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Early morning best for fishing

File photo by Mark Pinson

The early morning angler has the best chance for a good bite in the Heartland lakes this week.

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: November 9, 2009

Finally, I think it might be safe to say that anglers can expect constant fishing factors that are more favorable than unfavorable; the wind seems to be mostly from a northerly direction and between 10-18 mph on the water, and the water temperatures exactly where fish feed best at, and more often.

All of these factors when added together result in more fish on the boat deck, and much larger fish striking anything that ventures into a 20-foot boundary surrounding their ambush position.

And now for the next three days this aggressive feeding pattern will occur during the early morning hours and last for three hours. As soon as the sun starts to rise above the shoreline trees the peak period will quickly accelerate to its highest rank. Each day this daytime feeding migration will increase in duration and intensity because of the lunar perigee adding to the last-quarter moon phase influence.

So anglers should be at the lake before 6 a.m. and ready for a 1-10 rating of 7 today, 8 tomorrow, and 9 on Tuesday. All three days feeding migrations will last all of three hours with the peak period moving slightly later each day by about 30 minutes.

If you are unable to fish the early morning there is an early-evening bite worth heading out on the lake to try your luck with. From 5 - 7 p.m. fish will be all along the usual shoreline feeding areas and in the open pockets of hydrilla where the water is less turbid. I'm not sure there will actually be a peak period developing but it is a very distinct possibility that the entire feeding period might have the intensity of a 5-6 rated peak period.

The last part of this week won't be near as good in the early morning but this is because of the midday bite that will be developing as the New Moon arrives a week from tomorrow.

Fishing flash

Lake Istokpoga's level has been dropped to 39 feet above sea level in order to supply water to the normally permitted water users. If you have been fishing this lake you surely know where Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) treated shoreline vegetations, and if you're not sure where those areas are, just look for the burnt-looking plants. And if you have wondered where the fish you used to find there went, just head north, northeast, toward the nearest healthy untouched vegetation area.

When I spoke to Tom Champeau by email this past week about the upcoming hydrilla management event scheduled for the week of the 15th, he informed me that the strategy is to promote Peppergrass expansion when it is anywhere near hydrilla areas, by "attempting" (my word, because that is all it is, nothing more) to kill the invasive exotic-even if the area is not residential and not a navigation hazard.

The fact that it happens to be where the fish prefer to reside, bed, and flourish, is not a consideration. So the "entire" area must be nuked in the name of .... Um well, because more people united for the cause of hydrilla eradication than for hydrilla adaptive management strategies. If all you hydrilla anglers would find a way to unite just 1percent of yourselves to not take "no" for an answer and stand up and fight a smart legal fight, you'd have a far greater percentage of what you really want and by the way, you'd be the only ones really protecting the interests of the largemouth bass.

You see the fact is, if we could all follow a largemouth bass everyday for a few months we would certainly learn exactly where to treat and attempt to kill hydrilla, and where not to, for she would wouldn't inhabit 70 percent of the hydrilla out there.

If anyone is interested in taking up this fight, contact me for there are many anglers united already for this cause, let's unite in a coalition of freshwater anglers and stand.

Dave Douglass is a bass fishing guide, visit HighlandsBassAngler.com for complete information, secretary of the Florida Freshwater Fishing Coalition Inc, online at FLFFC.org. Cell: 863-381-8474, E-mail: davidpdouglass@hotmail.com

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