Bass Fishing Florida

World Class Florida Bass Fishing!

Butler Chain, Central Florida Lakes Bass Fishing Report Aug 2007

 Orlando Bass Fishing Report

orlando bass fishingThe past two weeks have seen some good bass fishing action on the Butler Chain, as well as a few other Central Florida Lakes. Butler Chain, the artificial bite has been holding pretty steady, with wacky rigged Gitem KO’s and Gitem Shads catching some good numbers as well as quality. Little Lake down has seen the best action, with Mike and his son getting a nice double, with Mike having his bass follow his shiner all the way to the boat as we were going to make a move. This bass struck at his bait twice, before finally getting hooked up, and his son immediately getting his hook up, had these two fighting side by side.

orlando bass fishingLake Down itself, seen some good action in the north east corner, with some scattered schooling action, small Storm swim baits catching some good numbers in the deeper drop offs. Lakes Sheen and Tibet have held the same pattern now for several weeks, whacky rigged and T-rigged Gitem KO’s catching bass in and around scattered grass beds.

Most of the bass being caught are currently in the 8 to 18 foot depth range, with a good majority of them suspended right along the drop offs in 10 foot of water. There has been some schooling action on lakes Tibet, Sheen and Lake Down, but for the most part, this action has been limited and usually early on in the day. Watch your electronics, as we have come across some big bait fish pods on lake down, with some good quality bass being caught in those areas.

I have also been scouting an old lake I used to fish years ago, a small Orlando lake, this lake is only 205 acres in size, but has some good bass in it. Early morning top water bite has been with the Secret Weapon Lures BuzzrBait and the Original High Roller 3.25 inch. Top water bite has been around the coontail in deeper waters with some very aggressive hits, with the top water bite dropping off by 8am. From there, moving into deeper waters and working the Storm swim baits have been the ticket to catching some good bass.

Scattered grass beds have been a good ticket also, catching several schoolie sized bass through out the day with Gitem KO’s and Shads, deeper water coontail beds have been good with 10 inch worms with ¼ ounce weight pegged for the quality bass. Being a line watcher is a big key, as the bass have just been picking up the baits and swimming off slowly, usually heading to the deep water drop offs.

Butler Chain Bass Fishing Report June 2007

Orlando Bass Fishing Report

orlando bass fishingTop water bite has been doing ok, with Lake Louise seeing the best top water action for us. Secret Weapon Lures Buzzrbait has been a good do to bait, as well as High Roller Chug Roller. Hits have been aggressive. With the consistent rains, Lake Louise has been dirtied up, waters going from clean to coffee brown.

Soft plastic bite has been doing good, with a wacky rigged Gitem K.O once again catching not only good numbers, but good size as well. Lakes Sheen, Pocket and Chase have yielded the numbers and size, up to 5 pounds for us as of late. Working grass beds and scattered docks has been the key to catching bass, as well as working your baits very slow.

Did make a run into Fish Lake, a lake which I have not been in since early January, waters back then were so low in the canal, the bottom of my boat was banging the canal bottom. Going thru the canal, which is a ¼ mile long, I had to use the trolling motor, holding it up just below the surface of the water to get back there, and there was a tree blocking the canal toward the end, which saw me and my partner standing in the canal, him pulling the boat, and me pushing it around the tree to get to the lake. We finally made it back there and started to work the lily pads, swimming lizards across the lily pads getting several blow ups, with him missing a hook up on the edge of the pads, with what would have been an easy 6 pounder.

Rains have held the water levels pretty steady, finally getting water back into the lakes, with water temperatures holding around 84-86 degrees by days end. Limited schooling action in Lakes Pocket, and Tibet the last few days.

orlando bass fishingMy old tournament partner and I hit Butler Chain for a few hours, one to get him out on the water, and two so I could experiment with some new lures. We had started the day out on Lake Louise working a Buzzrbait from Secret Weapon Lures. This lure worked great thru the water and made a ton of commotion and after 5 casts I had the first blow up and what I thought was a solid hook up. Working the bass to the boat, she suddenly let go of the bait, what would have been a nice 5 pound catch, turned into a 5 pound heart break, she apparently had grabbed the small willow leaf blade that was attached to the Buzzr. A few casts later and another crushing blow up, a solid 3 pounder was in the boat.

From there we made a move into Lake Pocket, working the spinner baits from Secret Weapon Lures, and Gitem K.O’s wacky rigged. Switching up blade combinations on the spinner bait from a double willow to a double Colorado blade landed two more very solid bass, along with several others being boated off the wacky rig set up. These spinner baits made life so much easier, not having to always retie a new one on, just having to change the blades out, which was done in a matter of seconds. Bass seemed to relate once again to grass beds with deep water drop offs close by, and after getting a hook up, the were running to the drop offs. Lily pads were holding some bass of good size, as we had one in the 6 to 7 pound class break off just on the edge of the pads. Swimming a lizard slowly across the pads seemed to get the most hits.

