Deeper waters are holding the bass when the cold front comes in, but the shallows are the place to be when the air temperatures warm up. Bass beds were spotted all over the place but were empty as the front rolled in and kicked up the winds.
Plenty of bass are being caught out here, you just have to know where to go to get them and what to toss to get them to bite. Live bait under a float is not always a sure bet to catch bass out here. When bass go deep, I try to tell people to get rid of that float and send the shiner deep, the success is much better when you do this. Bass we caught were in 8 to 14 feet of water and the guys were slow trolling live wild shiners right over the deep drop offs to catch their bass. Crappie fishing has also been doing pretty good out on the chain. A few locals have given me some reports of some pretty good limits out here using tube jigs and minnows in 10 to 14 foot of water and along the grass lines with deep water.
Capt Tim Fey
http://www.centralfloridabassguides.com/
http://www.bassfishingfl.com/
Saltwater runs have been nothing short of a total blast, Port Canaveral has had the best mix for us, catching snapper, jacks, blues and a few trout. The Wildlife Refuge has be super. We managed to catch a wide range of fish out here to include snapper, trout, a few small reds, and Erik capped off the trip by catching a very nice 22 inch Triple Tail, yet again, another first for him, great Job Erik!
August we did a little switch up, we did some fishing on Johns Lake and Butler Chain and had some pretty good trips on both bodies of water. Bass for the most part were holding tight to cover after we had some early morning schooling action on both bodies of water. Gitem curly 7’s in Florida grass and junebug seemed to be the baits that were on fire for us.
The switch up comes with us doing several saltwater trips which have been producing some great fishing action with us catching a wide range of species. Summer time has always been a great time for some serious saltwater fishing and as usual the fish have responded with every run to the coast. Port Canaveral has been one of our favorite areas to fish saltwater and our runs out there have been producing some good grey snapper, mutton snapper, blues, flounder a few trout and some slot redfish.
Live shrimp has been the main bait to keep the action steady and the rods bending, but the DOA Shrimp and the steel shad have had their moments out there catching the reds and the trout for us. Shrimp rigs we have been using a 1/0 circle hook with a split shot weight around docks and bridges to get our catch, with us catching between 30 and 40 per trip, this makes for a very good day of fishing.
July bass fishing has been good for us here in Orlando. Johns Lake as well as Butler Chain have been fishing pretty good, especially with artificial lures. Johns Lake the waters are up considerably which has opened up a lot of areas for the bass to get cover. Grasses have been a major key we it comes to catching them consistently. Swimming worms across the grasses have produced some great explosions on the surface, as well as catching some quality bass.
Butler Chain has been fishing as expected, with some top water action scattered around the chain and skipping under docks, the ones you can still skip under anyways, as the water is up! Gitem K.O’s have been a great producer on both Johns Lake and Butler Chain, as well as Curly 7’s in Florida Grass and Green Pumpkin.
Butler Chain has held pretty steady for us for the month of June. Again dock fishing has been a strong pattern for us, with a few days where the bass have seemed to disappear on us, we have found them deep in the slop. Under docks has been the Gitem K.O’s and Warlocks, when the bass have moved off the docks on us, we have tossed the Gitem Shad or Curly 7’s to the back of the grass or lily pads, and slowly swam it back out to get some good blow-ups and some solid hook ups.
We have had some days with a very light bite, you had to really keep an eye on your line and watch it, as some bass were just picking up our baits and slowly swimming them right back to us, we have made a slight adjustment to this, we added JJs Dippin Dye to our boat, and let me tell you, we had a day where the bite was soft, and we dipped the baits and got slammed!! This stuff really worked great for us, you can find a link for them on my home page in the Bass Fishing News box.
The month of May has seen some very good bass fishing action. Butler Chain has been producing some quality bass with a good majority of them coming from either under docks or the outside edges of the docks. Whacky rigged Gitem KO’s have been the best way to catch them under the docks, the slower fall of this bait helps keep it in the strike zone just long enough for the bass to hit it.
