Fall Fishing in Florida

Who said you have to wait until the winter to catch big fish in Florida?!?!?!? On Friday September 16, 2005 (just a few days before the beginning of Fall) our 3 boat party were STROKIN' the bass! My customer's second bass of the day weighed in at 9 lbs 12 oz. The other two boats were catching bass between 7-9 lbs, also.

"Has it started to cool off already?" you say? ! NO - it's still hotter than blazes and no one can stand to stay out on the water much later than 10:30-11:00!

"Has the hydrilla grown back in Lake Walk-in-Water?" you say? NO - the bottom is almost as bare as it was last year after the triple hurricanes!

"Are the bass starting to school up?" you say? YES - but mostly smaller bass, around 2-4 lbs, are schooling up and chasing shad pods!

"Has the big bass population returned to Lake Walk-in-Water?" you say? YES - thanks to the 3 fish limit with a slot regulation!

"So what's the big secret to catching these big bass in Lake Walk-in-Water since the hurricanes cleared out all of their hiding places?" you say? Well, it's no big secret - you just have to know how to catch big bass on this lake the same way it was done 15 years ago when the lake was so pristine you could see the bottom with the naked eye. Once the lake filled up with grass, it didn't take much "know-how" to find bass on the lake. All you had to do was drift across it with shiners and, with all of the grass holes, you were bound to come upon some fish sooner or later. Now it is not such easy pickin's.

You need to know the lake, the contours, the drop-offs, and the patterns the bass tend to follow. These are things you only come to know after fishing a lake for years and years, adapting to its seasonal and yearly changes. Mother Nature has a way of taking care of her own, and that's just what she did when she blew those hurricanes through here and cleaned out the best bass fishing lake in Florida!

Take a look at the picture of the bass caught last week, take a good look. She is healthy! Just like all the rest of the bass we caught that day. No ... This lake hasn't lost its punch ... Its just created a bigger and better challenge to weed out the real fishing guides that know how to find fish from the drifters that took advantage of this lake for so many years. Now it will really have a chance to come back and be as good as it once was. Back to the "good ole days" when it wasn't so rare to catch a 10 lb hawg and, who knows --- it just may produce Florida's next record big bass!

If you want to come fish with me and try to catch a trophy largemouth bass, email me at captdick@bassfishingguide.com or checkout my website.