Orlando Bass Fishing Report
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.
Johns Lake has been pretty good on schooling bass first thing in the morning at Deer Island Cut. Spinner baits, rattle traps and a select few crank baits have done pretty good. Smaller swim baits like the curl tail minnow have been productive, as well as a 7 inch junebug worm crawled slowly across the bottom.
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.
Senko type baits, as well as trick worms have been catching some bass off of docks, as well as the drop shot worked along the docks and worked slowly thru the passes in the docks.
Water levels on Johns Lake have come up slowly with the rains we have been having, markers are out there still, marking the sand bars to make sure people and boats stay safe.
Butler Chain water levels are still great, lots of areas with some good productive flooded wood and some very healthy hydrilla make for some good action. Early morning top water action has been ok, with some scattered schooling around the chain. Most of our bass have been coming close to deeper water drop offs, but we have still been catching bass in less than 2 feet of water in lakes Chase and Blanche.
One ounce spinner baits worked thru grasses and hydrilla have produced some serious strikes, as well as working the steel shad, typically the gold one seems to have worked best for us. Several bass have been caught working docks, big key here was to really work the dock hard, and very slowly. Drop offs have been holding some quality bass, especially around submerged brush piles.
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.
The month of April has seen some great bass fishing action, as well as some tough action as the cold front came thru. This front grabbed a hold of us for a good two days, and after some very good bass fishing action, it really put a clamp on the action. Bass were still caught, but we did have to work harder for our catch. We had a few days of combo trips, working live and artificial baits, for the most part, the artificial baits we used were Gitem Warlocks and 7 inch ribbon tail worms, both worked with a 1/16th ounce bullet weight in and around grass beds.
Doug and Todd had two days with us on Johns Lake, the first day was once again very light hits on the baits, with winds still up and weather very cool to start the day, bass were scattered as we hit several areas to get our catch. Day two we had much better action with calmer winds and warmer weather. Big bass for them coming in at 5.13 pounds. 
The last half of April saw some good bass fishing on Johns Lake and Butler Chain. Schooling action on Johns had been very limited for us in the mornings, but always got the day off to a good start. For the most part on Johns Lake, our bass have been coming off some of our typical deeper water areas. Steel Shads and spinner baits being the best at catching the bass, a few have been caught on smaller series Ugly Duckling crank baits.
February has seen a lot of trips out on Johns Lake. Stan and Carol came for some artificial action and caught some good bass working Steel Shads and Gitem Warlocks. Bite was slow and bass were very scattered on this day. The following day saw us back out on Johns Lake with Grant from Canada, working some live bait and artificial baits, Granted boated 5 bass on live bait, and 27 more bass were caught working Steel Shads, these bass were just hammering the Steel Shads with TWO bass slamming the bait at the same time. Schooling action remained steady pretty much the entire day to keep the action going.
There have been a few days, doing combo trips, where the artificial bite has out produced the live bait, as Eric and Eddie saw, with 3 bass being caught in live bait, and another 11 bass coming on trick worms weighted and worked in and around scattered and isolated grass. Doug and the crew, fresh off the Daytona 500 had some good action catching some quality bass, with one of them coming from one of the coves, this bass not only took a shot a missed one shiner, but made a bulrush for a second one as we watched her dart along a grass bed after the bait, after landing her, she weighed in at a solid 4.9 pounds and was released to fight another day. Steel shad have also been producing some very good catches in open waters.
