Orlando Bass Fishing Report
The month of June has seen some good bass fishing action on both Butler Chain and Johns Lake.
Johns Lake has been good in the early morning with some good schooling action in the cut, as well as some in mid lake areas where hydrilla is present. Water levels are great out here with all the rains we have been getting, which in turn has made one of my favorite patterns very successful, and the is dock fishing! Skipping Gitem K.O’s under docks, as well as Bitsy Jigs have produced some good action as well as some good bass. As the heat of the day comes down on us, 10 inch worms worked in deeper waters, where grass and or hydrilla are present have kept the action steady.
Butler Chain has held pretty steady for us for the month of June. Again dock fishing has been a strong pattern for us, with a few days where the bass have seemed to disappear on us, we have found them deep in the slop. Under docks has been the Gitem K.O’s and Warlocks, when the bass have moved off the docks on us, we have tossed the Gitem Shad or Curly 7’s to the back of the grass or lily pads, and slowly swam it back out to get some good blow-ups and some solid hook ups.
We have had some days with a very light bite, you had to really keep an eye on your line and watch it, as some bass were just picking up our baits and slowly swimming them right back to us, we have made a slight adjustment to this, we added JJs Dippin Dye to our boat, and let me tell you, we had a day where the bite was soft, and we dipped the baits and got slammed!! This stuff really worked great for us, you can find a link for them on my home page in the Bass Fishing News box.
July we are expecting more of the same, early morning bite should still be productive with live bait or artificial bait. Even though we are in full swing of summer, with it getting pretty hot, the bass have still been playing pretty good for us, and once again as in years past, it seems the bigger bass have still wanted to show their faces in the heat of the day, all this requires is placing the bait in the right spot, which is generally tight to the cover, under the docks, or in the slop!
The month of May has seen some very good bass fishing action. Butler Chain has been producing some quality bass with a good majority of them coming from either under docks or the outside edges of the docks. Whacky rigged Gitem KO’s have been the best way to catch them under the docks, the slower fall of this bait helps keep it in the strike zone just long enough for the bass to hit it.
Johns Lake is still fishing the same and still one of my favorite lakes to fish. Some early morning top water action can be worked as long as you arrive early enough. Generally as the sun starts coming down the cut, the activity starts to pick up, first half of the month the top water bite was a quick bite in this area, usually lasting about a half an hour. From there we have generally worked the main body of water out in the middle working the Steel Shad and picking off some good bass.
We added a new twist to the fishing arsenal the last few days by getting back into saltwater fishing again. For years I did a lot of saltwater fishing but strayed away with my main focus staying on bass fishing, with the summer months now upon us, the saltwater fishing has been picking up very nicely and we have been catching a lot of good fish.
The next few months as summer heats up for us, we still fully expect a good bass fishing season and will be mixing in some saltwater runs for some more bull reds like Charles caught while we filmed a show for Reel Fishing, Charles managed to catch two bull reds, one on his first cast, again, it was another first, as Charles had never caught a redfish before, and he ended up catching two, one just over 40 inches and the other was I believe 35 inches.
The month of March has carried over pretty much from the same action we have seen in February, although the majority of the bass had already spawned, we still were catching some bass off beds, or cruising around the beds. Butler Chain we have been catching most bass just off the grass beds and under docks, wacky rigged Gitem KO’s have been doing great under docks as well as the curly 7’s.
water as well.
The month of February has seen some very good bass fishing action here in Orlando. We have had most of our focus on Butler Chain and one of the private lakes that I fish. Butler Chain we have had some good bass come off beds, despite high winds that had consistently pounded us along with what seemed like an endless run on cold fronts.
Most of our trips this month were with artificial baits, with steel shad and a wide range of Gitem Baits catching most of the bass. Steel Shad have been doing a great job in deeper waters when fronts have hit us, working them mostly in 10 to 16 feet of water, almost slow rolling them, with the very tight wobble and close resemblance of bait fish, these baits have been awesome.
Gitem Baits have been plugging the bass for us in and around scattered grass beds, offshore hydrilla beds and docks. The Twin Liz and the Curly 7 have been doing great tossing them under docks texas rigged with a 1/16th ounce screw in weight. The Gitem Curly 10 has been great pulling it thru heavy eel grass to catch some nice quality bass, one day numbers will be up, and size down, but only to be followed up with some very solid bass being caught the next day.
towards the end of the month. Shiner fishing has been doing good, slow trolling the shiners with no float around deep drop offs on Lake Butler itself has produced some quality bass. Lakes Chase and Blanche have also held some good action, Chase has been good in areas where the lay downs are as well as Blanche. Blanche has been very good around the docks as well as just offshore from the docks, finding the offshore hydrilla has produced some very good quality bass.
The month of March has carried over pretty much from the same action we have seen in February, although the majority of the bass had already spawned, we still were catching some bass off beds, or cruising around the beds. Butler Chain we have been catching most bass just off the grass beds and under docks, wacky rigged Gitem KO’s have been doing great under docks as well as the curly 7’s.
