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Highlands Today

Fishing The Deep Areas Is Your Only Real Chance

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DAVE DOUGLASS

The Tampa Tribune

Published: September 3, 2008

As the moon's orbit slowly moves to its furthest point from the earth on the eighth of this month and the beneficial effects of the New Moon subside, anglers will find themselves hard-pressed to achieve success during the daylight hours.

The major daytime feeding migration occurs from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. today and starts 30 minutes later each day and weakens significantly. This is the usual feeding migration characteristic during the four-day period before the first-quarter moon phase kicks into gear and produces a fairly good early-morning bite for next week.

The early-morning bite currently is very weak at best.

There is a very remote chance of locating a large bass moving out of a feeding area, on its way to "home" where it will suspend into a dormant state. This should happen from 4:30 to 6:30 a.m.

Winds are forecasted to come from an easterly direction this week. However, as you all know, the good news of another healthy storm is headed close enough to us to provide much-needed rain for the second time this rainy season.

Hurricane Hannah should be moving along our Atlantic coast for the rest of the week bringing essential rains, aiding in restoring our lakes to normal seasonal levels.

The best news of all in today's forecast is two more tropical storms - "Ike" and "Josephine" -- are forming and predicted to track our way. Also another tropical depression off the coast of Africa is forming, designated "Invest 99."

Hopefully, they'll finish the lake-recovery process needed after experiencing for more than two years the most brutal drought in Florida's history.

It's not every year that you'll read in the local newspaper of tropical storm and hurricane celebrations. It seems odd at first to have such feelings, even contrary to good-healthy-safe reasoning. Could it be that the feeling of being burnt and dried out over the last 30 months has not fully subsided? Yes, category 1 and 2 hurricanes and tropical storms are a sight for sore, dried-out eyes -- let us pray we see no storms stronger than that though.

Fishing Facts

During this part of the late summer months, water temperatures are at their yearly high of high 80s and even low 90s. This causes the lowest dissolved oxygen levels of the year and the highest levels of plant oxygen usage at night. From 3 to 6:00 a.m., the lakes dissolved oxygen level is at its daytime low, which means the fishes' metabolism is also at its daytime low-speed rate.

The sad reality for the angler here is, the fish is hungry but doesn't have the physical energy to eat and digest food, so it suspends in areas of the highest oxygen levels - which are still not adequate enough to eat - and waits until the lake's natural daily oxygen cycle provides higher levels when the sun causes plants to produce oxygen. This occurs at the highest level in the afternoon migration period.

Fishing Formula

Since the later afternoon bite is the best the next three days has to offer, fishing deeper areas of the lake is the only way to hook into the larger fish.

However, the afternoon winds most likely will make this difficult if not impossible. If not, I would recommend having a drop-shot and Carolina type rigs set-up to try enticing the slow moving trophy bass.

If you're fishing the shoreline vegetations as the sun goes down, give the top-water baits a try at full speed. Chances are the smaller bass less than five pounds will be ready to chase down anything for a quick meal since oxygen levels will be high enough to stimulate the energy needed to feed aggressively.

Fishing Flash

Lake Jackson is still three feet below the seasonal normal level but is making progress slowly. The ramp is safe to use and many recreational boaters of all kinds are cooling down in the clean deep lake.

Thanks to the Highlands County Lakes Manager Clell Ford, this lake is looking excellent.

The clean-up efforts and native vegetation planting program have greatly improved the health of the lake. The fishing on this lake has greatly improved. Many nighttime anglers use the lake because of highway US 27 lights illuminating the entire lake just enough to provide for safe fishing.

Bass well over 10 pounds have been reported being caught lately.

Lake Istokpoga's level is at 38.3 feet above sea level (ASL) with three gates open at six feet, flowing approximately 4000 cubic feet per second. Since the lake level has not dropped more than four inches over the last week with the gates opened six feet around the clock it means Arbuckle and Josephine creeks are still flowing a combined influent of over 3000 cubic feet per second.

Lake Okeechobee's level is at 14.6 feet ASL and has both Istokpoga and the Kissimmee River, flowing a combined influent of over 11,000 cubic feet per second.

The Kissimmee River currently has all structures open from its northern starting points of lakes Hart and Mary Jane to the southern final destination of Lake Okeechobee.

Fishing Feature

The other day I went out on Lake Istokpoga to try my least favorite method of bass angling - top-water frogs in and around pencil reeds, lily pads, and hydrilla.

To make the experiment as pleasurable as possible, I did follow my own advice in last Sunday's article and arrived at deeper-water reeds with hydrilla nearby just prior to the major feeding migration period.

Now even though I am not a "top-water fisherman" per say, I do own every artificial frog known to mankind. I started casting six to eight feet back into the reed openings and snapping my rod tip down sharply to get the line into the water completely instead of having it hung up on the reeds. This allows me to work the frog at a various speeds smoothly.

Within a few casts into the same exact spot in the reeds, during the medium-speed retrieve, a dorsal fin appeared about 15 feet away and started closing in on my frog and them followed it all the way to the boat without striking.

The next cast was to the area where that fish started its chase, but this time I retrieved the frog as fast as possible half way back to the boat and paused. A three-pound bass crushed the motionless frog, setting the hook automatically, and the battle was on. After several hard thrashing struggles, she gave up and came to the surface with the hook between her eyes.

I continued to use the fastest retrieve method, pausing at areas that I believed would be a bass' ambush spots. This proved very successful over the next two hours, with a total of nine bass in the boat of which three were over four pounds.

It's days on the water like that one, that makes me wish I had a video camera mounted on the back boat deck to capture all the incredible fierce top-water strikes on film, The stills from that footage would be great.

Fishing Fiction

"Bass remember a particular bait and therefore won't strike it."

This is not true because fish don't possess the ability to remember anything for more than a few minutes. However, in lakes where there is a great deal of fishing pressure, combined with the fact that bass anglers all use the same "hot bait" at the same time, fish don't need to have a great deal of memory because they are constantly repeatedly shown the same exact bait every hour, over and over, every day for months.

Fishing Tournaments

The Wednesday Morning Black Bass Fishing Tournament is open to the public. Next event is today on Lake Josephine. 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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