lake Toho

Bass Fishing Forecast for May

With the weather calming down, cold fronts, or even cool fronts now a thing of the past, our water temperatures are now starting to warm up steadily. Early morning schooling action will be very common on Lakes Toho, Butler Chain and Johns Lake. Prop baits, torpedoes, buzz baits and toads will be very good early morning producers for some quality bass.

Grass beds and hydrilla will be very good areas to target using worms, senko type baits, spinner baits and shallow running crank baits. Depending on the body of water, docks will be holding bass as usual and typically some good quality largemouth bass.

Typical spring rains will have water flowing thru canals and creeks which will have bass ambushing bait fish off and on during the day. Rattle traps will be a great bait for these bass, as well as using for picking up aggressive bass and locating them quickly

Bass Fishing Forecast for April

Schooling bass fishing action is still here! Early morning top water action is usually off the hook. Even as the day warms up, you will still be able to get some top water action going. The spinner bait bite is a good bet for catching bass throughout the day, as well as using rattle traps and steel shad. This time of year is great bass fishing for everyone. Air temperatures are perfect, not too cool, and not too warm and water temperatures are very stable, making the bass fishing action good.

Lake Toho will see a lot of boat traffic, as everyone is really having a great time catching bass, and for those who just want to relax, the shiner bite is always good, but keep in mind you don’t always get to just relax, because the bass will be hammering those shiners!

One of our go to lures will be the steel shad. This lure has caught a ton of bass for us, and some quality bass up to five pounds. For those still searching for that trophy bass some big largemouth bass can be caught on buzz baits, spinner baits and rattle traps.

Bass Fishing Forecast for March

March is always a good month in Florida for Trophy Bass. Not only can you catch them on wild shiners, but you can also catch them on top water lures. Buzzbaits and toads will draw some vicious strikes and some fun action on the waters of Lake Toho and the entire Kissimmee Chain.

Rattle Traps, spinner baits and crank baits will make for some very exciting action on Orlando area lakes, catching bass on a regular basis throughout the day. Lizards, worms and senko type baits will also produce some quality bass and this is also the time of year when our cold fronts are reduced to cool fronts. Largemouth bass will be once again schooling up and feeding heavily on natural lake forage like shad and wild shiners, which also makes them an easy target for us to catch.

Lake Toho bass fishing is one of our main focuses, with such a wide range of cover to fish, from lily pads to hydrilla beds, to floating mats in mid lake, there is always some type of action going on.

Bass Fishing Forecast for February

February is typically a very good month for trophy bass fishing on Lake Toho and many of the Orlando lakes. Cold fronts coming thru can keep the air temperatures much cooler, so of course dressing in layers is highly recommended for this time of year. A lot of our focus is on World Famous Lake Toho, as this body of water is probably your best option at catching that trophy bass.

Your options for catching bass out here are wide depending on the weather. If we get hit by a cold front, we will consider having a dozen or two of wild shiners on the boat to slow troll behind the boat while we work spawning areas with artificial lures.
Your options for lures will range from ten inch worms to creature baits like craws.

We will target bass beds, but keep in mind that when a bass is caught from a bed we will take a picture and weight fast, and carefully release back into the water gently so we don’t harm her. Many times we have witnessed her go back to her bed, so if done properly she will not be stressed out and abort her eggs as many claim they do. We are also strictly catch and release with all bass, replicas of your catch are usually one dollar per inch more than a skin mount and will last forever.

Lake Toho Bass Fishing report Early Dec 2009

Lake Toho Bass Fishing

Bass Fishing the first part of December started out great on Lake Toho. Three days of bass fishing with Paul Fisler and HM1 Shane Gilley proved to be eventful and a lot of fun.

These guys were catching bass at a good pace every morning, with steel shad leading the way. These bass were in tune in a big way with the shad. The early bite was definitely key to every day, as once the schooling action cooled off, we found ourselves doing some moving around to catch bass. The south end of Lake Toho proved to be the best action.

Paul started Day one out, showing me his new spinner bait from Holeshottackle.com, and on the first cast of the day got the hook up. After that we spent the majority of the time catching bass with the shad. We had one main area that we fished every morning with great success, bass played very good and kept the action steady every day. Once this action died off, we moved around working Gene Larew craws catching bass scattered across the southern end of lake toho. Tried some senko type baits but got no action with them, and managed only one follow on a Gambler Flappin Shad. Despite higher winds on Wednesday, we still caught bass scattered on toho, using steel shad, with Shane basically just trolling one behind the boat. For the most part, the bite with soft plastics with a very light one, as Shane’s big bass just picked up the bait and swam towards the boat with it before he realized he had something on the line.

JJ’s Dippin Dye was a big help on the boat as well, with the light bite, I honestly believe this product made a difference, as the first few bass that hit, let go fast that is until we started dipping our baits. Great product, and you only need to dip your plastic once, as this penetrates the plastic and trust me on this, it stays and works!

Lake Toho Bass Fishing with Steelshad

Paul Fisler and HM1 Shane Gilley catching bass on Lake Toho using steelshad. They caught a bunch of schoolie sized bass and had a great three days of bass fishing.

The SteelShad have probably been one of our most productive baits for several months. These baits have been catching everything from slab sized crappie to some pretty darn good bass. These lures have been very good for clients and especially tournament bass fishermen, as they can load the boat fast when your trying to get your 5 bass limit quickly, but don’t be fooled, the steelshad has landed plenty of bass over five pounds.

Keep in mind, these baits are the perfect size to mimic bait fish such as shad and wild shiners, the flash and the tight wobble of this lure make it very attractive to feeding bass as well as lethargic bass. There are several ways you can work this lure. Steady retrieve will usually produce some pretty good strikes with it, but one of my favorite ways is to do a yo yo retrieve, that’s where while your retrieving the lure, you raise and lower your rod tip, causing the lure to come back in a erratic up and down motion. This has proven to be very effective and it seems to really get some of the bigger bass to be more aggressive.

For the crappie guys, we have fished this lure slow and deep, almost like slow rolling a spinner bait for bass, every now and then you will lose the feel of the lure, this typically is when the lure is hit from the side, but the crappie did not get hooked up. When reeling this lure in and a crappie hits it, just a simple “lift” of the rod tip seems to have been good enough for setting the hook on the crappie. We have caught a ton of crappie from 2 to 2 ½ pounds like this.

With 5 colors to choose from, Silver, Gold, Trout, Red and Fire Tiger, you have plenty of options.