Fishing for Headaches

Doubletake - Flipping for Bass

a little cane and jig pitching with my boy donny.

NEW Colors: D&M Piranha Swim Jig

Double 8 Pound Bass

BIENVENIDO A MIAMI / P-CACK

Had some fun fishing for what I would call smallies x 10 = Peacock bass and Snook.  Lost a lot more than we landed but definitely a great way to mix it up after some rough times out on the lake.  Didn't experiment too much with baits relying on a classic Rebel Pop-R - something with some silver or a green back seemed to be the best bet - and a Rapala X-Rap 6 and 8 (same color rules apply).        

I haven’t had much boat experience fishing for Peacocks while living in Florida – this making really the second time we’ve really put the hammer down and gotten species focused for them - and I was amazed how much the summer patterns we picked up were analogous to smallmouth behavior this time of year.  Bites in the canals were all related to current and transitionary cover (a chunk rock bank to sand for example).  The canal fish were definitely more moody as well, clicking on and off throughout the day and completely shutting down in areas with large water clarity changes.  On the main lake it was like being back up north – every better bite had something to do with offshore structure.  We located a couple rock piles as well as a sunken boat in 7-8’ of water and the rainbow sided bulldogs were there - often times in groups of 2 or 3.  Crazy how smallie-like they behave!

Awesome couple of days took some tweaking to accommodate the masses of 1”-1 1/2” bait swimming around but once we got our presentations ironed out it was on.  We approached everything with 7’ M and MH spinning tackle spooled up with 15-20lbs braid (no leaders) – biggest mod we made (something we should have figured out way earlier) came on the final day  when we bumped up to heavy gauge #4 trebles.  Landing percentages went way up and we didn’t have to baby the fish as much – just let the drag and the rod tip do the work.  Got a bunch of video – most of it heartbreaking but cool all the same!

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Never Say Never - Even if it Never Happens

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 dénouement in the north about March.  Rarely – aside 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 31^st 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.