees and let the wild shiners swim along them on a float set about a foot deep. For the most part the bite was not aggressive as it typically has been, this day the bass would mouth the bait and swim some before it would really commit to it.

This required patience on our part where it seemed at times we were letting them have the bait for twenty seconds before we could set the hook, and with the circle hooks they were set perfect right in the corner of the mouth like they should be. The guys did a great job out there and we all had a blast.

What can I say folks, with wild shiners in tow the Polley father and son team banged some serious bass out on Lake Jackson. They come down from Canada and Dan gave his dad a Christmas present of Florida Bass Fishing. The bass definitely did not let these two guys down as we had a steady bite all day long.

For the most part the bass were slow to commit to our offerings of wild shiners, just mouthing the baits and swimming some with them before really taking them. This meant patience once again on our part, but the guys got their hook ups and boated well over 20 bass for the day.

When the live bait ran out, we switched up to some artificial baits landing a few more bass, with several missed bass, as the bass we located were deep in the slop in very shallow water. We started the day out fishing in four to six foot of water with live bait, and ended it in under a foot of water, casting to basically just inches of water where the bass were chasing bait fish around.

The guys had a great day on the water and had a blast catching some great Florida largemouth bass. Nothing better than seeing a father son team enjoying some quality time on the water together.