Waters were running in the mid 80’s when we pulled off and did notice the levels have come up some, not much, but a good sign. Bass were holding in 5 to 8 foot of water and hit very aggressive, which made for a great day on the water, with us boating 12 bass, and missing/breaking off about 6 others.

 

Butler Chain Bass Fishing Report March 2007

Orlando Bass Fishing Report

orlando bass fishing This past week on Butler Chain had its ups and downs. Monday and Tuesday saw some good top water action on Lake Butler. During the early morning we saw a good amount of schooling action. Tuesday turned out to be the best day with bass being caught on High Roller ChugRollers in Fire Tiger. Big bass for the day came in at a solid 3.8 pounds, and just slammed the ChugRoller.

Wednesday I had the great pleasure of having Kathy Barker from ProBass Networks out on Butler Chain. Kathy surprised me thou, when we met at McDonalds she had Skip Collins from High Roller Lures there with her. What I thought was going to be a great top water action day on Butler, was anything but that.

The bass did not want to play fairly, as we did see some schooling action going on, but they avoided any and all top water lures thrown at them, Skip did manage 2 bass on his secret lure, while Kathy caught two more bass, with her landing the big bass for the day and the bragging rights. Only 5 bass made it to the boat, as the blue bird skies seemed to have just shut down the artificial bite.

orlando bass fishingThursday I had the McClain duo, husband and wife out on Butler. We started out with Margarita working live bait, and Carl with top water baits. There was very limited schooling action once again, but Carl was very determined to nail a nice bass on top water. He started out with an Original High Roller, but then switched to a ChugRoller. A very solid bass, in the 4 pound class came up to slam the bait. Carl said he felt her hit the lure so he set the hook, but she was gone. That, unfortunately was the end of the top water action for the day. Margarita continued to work the live bait, missing her first bass as it chased the shiner to the surface. She got too excited and the hook up was missed. After a few coaching words, Margarita didn’t miss another bass. We actually had to keep an eye on her, as she never said a word, we only knew she had one on when we heard the drag. Her big fish of the day came in at 5.1 pounds.

Mean while Carl was tossing around a Gitem Shad in watermelon red, with a small screw-in bullet weight. Flipping to grass bed edges, Carl managed some good quality bass, with his big bass of the day coming in at 5.2 pounds on the digital scale. These 2 had a great time on the water catching as Carl said “some good quality bass.”

Saturday we ended the week with my son wanting to head out to Butler and do some relaxing fishing using live bait. We hit Lake Butler and right off the bat he had the first bass of the day in less than 5 minutes of us being on the water. We pretty much just slowed trolled the live shiners around the grass beds with deeper water drop offs close by. My son landing 5 good solid bass caught within 2 ½ hours on live bait. A quick switch to a Fat A and he missed what looked to be close to a 4 pounder right by the boat. When he decided he was more than happy with his catch for the day, we headed back in.

Butler Chain and Johns Lake Bass Fishing Report March 2009

Bass FishingThe 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.

Johns Lake has started showing some limited schooling action in the Dear Island cut, steel shad and High Roller Rip Rollers have got some good action. A few docks have produced on Johns Lake for us the past month, but one of the biggest patterns seems to have been isolated grass patches worked with either the KO’s or the curly 7’s in Florida Grass color. A few bass have been caught on smaller crank baits in 2 to 4 foot of Bass Fishingwater as well.

Both Butler and Johns Lake the Crappie bite has been limited and very scattered, some being caught early morning in deep water, while majority have been caught around the grass beds, size of crappie has been down the last 2 weeks.
Private waters have been producing some very good numbers, along with some size, all bass have been caught on artificial baits with bass coming from docks and grass beds. Wacky rigged KO’s and Shad have been the way to catch them.

My reports have been slow coming the past 2 months but I should be back on schedule with them now, we have launched a new web site Thefishingtube.com which has taken up most of my free time. This web site is totally free so we want everyone to come join us, create yourself a member user name and set up your profile, you can upload pictures and videos. We currently have a teaser show filmed and uploaded with Pro Golfer JB Holmes and on our Skill Zone I am Hosting How to Videos. I would also like to welcome Deep South Fishing Rods to our family, as a sponsor on both our Fishing Show and my Guide Service. These rods are awesome, so please check them out.

Lake Toho

Lake Toho

Lake Toho in Central Florida Located adjacent to the City of Kissimmee in Central Florida. The 18,810-acre West Lake Tohopekaliga has long boasted a reputation among both … [Read More...]

Butler Chain of Lakes

Butler Chain of Lakes in Orlando Florida Butler Chain of lakes in order... 1.Lake Down is the northern-most lake in the Butler Chain with 872 acres of Fish-able clear water. Public Access is … [Read More...]

Current Orlando Fishing Reports

Lake George

Lake George Fishing The history of Lake George fishing dates all the way back to World War II. There’s even a bombing range on the lake that was operated by the US Military in Ocala National … [Read More...]