Long Lake Fishing Club

Mr. Fisherman's 

   
Fishing Report

March - from Florida
Generally, Florida fishing is up and down because of the fluctuating weather and water temps.  Hit it right and a Florida Beauty can be caught.  I’m fishing a small lake, off a golf course, which has some 7 to 10 pounders lurking around. 

In less than a foot of water this biggin’ was waiting for my chartreuse colored Bagley BB3 to go by.   This baby weighed in at 6 lb. 5 oz. and was 23 inches long. 
 

Permission is needed to use the launch, so the fishing is great with very little pressure.  In the morning the fish are hiding under the shoreline floating vegetation and after they feed it’s out to deeper water.  Their favorite cuisine is big shiners, but like I once mentioned, they are very expensive here, so artificial are used.

It’s been one buying spree after another for me, my son and brother-in- law.  At least 25 high cost rods and 4 expensive bait casting reels have been bought by us.  The charge card is maxed out and any cash is gone.  We will be coming home broke.

  Mr. Fisherman

Here’s what a 9 inch shiner will get you: a 22 inch, 5 lb 4 oz. bass.  My son and I fished  Summit Lake, for the first time, with some success.  (It is a small lake on the Winter Haven Chain.)  Me with a small 15 incher on a spinner bait and he with 5 lber plus.  We trolled slowly around the lake with the shiner suspended 4 ft. under a bobber. We found out immediately that a sinker was needed to keep the bait down as a bird came swooping down trying to get it.   Just to let you know, big shiners are $17.50 a doz.  Was it worth the money?  Check out the smile on his face.

Fishing was not top priority due to illness and inclement weather.   With a head cold and the air temps in the high 50 - 60’s, it was a while before I got the boat launched.  

 My third time out fishing was with my brother-in-law, Dick.  We met a man cast netting for minnows and offered to buy some from him.  As we only wanted six he gave them to us at no charge.  That was all we needed.  Something free!  Maybe it would change our bad luck. 

Five minutes later bobber fishing, a splash was heard and the fight was on.  I nailed a 21 ½ incher, 5 lb. 12 oz. largemouth on a 6 inch shiner.  It was my first big Florida bass!
 

                                                            

Then we went over to the other side of this small golf course lake and threw the shiners near some undergrowth.  Dick’s bobber slowly went under and he went to set the hook, but no fish was on.  It came back with just the shiner’s head on the hook. We guessed that a gator had grabbed it.  Let’s call it
“The Gator Ater”.  That ended the day.

October 8, 2007

With the weather changing from cool to extremely hot the fish are wondering like me, when is fall coming?  When do they put on the feed bag?

When fall comes and the water temps drop in the low 60’s, watch the big northern turn on.  They are always plentiful in Long Lake, but some of the other bodies of water around here have some easier pickings in the big fish department.

My best live bait seems to be a 6 to 8 inch chub on a treble hooked in the mouth and a stinger treble on the upper back:  the bigger the bait, the larger the fish.

The bass like the smaller bait and will be in the same weed beds as the northern.

Using “artificials” could also come into play in these water temps.  My best lure: spinner baits.  Large ones with single blades will work the best.  The trick here is to stop and let the bait drop as if it was dying.

If you insist on using crankbaits; a crank and stop when bringing in the lure will work better than a continuous, steady retrieve.  The northern well hit it on the drop.  The bass also fall for this trick.  (Sometimes a steady retrieve of the lure is effective if the fish are aggressive.)

Let’s go get ‘em.

 MrFishermanRU2 @aol.com

Another code was broken.  It was just spelled different, COLD.  Yep, I have been ill for the three weeks.  An ailment that lasts this long takes a toll on this old body. 

A trip to Crooked and Beechwood produced some bass and northern on blades.  Some northern are hitting hard and others were just taking a snip at the lure.  A stop and go retrieve doesn’t seem to affect the strikes.  This retrieve will eventually be a good bet as the water temps drop.

Long has yielded many keeper size northern with spinner baits.  The tournament last weekend proved that.

My excursions will increase as my sickness goes away, then reports will be more consistent.

 MrFishermanRU2@aol.com

            A code was broken this week when a big bass was caught on Crooked Lake.  All summer long when I fished Crooked, a watchful eye was kept on some big bass cruising in the shallow waters. (Last year they were in the same spot but were easier to catch.)  Every lure I threw this year was ignored.  Plastic worms, swim baits, cranks, blades, nothing interested them.  Ten it finally dawned on me to try live bait.

So Sunday night a spinning rod was set up with a small hook and a couple of pinch on sinkers.  Off to Crooked Monday morning to break the code and I did.

This was my only fish of the morning.  She pulled every trick in the book to break my twelve pound test line.  The fish tried jumping out of the water but that was out of the question because of her size.  Her next trick was to get buried in the weeds.   A steady pressure on this fish brought her out of the vegetation.  A couple more of heart pounding pulls and the party was over.  She was too big of a fish to lip out of the water so the net was used.

  click on pic to enlarge

The rest of the week was spent fishing Beechwood and Auburn.  Beechwood is still producing small twelve and fourteen inch fish with any kind of lure.  At night blades seem to bring out the bigger ones.

Now Auburn is a tricky one to fish.  Some eighteen inch fish have come from the weeds.  Also the northern are hitting short.  By accident a weed bed was found in thirteen feet of water.  A bass was picked up there on a black Culprit, ten inch worm.

Have not been on Long for a while but it is on this week’s agenda.

Will be out trying to break some more codes this week.

             MrfishermanRU2@aol.com

 Aug. 26, 2007           The area lakes are in turmoil with all the rain.  Due to this, my week fishing didn’t start until Friday on Long Lake with three bass in the 16 inch range. 

The hot lures this year are the swim baits.  The northern and bass inhale them.  These baits are quite expensive and weigh in at 1 ¼ oz., so heavy equipment is needed to throw these big boys.  They sort of suspend in the water until retrieved.  Then they look and act like real fish.  Their depth range is about 2 to 3 feet.

My son and I have hammered bass with one of these, a five inch Megabait.  A few weeks ago, at night on Long Lake, we both doubled our limit with 16 to 19 inch bass.  We have gone through at least a half a dozen of them.  The rubber bodies rip off and have to be glued back on.  After a few fish are caught on them the bodies are in such bad shape, you might as well throw them away.

Try swim baits (if you can even find them let me know) at night and you will be surprised.

Remember to check out next weeks report.

            MrFishermanRU2@aol.com