January 2009 bass fishing
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 water we have been fishing is still producing not only some good bass, but also some very good crappie. Bass have been coming from mid lake areas using mostly steel shads and one ounce spinner baits, shallow waters have been producing with Gitem Warlocks, Gitem KO’s and the Gitem Curly 7’s.Paul Fisler and his nephew HM1 Shane R Gilley came for 3 days of some very entertaining fishing. Paul had been trying to get Shane to join us, and Shane finally got some time off to enjoy the great Florida waters and did an outstanding job catching some bass and crappie. I personally want to thank Shane, as well as all the service men and woman who proudly serve our great nations armed forces, because if it was not for them, I would not be able to make a living the way I do, God Bless all of you.
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.
Several areas in mid lake with hydrilla have been producing some quality bass using 1 ounce Sugoi spinner baits, Steel Shads and 10 inch worms. Several days of higher winds than normal had us working docks that were wind blown, which had been holding bass, some docks producing as many as 3 bass, which makes for a very good day. 
My tournament partner and I did venture out to Harris Chain mid month to fish a Fishers Of Men Tournament, with no free time to practice out there, we went according to old notes from years past and they paid off pretty good. With some tough fishing, we did get into some schooling bass, but we could only get them to hit very small floating Ugly Duckling crank baits, once we had our limit, we switched up to one ounce spinner baits and covered a lot of water to cull some smaller bass, with a nice 5 and change bass slamming a spinner bait, landing us in 11th place, just 2 spots from the money, which equaled out to a pound, also missing second big bass by a matter of ounces.