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Highlands Today

Superior Bass Starting To Get All Bulked Up

Contributed photo

Dave Douglass holds a 6.14-pound bass, the largest of 32 bass he caught in four hours, and the eighth of eight consecutive casts, each resulting in a boated 3.8- to 6.14-pounder.

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DAVE DOUGLASS

The Tampa Tribune

Published: September 21, 2008

Tomorrow at 5:04 a.m., the last-quarter moon occurs, which means this is the week of the above-average early-morning bite and the diminishing later-afternoon bite.

As always, pay attention to where the rain occurs.

Lakes which receive rain the night before will have a feeding migration that happens at the end of the peak feeding period, and the lakes which remain rainless will experience the opposite affect.

The two peak feeding periods occur from 4:30 to 8 a.m. and from 4 to 5:30 p.m. The morning migration is building in intensity and duration while the lake evening feeding migration dissipates both in numbers of feeding fish and bite-time.

Daytime temperatures are still too high to produce optimum dissolved oxygen levels during the morning, but a slight improvement more than a month ago is apparent with early morning water temperatures in the upper 70s - finally.

An afternoon thunderstorm, however, will revive the late afternoon bite session and possibly create the best opportunity to hook into larger fish as they take advantage of higher oxygen levels needed to digest food.

Fishing Facts

In the late Florida summertime, the superior bass (genetically speaking) start to bulk up and feed longer on schooling bait-fish in preparation for an early spawn.

It's true that the Florida largemouth spawns all year long. Last year the largest bass caught in Highlands County occurred during September and October in seven to 12 feet of water using drop-shot and Carolina-rig methods.

You can bet that the largest bass in the lake will spawn within the next 60 days.

Fishing Formula

The presentation of your bait is always the key to a successful day on the lake.

For the last month, "slow retrieve" has been the "action" bass have been responding to the best.

A fast and/or loud initial bait presentation, followed by a long pause after the bait falls to the lake bottom is the right on-off action to use. The idea is to get their attention with noise and a fast-falling bait, and then just let it lie there for a minute. When you do move your bait, advance it an inch at a time.

Flipping and pitching in areas where there is no hydrilla - such as lily pads and pencil reeds - is also highly successful right now if the area has at least 30 inches of depth and low turbidity with moderate wave action.

Bass are covering a lot of water when they are migrating, so once you get their attention, they will investigate and likely "take the bait."

Fishing Fiction

"Fish don't bite in dirty water."

This is not true.

In reality, it might seem to be true, but only because the color selection is not correct for the dirty water. High turbidity water columns hold fish as long as there is adequate dissolved oxygen.

If the fish can see the bait color in the turbid water, they'll investigate. The problem is few fishermen change colors from their favorite color, or lucky "go-to" bait.

General rule of thumb is to use black-colored baits with sparkle or flash, such as silver or gold fleck, when fishing dirty water.

Fishing Feature

Late week, I ventured out onto Lake Istokpoga before sunrise and tried pitching pencil reeds for the first time in several months instead of the usual lily pads and hydrilla vegetative areas.

The results brought back memories of two years ago before the drought started.

Within a few minutes, I had set the hook on three- or four-pound bass and landed them safely on the boat deck (forgot my net that day).

After a half hour, I notice several very large bass swirl-up along the outside of the reeds where some torpedo grass had thickly grown in four feet of depth.

I cast the worm into the general area of the swirl with no results, so I switched to a top-water frog. It was exactly what they wanted to see.

One five-pound bass crushed the frog and headed toward the center of the thick grass. I must not have had her hooked well, because after 15 seconds of a hard-fought battle, all I came up with was grass. This exact scenario happened three more times and then everything shut down as if someone flipped a switch.

The sun was now up and the barometer started to drop - I always check the barometer when a bite period seems to end.

This told me the "bite" was not over but that the fish must have moved nearby to vegetation which didn't seem apparent from my vantage point.

After a few exploratory casts of a heavy jig toward the deeper water, I discovered fresh new hydrilla in four to five feet of depth about 40 or 50 feet away. I quickly switched back to my customized large plastic worm and proceeded to cast into the center of the hydrilla field.

After a one-minute pause, I picked up the rod tip one foot and let it drop. On the drop, the much coveted "thump feel" occurred and I set the hook on another four-pound bass and boated her. I knew this was going to be the start of an ideal day on the lake, but just how "ideal" I could have never predicted.

When the ideal day ended, more than four hours later, I boated 32 bass.

Eight at 22 to 23 feet, a dozen at 21 to 22 feet, seven at 20 to 21 feet, three at 19 to 20 feet, and two at 18-19 feet. I also lost eight bass, of which one was all of eight or nine pounds.

Now, catching 32 bass was one of two "firsts" in my bass fishing career.

The other first came in the event of eight consecutive casts in which I hooked and landed eight bass, of which the largest was 6.14 pounds and the smallest 3.8 pounds.

Four hours of casting, hook-setting, battling, landing without a net, drying hands and taking pictures and measuring length and girth 32 times ended only because I was out of water and soaked in sweat, and totally content with stopping the "ideal day on the water" with a light seven-pounder as the grand finale.

Finding 40 feeding bass between three and seven pounds in one area has come only once in 983 trips in four years.

Fishing Tournaments

The Wednesday Morning Black Bass Fishing Tournament is open to the public. Next event is Sept. 24 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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