Highlands Today
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Consistent Weather Offers Full Potential
Contributed photo
Dave Douglass holds a five-pound topwater frog predator, caught along an outside point of the lily pads on Kissimmee.
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Published: November 5, 2008
With the first-quarter moon occurring Thursday at 4:04 a.m., the next seven days will produce an excellent very early morning bite.
The winds have finally returned to a favorable level of 5 to 10 miles per hour and are forecasted to come of a northerly direction for at least a week. Temperatures also will remain consistently in the high 70s, low 80s during the day and at night in the middle to upper 60s. If this all happens as predicted, the Central Florida anglers will enjoy a week of constant environmental factors by which he'll be able to progressively achieve greater success each day.
Weather staying constant for a week or more can be a rare experience here in Florida.
It seems weather patterns change every few days, and it's seldom that anglers can rely on the weather as a "constant" when factoring their daily angling strategy. But the next week or so look as if this might be the case - of course now that I put it in print, I am fairly sure it won't happen.
The early morning bite starts at 5 a.m. and lasts until 7 a.m. and will be weak at best as far as a total population migration event. The usual dominant fish will be set up in ambush in their marked out territories, but you and they will be challenged to find a concentration of fish to prey upon. Hopefully, you'll find each other in the process.
The early morning bite will progressively improve day to day, but nothing to really write home about. It is, however, the base upon which next week's early-morning full moon will produce a top-rated morning bite. If the weather remains constant, anglers will be able to avail themselves to the fullest potential.
There is a weak late-afternoon bite at exactly the opposite time from the morning bite - 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. Like the morning bite, it's weak at best, and with no significant or substantial weather changes forecasted, it doesn't look as if that will improve any. But as always, working a top-water bait in and around shoreline vegetation when the water is at the daytime high, could prove to be a spectacular experience - it worth a try to say the least.
Fishing Facts
Aquatic life exists according to nature's weather patterns.
The longer a weather pattern occurs, the longer the angler has to learn how it affects the fish and its habitat. If the weather patterns constantly change every other day in such a manner as to not provide any type of constant factor, determination of fish daily migration characteristics becomes very difficult, if not impossible, to achieve.
Therefore, when weather is predicted to remain constant over an extended period of time, such as four or more days, the angler has the chance to learn his favorite lake's characteristics, effectively determining a base condition, a "norm," upon which all other weather patterns can be compared to.
Paying attention to how a north wind of 5 to 10 mph changes how far fish move into a particular shoreline area when the water temperature is 60 as opposed to 85, will be the difference between putting fish in the boat or not.
Understanding how deep fish suspend during a wind of 5 mph and one at 25 mph on a deep lake as opposed to a shallow lake, makes it possible for the angler to have success on both types of lakes.
A week of constant weather therefore is essential to the development of the angler's art; his success is based in constants learned during sustained environmental periods on the water.
Fishing Formula
Because the water temperatures have climbed back up into the middle to upper 60s since the cold front last week, the early morning feeding migration will be good along shorelines.
This is the week of the top-water bait. Fish naturally feed along shorelines all night no matter what season it is or what the weather is doing, so working a frog from the vegetation outward to open water will produce favorably.
At safe-light try aggressively working your top-water bait inside open areas of the shoreline vegetation. An opening in the lily pads, or pencil reeds which opens out into the lake should be holding bass with bad attitudes waiting in ambush.
Popping the bait by raising the rod tip sharply and then letting the bait settle by pausing will trigger an explosive strike.
However, I would advise you to keep your boat out and away from your target zone as far as possible and rely on the long cast in order to not risk altering the fishes' "game plan" by turning her into the hunted instead of hunter. She has already fed throughout the night, and will easily abandon attempts at one last snack before suspending into an unresponsive digestive state in a secondary holding area, if a larger predator enters her territory.
Fishing Fiction
This week's fiction is one which I don't usually bothering to respond to, since I believe that the person who endorses it, lives in a very small fishbowl themselves, which I don't care to enter, nor share.
"Fish don't change on account of the weather, they just do what they do -- all that 'science stuff" is total nonsense!'
After the deer-caught-in-the-headlights look leaves my face, I answer in the affirmative, "you betcha", as I take notice that the person most likely wears the same clothes no matter what the weather is from day to day.
Fishing Tournaments
The Wednesday Morning Black Bass Fishing Tournament is open to the public. Next event is today on Lake Placid. Time: 7:30 a.m. to noon. Pay at ramp - entry fee $30.00 per boat. One person may fish alone if you do not have a partner. For information, contact Paul Tardiff at 863-385-8007 Home, Cell 863-446-1310 bassbutchie60@aol.com or Dwight Ameling at 863-471-3305.
Dave Douglass is a bass-fishing guide and bass tournament angler and CEO of S.O.S.-Florida Lakes, Inc. He can be reached at 863-381-8474, or e-mail him at davedouglass@sos-floridalakes.org.
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