Johns Lake is still fishing the same and still one of my favorite lakes to fish. Some early morning top water action can be worked as long as you arrive early enough. Generally as the sun starts coming down the cut, the activity starts to pick up, first half of the month the top water bite was a quick bite in this area, usually lasting about a half an hour. From there we have generally worked the main body of water out in the middle working the Steel Shad and picking off some good bass.
We added a new twist to the fishing arsenal the last few days by getting back into saltwater fishing again. For years I did a lot of saltwater fishing but strayed away with my main focus staying on bass fishing, with the summer months now upon us, the saltwater fishing has been picking up very nicely and we have been catching a lot of good fish.
The next few months as summer heats up for us, we still fully expect a good bass fishing season and will be mixing in some saltwater runs for some more bull reds like Charles caught while we filmed a show for Reel Fishing, Charles managed to catch two bull reds, one on his first cast, again, it was another first, as Charles had never caught a redfish before, and he ended up catching two, one just over 40 inches and the other was I believe 35 inches.
The first half of April has seen some good bass fishing action. Most of our trips have been done on Butler Chain and Johns Lake. Although we have seen some rather strange weather for this time of year for us, with a cold front coming thru, the action has remained steady for the most part, with us having to work harder for our bass on the day the cold front slammed us.Most of our action on Butler Chain has come from docks, wacky rigged Gitem KO's and weightless Warlocks in Green Pumpkin have done a great job catching bass up to 5 pounds.
When docks have slowed in producing bass, we have moved to the cypress trees, tossing baits at the trees and letting it fall straight down to the base of the tree, this has triggered some very good action for us.Johns Lake has seen scattered schooling action fist thing in the mornings, usually just as the sun makes it half way thru the Deer Island cut. Docks have been excellent producers as well as my drift pattern thru the middle of the main lake, tossing Steel Shads, these baits have caught us a ton of bass out there, as well as a few 1-1/2 pound crappie. Offshore scattered grass beds have been holding some bass with the Twin Liz rigged with 1/8th ounce weight catching them all. We have caught a few bass on 1 ounce spinner baits, but that bite has not been consistent enough to keep us using them.The last half of April continued with some good bass fishing action. Butler Chain and Johns Lake have been the choice lakes to catch bass.
Johns Lake has been doing good for my clients wanting to use live bait. Early morning schooling action in both of the cuts have been good for numbers.Steel Shad worked in the middle of the lake on a drift pattern has been simply awesome at keeping the action going steady. Docks have held some quality bass using the Gitem KO whacky rigged as well as skipping a Gitem Sugar under docks.Butler Chain has seen some very good action around docks with Gitem Curly 7’s and KO’s. Areas with grass and lily pads have also been good producing areas to close out the month. Lakes Butler and Tibet have been the top producers, with some very good early morning action, once the air temperature warms up, it’s a lot of flipping and skipping.We have filmed a few more fishing shows which will be airing soon on our other site along with another Skill Zone episode showing how to tie a few more fishing knots. Be sure to check it out as we continue to add more content and videos weekly.
The 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.
water as well.
January bass fishing has been off the hook! The month started out with a big bang, as Ari came to fish, saying he never caught anything over I believe 5 pounds, well Butler Chain did not let him down. Ari caught two beauties, one coming in just over 7 pounds, and the other coming in just over 6 pounds! Both bass were caught on Butler using live bait, although the bite that day was rather slow, the size more than made up for everything this day.
Early part of the month I showed a tournament angler around the chain, giving up a few of my good spots, word back from him was as a co-angler, he ended up in second place, while his boater walked away with first place, all the bass coming from the areas I had taken him to, shameless little plug for myself there, but always a pleasure to hear back from guys on how they did in their tournaments, very happy things went great for these guys. 
