Crooked Lake Club Tournament

Yesterday our club visited Crooked Lake in Central Florida. We started the day at safe light as the sun just started to climb up over the trees. It was a beautiful morning, but we knew the wind was going to start at anytime.

I was fortunate to draw the same person I prefished with, so I knew where we were going and exactly what we would be doing. We headed off as Boat #1 and immediately went across the lake to a canal we fished last Saturday. The day started off great. I caught a short, caught a keeper, and lost a nice fish in the first 5 minutes of fishing on a 5" Watermelon Quiver Stick by Mizmo. I was targeting isolated lily pad clumps and making very long casts before the boat got close. After the first hour, my partner had a limit and I had 3 small fish.

We caught fish all day; I culled 4 or 5 times, but could never get a kicker fish. The two biggest fish I had all day came off. I was really disappointed as we came in to the weigh-in, thinking I had blew my chances of getting a check. I was one of the first to weigh-in, my tiny limit weighed 5.87lbs.....wow...this is Florida, where are all the hawgs? My partner had 8.00lbs even. I went to get the truck, so he could get the boat and people were telling me I finished 3rd. Huh? Really? I thought. It seems like everyone pretty much had limits in the 5lb range, mine just happened to be the 3rd biggest. I'll take 3rd anytime, no matter how much weight it takes. I can't wait for the next one!

Pre-Fishing Crooked Lake

Saturday we went out to Crooked Lake to do some prefishing since our club tournament will be there next weekend. One of our friends was nice enough to take me and Tanya out to see the lake. We had a great time and caught fish almost everywhere we went. My prefishing strategy is to use as many types of baits as I can to see which baits I can get a fish or two on. I caught fish on plastics rigged every way possible: shaky head, wacky rig, texas rig, and weighless. All types of worms worked too: straight tail, curly tail, u-vibe tail and also on the quiver sticks.

I am confident that I can get a limit pretty easily and then look for bigger fish on reaction baits. Tanya hooked a monster late in the day on a spinnerbait. She thought she was hung up in the grass so she didn't get a good hookset. She starts pulling it in and all you could see was a giant mouth and a 6-7 pound fish jumping into the air. I was shocked, she was pretty disappointed, but at least we got to see the quality of the fish this lake has.

Next weekend will be fun. It's been awhile since I have fished a tournament and I'm dying to get back out there!

Gator

Yesterday was a really nice day, so we decided to go try the canal for a few hours. The fishing was great. We caught several bass on flukes fished both weightless and with a 1/16 oz weight when the wind picked up a little. No huge fish, but several decent fish like the one in the picture.

I did hook into a monster snook on the fluke. I saw it sitting in the grass and pitched to it and she nailed it and took off, pulling drag, and jumping. It was an awesome 10 seconds before the hook came loose.

The coolest thing of the day was seeing this gator. He was so calm and quiet. We were able to get pretty close to him to take this picture. We estimated him to be around 7 or 8 feet. We love seeing gators.

Fishing on my lunch break

I work full time like the rest of you guys out there, but I am lucky enough to get to fish on my lunch break. I have a few canals only 5 minutes from my work that I fish almost daily on my lunch break. Today I tried a new area on the canals and was shocked to see 3 pairs of bedding bass. I was shocked because this is Florida and the bass have been spawning since December. That's like bedding fish "up north" in August. I immediately lost a 4 pounder on the first bed. It was really windy so I didn't see she had my bait. Then I went to the next bed and caught this 3 pounder on a texas-rigged creature bait with a tungsten weight. I love it here in Florida!!

Bobby's Perfect Frog in Action!

Can't believe I didn't catch one here.

Urban Fishing

I was on my way to the grocery store to pick up some things for our Saturday barbecue, when I got distracted. I saw a guy fishing on the side of the road on this pond next to an apartment complex. I see this guy all the time, with his bike leaning against a tree and his line in the water. He's fishing there almost every day I drive past on my way to work. I decided to try to fish the pond. One thing I learned about Florida, is you always have to have at least one rod in your truck no matter where you are.

I talked to the guy on the bike and he said there are some big bass in the lake and he catches them all the time. He claims to have a buddy who caught a 17 pounder there. Florida has some monster bass, but I highly doubt it was that big. Oh well I thought, I'm happy with a bass of any size. He was using a 7" Junebug worm, I decided to throw my favorite Bobby's Perfect Frog to see what the lake has to offer.

The first thing I noticed was the unusual cover this lake has in it. There were six or seven shopping carts in the lake, and the bass and panfish were using them as shade. This is truly urban fishing. Cars were constantly driving by just feet behind me. This really reminded me of growing up in Las Vegas fishing the urban ponds with Kevin, Kyle and Jason....catching those ghetto bass as planes landed across the street, and rap music blared and soccer balls were kicked behind us.

After a few minutes of not catching anything, I drove into the complex and tried my luck. I met another guy fishing, and he said to ignore the "No Fishing" signs, because he fished there all the time. He also told me there have been a few sightings of a 10 foot gator. Well this is Florida...so I just decided to be a little extra cautious.

I started throwing my Mizmo Diamond Darter Fluke and immediately hooked up to a nice two pound bass. The guy was amazed, as he had been fishing there all day without a bite. I showed him what I was using and gave him a few baits to try. I switched to the frog and had a few huge blowups, and then went back to the fluke. I was getting bit on almost every cast and they kept short striking the bait. I was getting frustrated and couldn't figure out why I kept missing the fish. They would just nip the bait and I thought they must just be small bass. I continued fishing and finally caught what had been biting.

It was a Mayan Cichlid! Straight out of the aquarium type fish. I have caught a few of these before but never on a fluke. They have such small mouths, its hard to hook them. Cichlids fight like a bluegill on steroids and are a lot of fun to catch. I am still a little hesitant to lip them like a bass as you can see by the pic. I don't know what kind of teeth those things have. I hear they are really good to eat, but I'll leave them for someone else to grill. Once again I found a few spare minutes to fish and found a few bass. Man...Florida is awesome.