Orlando Bass Fishing Report
This report is for Wednesday the 24th, today I once again had the great pleasure of having Rod and his son Shawn back out on the Butler Chain, and once again the Chain did not let us down. This time we worked Lakes Chase and Lake Blanche and once again the bass did not let us down. Altho with a different weather pattern at hand, colder in the morning and much less sun than the previous day, we still got our catch, and almost got another 10 pounder.
Rod had a hook up with one that would have been bigger than the 10 pounder from the previous day, hooking up with her 4 times, first time she took him into the grasses and broke off, second time she got into the structure and worked loose, 3rd and 4th time she managed to shake off before getting to the boat, the back on this gal was huge as we watched her surface after his shiner 3 different times and the wake she kicked out had the guys excited for hours.
This is the time of year to catch some serious bass on Butler, and as Rod knows, not having caught a 10 pound bass until yesterday, and having a shot at 3 of them in 2 days, this chain does hold some very good action, as he said “ that was exciting seeing her do all that” as the big gal attacked his bait. Its always great to have a father and son on the water, catching quality bass and enjoying eachother, that, in itself made the day complete.
Today I had the great pleasure of having a great father and son trip on the Butler Chain.
Rod and his son Shawn wanted to get in on some great bass fishing action, and believe me, the bass did not let them down. The guys had opted for shiners and the bass agreed with their choice of baits, 2 minutes in to the trip, Shawn hooks up a beautiful 4 pound bass as she was cruising by one of many beds we spotted today. The guys were hooking bass here and there throughout the chain as we moved from Little Lake Down to Wauseon Bay, and over to Lake Chase. Every area we hit we had some action, and believe me folks, this was one of those days that dreams were made of, the guys caught one bass that was around 1 ½ pounds, and all the others were 4 pounds or better, with their best 5 bass coming in at just over 30 pounds.
The highlite of the days was when Rod had tossed his bait out, and in a matter of minutes the fight was on, this bass hosed his bait and ran all over the place, almost getting hung in the big motor, then making a move and almost tagging the trolling motor before Rod got her under control, and catching his first ever 10 pound bass, as this gal weighed in at a nice 10.25 pounds on the digital scale. Second biggest bass was caught by his son Shawn, which came in at just over 6 ½ pounds.
They did have another big gal hooked up but with a few shakes of the head, she found her way to freedom, close to having 2 bass over 10 pounds, but it just wasn’t in the cards for today.
This past week I had several trips out on Butler Chain, with the weather playing games with us, we watched bass going from beds to heading back to deep water drop offs. Several bass this week had been caught off beds in various lakes on the chain, using mostly Junebug lizards to get them. Lake Down and Little Lake Down early on in the week seemed to be the hot ticket to catching bass, in and along the grass beds as well as off of bed. Most of the beds spotted were in 2 foot to up to 8 foot of water.
After two days of a slight cool down, bass were pushed off the beds but you could still see and catch them as they were still in the general area of the beds, just cruising around, occasionally cruising thru the bed. A few days we had catches of 20 bass using nothing but weighted Gitem Shads and working them real slowly, as the cool down came, the bite did drop off but you still got your catch, just working very slowly.
Chris came down from New York and had some descent action on Butler, as he caught the tail end of the cool down, asking me to also fish with him, I got him up on the weighted Shads, which he had said he had never used them with a weight, I had tossed to shoreline and Chris made a cast close to the boat to check the action, I had landed a nice 2 ½ pounder, Chris had made his second cast right behind me, and instantly got hammered, and the fight was on, landing a very nice bass just shy of 5 pounds. The bite was very a light one, with you getting light taps, you had to let them take the bait and swim off with it some before you set the hook, other than the very aggressive one that Chris had gotten.
White spinner baits and a 10” Junebug worm were also catching bass, spinner baits had to be slow rolled and worked in and around grass beds, big key was having some type of drop off close by or other types of cover such as eel grass or hydrilla. Lakes that were fished this week on the chain were Little Lake Down, Lake Down, Lake Chase, Lake Tibet and Lake Sheen.
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. 
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.
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.
The first half of October has already seen some very good bass fishing action with some good catches. Most of our time has been spent on Butler Chain this month along with some scouting of other local lakes. For the most part bass have been tighter to cover on Butler Chain. We have caught a lot of bass working grass beds and docks with some bass coming from submerged structure in deeper waters.
There has been scattered schooling action out on several lakes on Butler Chain, with Lake Tibet and Lake Sheen being the top producers for us, with Steel Shads and 1 ounce spinner baits catching quality and numbers from these schools.
The month of September has seen some good bass fishing action, as well as some tough action. For the most part, the action has been pretty steady. Shiner bite has actually been very slow, but the artificial bite has been good. Johns Lake has been a good early morning bite using spinner baits and trick worms. Deer Island cut has produced some descent numbers, but the size has not been to my liking.
We did make a venture out to Lake Rosalie, one to check water levels after the tropical storm, and to alo see how the bite was doing out there. We started the day out with Rich tossing some shiners around, and not surprised, there was no action on the in the first hour, so we switched Rich to some trick worms. 
June and July have seen some good bass fishing action. Most of our time had been spent on Johns Lake, with a few scattered trips out on Butler Chain. This time of year is typically hot and usually with very little breeze to help keep things comfortable, so we have been doing a lot of 4 and 6 hour trips to beat the heat.
Once the schooling action stops, we have been hitting isolated grass beds as well as offshore hydrilla beds just below the surface. Seven inch junebug worms with a small bullet weight worked slowly has been the main producer once the air temperatures start cooking. We did have some limited success with drop shot in 12 to 16 foot water.
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. 
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.
