Orlando Bass Fishing Report
The past two weeks has seen some good bass fishing out on the Butler Chain. The two main lakes that I have spent most of the time on have been Lake Sheen and Lake Pocket, they have not only been producing some good numbers but some descent sized bass on a pretty regular basis. With the water temperatures on the rise, the bass have gone full swing into their summer pattern, with the early mornings still getting some top water action, before having to really slow down your approach to catching the bass. Most of my recent trips have been using soft plastics, either wacky rigged Gitem K.O’s or 7 inch worms rigged with a Spot Sticker or Spot Remover worked in and around grass beds with deep water drop offs close by. The more quality bass have come with the deeper water drop offs close by, with a few good bass in the 4 to 5 pound class coming on a drop shot.
Two week period ended with Anthony having a good time on Butler, mixing it up between wacky rig K.O’s and some top water action, catching some good bass on top water and he was amazed at how well the bass fought him, and how strong they were, thinking he had a 5 to 6 pounder on, but when he landed her she was just over 3 pounds. We had to work hard for our catch that day, but Anthony caught some good bass and even mustered up some top water action in the heat of the day.
The chain as a whole, has not had the typical schooling action like we had last year, but the top water bite has still been there in the early AM and late afternoon. For soft plastics, watermelon and watermelon red have been the dominate colors.
This past week on Butler Chain has once again seen some great bass fishing. I had spent two days out there by myself mainly doing some scouting working shallows and deeper waters, and to check water levels in all the canals. Canals are getting very shallow, having found myself having to trim the motor way up to navigate thru them, only lake I did not go into was Fish Lake. This canal is ¼ mile long and is usually the first canal to dry up when we go through a drought like we are and I was banging bottom out there back in February. Only canal you need to really be careful in is the canal going from Lake Louise to Lake Butler, just past the overpass, there is that concrete slab that you will hit as it is very shallow to one side.
Main areas that I had fished were once again Lakes Pocket, Sheen and Tibet. I had tosses a few crank baits with very little success, higher winds had pushed me to working calmer sides of the lakes and some slow fishing using T-Rigged Gitem K.O’s and wacky rigged K.O’s. Bill Thomas and the gang were out there Friday with me with shiners in tow and the artificial bite blew away the live bait, 4 hours and only one bass on live bait, but they did get a few hits and a couple misses on top water, with Bill getting hammerer on a High Roller ChugRoller only for this big gal, once again shake off on us. I’ll have to call this particular bass the Possessed bass, as Sid from last week and myself have hooked a bass in the same area with the same results, this gal has a lot of attitude.
Following that miss there was maybe 2 other bass landed on top water, along with a Gar and a Pickeral when we made a move and switched up to the wacky rigged Gitem K.O’s and they guys started catching the bass, with Wes getting hammered buy a sweet one, looking to be every bit of 5 to 6 pounds, she danced and made a mad run right under the boat and broke off. Day ended with a total of 17 bass caught n 4 hours of fishing!
Saturday was a total flip of the action we had seen all week long, higher winds and the look of rain all morning long had the bass bite way off, only catching one here and one there, with several missed hook ups. Most all of the bass caught this past week were on a wacky rig working real slow, with the key being grass beds with deep water drop offs very close by, grass beds were generally in 4 to 6 foot of water, with a drop off of 8 to 22 feet within 10 feet of the grass beds. Most all of the bass would just pick up the baits and make a run straight for those deeper water drop offs, so you really had to keep an eye on your line.
