Orlando Bass Fishing Report
August 2007
The past two weeks have seen some good bass fishing action on the Butler Chain, as well as a few other Central Florida Lakes. Butler Chain, the artificial bite has been holding pretty steady, with wacky rigged Gitem KO’s and Gitem Shads catching some good numbers as well as quality. Little Lake down has seen the best action, with Mike and his son getting a nice double, with Mike having his bass follow his shiner all the way to the boat as we were going to make a move. This bass struck at his bait twice, before finally getting hooked up, and his son immediately getting his hook up, had these two fighting side by side.
Lake Down itself, seen some good action in the north east corner, with some scattered schooling action, small Storm swim baits catching some good numbers in the deeper drop offs. Lakes Sheen and Tibet have held the same pattern now for several weeks, whacky rigged and T-rigged Gitem KO’s catching bass in and around scattered grass beds.Most of the bass being caught are currently in the 8 to 18 foot depth range, with a good majority of them suspended right along the drop offs in 10 foot of water. There has been some schooling action on lakes Tibet, Sheen and Lake Down, but for the most part, this action has been limited and usually early on in the day. Watch your electronics, as we have come across some big bait fish pods on lake down, with some good quality bass being caught in those areas.
I have also been scouting an old lake I used to fish years ago, a small Orlando lake, this lake is only 205 acres in size, but has some good bass in it. Early morning top water bite has been with the Secret Weapon Lures BuzzrBait and the Original High Roller 3.25 inch. Top water bite has been around the coontail in deeper waters with some very aggressive hits, with the top water bite dropping off by 8am. From there, moving into deeper waters and working the Storm swim baits have been the ticket to catching some good bass.
Scattered grass beds have been a good ticket also, catching several schoolie sized bass through out the day with Gitem KO’s and Shads, deeper water coontail beds have been good with 10 inch worms with ¼ ounce weight pegged for the quality bass. Being a line watcher is a big key, as the bass have just been picking up the baits and swimming off slowly, usually heading to the deep water drop offs.
Bassfishingfl.com
The past 2 weeks has seen some great bass fishing action on Butler Chain, and has seen 2 days, where the bass just did not want to play fairly. For the most part, the action on artificial baits has been producing not only good numbers, but good size as well.
The Bay, as well as Lakes Butler, Down and Little lake Down currently have the cleanest water on the chain, and some of the better fishing action, with some schooling action being spotted on several of them. Schooling action we have come across has usually been mid morning, from 9:30 till almost 10:30 with some good bass being caught off them.
Top water bite has been doing ok, with Lake Louise seeing the best top water action for us. Secret Weapon Lures Buzzrbait has been a good do to bait, as well as High Roller Chug Roller. Hits have been aggressive. With the consistent rains, Lake Louise has been dirtied up, waters going from clean to coffee brown.
My old tournament partner and I hit Butler Chain for a few hours, one to get him out on the water, and two so I could experiment with some new lures. We had started the day out on Lake Louise working a Buzzrbait from Secret Weapon Lures. This lure worked great thru the water and made a ton of commotion and after 5 casts I had the first blow up and what I thought was a solid hook up. Working the bass to the boat, she suddenly let go of the bait, what would have been a nice 5 pound catch, turned into a 5 pound heart break, she apparently had grabbed the small willow leaf blade that was attached to the Buzzr. A few casts later and another crushing blow up, a solid 3 pounder was in the boat.
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.
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.
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.
The past 2 weeks have seen some good bass fishing action out on Butler Chain. Starting with the Patterson clan, with shiners and artificial baits we worked Lake Butler and Lake Chase, with Steve tossing a spinner bait to get the “wildest” hook set award of the year. Steve was tossing a spinner bait in and around grasses and docks, when he gave her a toss to a dock, spinner bait going over the dock walkway, back into the water around a PVC pipe sticking up and under a boat. Thinking this was going to be a mess, he was right, as he tried to shake the lure loose, the line got pinned between a post and the walkway, when it looked like the rod got tugged on.
This past week has been yet another very busy week, with some very good and solid bass being caught on everything from live bait to artificial lures. With the bass spawn all but over, bass have moved for the most part away from shallow waters and have staged more towards deeper waters, close to drop offs. There has on some days been some very good schooling activity going on, some days the schooling bass will just hammer the live bait, while other days they seem to prefer t-rigged worms with a small screw in bullet weight.
Friday saw Sam and his son out on Butler Chain, this youngster was very impressive with his casting skills, working bait casters like a true pro, starting the day out catching the first bass in the first 10 minutes working a spinner bait thru the grass beds on Lake Butler before switching up to the worms and catching several more. Sam kinda hung out on the back of the boat and had a blast watching his son fish, and even had his son coaching him on where to toss his lures, with his dad getting a good bass on a rattlin vibe out of the deep waters on Butler. Weather was better today, with what should be our last cold front. Very minimal schooling activity was seen on the lakes that we fished today, but it’s only a matter of time before the waters start to really heat up with what will be a great top water bite.
This past week on Butler Chain had its ups and downs. Monday and Tuesday saw some good top water action on Lake Butler. During the early morning we saw a good amount of schooling action. Tuesday turned out to be the best day with bass being caught on High Roller ChugRollers in Fire Tiger. Big bass for the day came in at a solid 3.8 pounds, and just slammed the ChugRoller.
Thursday I had the McClain duo, husband and wife out on Butler. We started out with Margarita working live bait, and Carl with top water baits. There was very limited schooling action once again, but Carl was very determined to nail a nice bass on top water. He started out with an Original High Roller, but then switched to a ChugRoller. A very solid bass, in the 4 pound class came up to slam the bait. Carl said he felt her hit the lure so he set the hook, but she was gone. That, unfortunately was the end of the top water action for the day. Margarita continued to work the live bait, missing her first bass as it chased the shiner to the surface. She got too excited and the hook up was missed. After a few coaching words, Margarita didn’t miss another bass. We actually had to keep an eye on her, as she never said a word, we only knew she had one on when we heard the drag. Her big fish of the day came in at 5.1 pounds.