Johns Lake is still producing some good quality bass. Most of our catch has been coming from around docks and deeper water grass beds.Warlocks and Gitem Sugars have been the main producers for us, along with of course the trusty steel shad.We had a few runs out to Conway Chain of lakes and did very good using the Storm curl tail swim bait, steel shad and Carolina rigged gitem warlocks, all bass were coming from deeper waters, with most of our focus coming from fishing in the middle of the lake.
Private waters have mainly been for crappie fishing the past month, and it has been producing some very nice slabs. Bait we have been using have been the SteelShad and jigs tipped with crappie nibbles.
Johns Lake we have spotted bass beds all over the place! Its that time of year for the big gals to show their faces and make clients very happy, as was the case with a father and son trip of Bruce and young Dave. Bruce had been tossing Gitem Warlocks and getting bass here and there, very scattered around the lake and towards the end of the trip, young Dave working a wild shiner got the wake up call of a lifetime! A beautiful and very solid 10.14 pound largemouth bass, let me tell you, this youngster handled this hawg of a bass like a pro! Our main areas of concentration on Johns Lake has been scattered and isolated grass patches, docks and a few areas of open water holding some good hydrilla.
Things have been very crazy to say the least. We have had several trips to Johns Lake, Butler Chain, Conway Chain and a private lake. 
Butler Chain has also been pretty steady for us. Drop offs have been a major focus for us, tossing trick worms, craws and brush hogs into 16 plus foot of water, and slowly crawling the baits up into the shallower waters has been the ticket, most bass we have seen and caught have been suspended in 12 foot of water on the drop offs. Lake Butler and Little Lake Down have been the best producers for us, with Lake Tibet and Lake Louise also producing some good numbers.
The private lake we have been fishing on occasion has been producing very well. This body of water has seen some limited shallow water action, sitting in the middle of the lakes has been really producing some good numbers of not only bass but some 2 pound crappie. Steel shads have been the main bait for catching bass out there, and if worked like slow rolling a spinner bait, the crappie will slam this bait. Best crappie fishing action has been from 6:30am up to about 8am, then they just seem to shut down only getting a few here and there, very scattered, but you can usually get the limit by 8am. Best fishing waters have been in 12 to 18 foot of water, with bass mostly suspended in 8 to 10 foot of water, go deeper and you can catch some very big catch fish here also.
The first half of October has already seen some very good bass fishing action with some good catches. Most of our time has been spent on Butler Chain this month along with some scouting of other local lakes. For the most part bass have been tighter to cover on Butler Chain. We have caught a lot of bass working grass beds and docks with some bass coming from submerged structure in deeper waters.
There has been scattered schooling action out on several lakes on Butler Chain, with Lake Tibet and Lake Sheen being the top producers for us, with Steel Shads and 1 ounce spinner baits catching quality and numbers from these schools.
The month of September has seen some good bass fishing action, as well as some tough action. For the most part, the action has been pretty steady. Shiner bite has actually been very slow, but the artificial bite has been good. Johns Lake has been a good early morning bite using spinner baits and trick worms. Deer Island cut has produced some descent numbers, but the size has not been to my liking. 
We did make a venture out to Lake Rosalie, one to check water levels after the tropical storm, and to alo see how the bite was doing out there. We started the day out with Rich tossing some shiners around, and not surprised, there was no action on the in the first hour, so we switched Rich to some trick worms. 
June and July have seen some good bass fishing action. Most of our time had been spent on Johns Lake, with a few scattered trips out on Butler Chain. This time of year is typically hot and usually with very little breeze to help keep things comfortable, so we have been doing a lot of 4 and 6 hour trips to beat the heat.
Once the schooling action stops, we have been hitting isolated grass beds as well as offshore hydrilla beds just below the surface. Seven inch junebug worms with a small bullet weight worked slowly has been the main producer once the air temperatures start cooking. We did have some limited success with drop shot in 12 to 16 foot water.