Never
Say Never – Even if it Never Happens
Florida
offers a diversity of fisheries by anyone’s standards. The St. Johns to the Florida Everglades,
natural lakes to impoundments… they’re all here. One of the most pertinent aspects of that
diversity relates to the largemouth spawn.
The elongated north/south geography of the state, the milder winter
temperatures, and the sheer size of the dominant largemouth populations spread
across the state make for one of the earliest and longest spawning seasons in
the U.S. That season however is, by
definition, an early deal. Normally
beginning in the very southern portion of the state in late fall (October/November),
it comes to a gentle d̩nouement in the north about March. Rarely Рaside from those years with a hard
winter season – does one find a wave of bedders, especially on southern water
such as the Big O after March…that’s the rule.
As I am continually reminded in other contexts Mother Nature doesn’t
follow generic rules, she’s much more apt to dictate by factors – and this year
those factors made an interesting exception: an end of April spawning wave.
Let’s
take a look at why it happened - in retrospect everything makes sense!
Mild
Winter with all the Wrong Fronts
Although
the Florida winter of 2011/2012 was fairly mild in comparison to the past few
years it seemed to stack up a ton of fronts at all the wrong intervals. Throughout the winter months I would locate
large waves of staging fish moving in from the main lake, however as they would
begin to shift into bedding mode a serious front would pass through and reset
the process. One of the keys here is
that this situation didn’t just happen once, but rather multiple times from
January on.
The
Scattering
Obviously
the badly timed fronts didn’t inhibit all the bedding activity. A mild wave came up in late October early
November and scattered fish trickled up through March. However, in comparison to the huge trans-lake
wave FLW anglers found during the 2011 Tour Open, spawning activity during 2012
was far more compartmentalized and spotty.
The
Drop
The
shad spawn was in full swing through March and intimations of bedding bream
were beginning to be seen on and around the grass lines. Both of these were strong indicators of the
post-spawn/pre-summer periods as well as rising water temperatures. The end of March gave way to a heat wave
pushing water temps into the upper 70’s and over 80 degrees following a sunny
afternoon; however April flipped the script.
I
left Lake Toho March 31st with water temps of 83 degrees, two weeks,
two fronts, and a handful of cool nights later I arrived at The Lake to find
water temps from 69-70 in the a.m. – peaking 73-74 degrees in the afternoon. The cooler nights held temps in the mid 70’s
through the end of April – probably the biggest factor in bringing up the last
minute wave of spawners.
The
lack of continual stable weather and thus mass spawning movements on The Lake
really paved the way for a nice late surprise.
Stepping back and taking in all the factors really points to a late wave
as a strong possibility but it’s tough to have such clarity on the water “at
the moment”. For me this was an echoing
reminder to keep general seasonal rules in mind but to be always making
decision based upon real time factors and what they point to.
Stay tuned for some
more in depth details on the one-two approach I took towards these fish as well
as the various presentations that accounted for 2 near 30lbs days.
