Decided to take my Dad out on the boat and get away from the stressful work week!
We headed out to the Lake Cypress Ramp and put in at 6:15 or so this morning.
We started running toward Kissimmee and made a stop in Hatchineha because it looked too good to pass up. Boy were we right!
My dad started throwing a watermelon red fluke on my smaller 6' Medium allstar/cardinal 100 combo and before 6:35 he claimed to have something. Did he ever!!! He managed to get this fish out of the pads and close enough to the boat for me to scoop up in the net. It was a pig... a 5lb14oz fatty to start things off. Thank goodness for the 15lb Fins braid on that combo.
As he recovered I began tossing a pearl white/clear legs chubby frog and caught a 2lber within minutes. Here we were at 6:45am with a keeper each, that felt good.
We then ran all the way down to the mouth of Lake Kissimmee to work the current with caroling rigs. It started off slow but we managed to boat 10-12 fish before we left at 11 or so. 3-4 of these bass were short and the rest were keepers (most in the 1-1.5lb range.) We decided to then move to the west a short ways and fish some pads near the mouth and I boated another 2lber and we both missed a couple good fish. Then we watch these fish (catfish, big bream, ???) come up out of the water and eat the knats/bugs off the pads... we tried to catch them but they were all about those bugs? No clue what they were...it was cool to watch.
Then we ran back to Hatchineha to work the area we started at. We fished for another hour and he caught a nice 3lber and I let one get off when trying to boat flip it into the boat, its was at least 3lbs... i wasnt too happy about that. So then about 5 minutes later, i threw my t-rigged senko over to a very small group of pads and let it sit. I noticed we were heading in the wrong direction and I turned to figure out what to do and as soon as I got on the trolling motor, I felt a tug at my hands... I set the hook after I realized it was a fish and my dad netted it up after it made a run under the boat. It was a 4lb5oz toad that had markings on it like it was spawning (i know it wasnt but man it looked like it.) We flipped up another couple smaller fish (one was 2.5lbs) and then we headed up to Cypress to flip some buggy whips.
We flipped for about an hour and called it a day. I managed 3 short fish and a fat 6" warmouth that got a ride over the boat when I set the hook.
Overall it was a great day. Our best five would have gone 18lbs or so. Not a bad day considering how nasty this week was and what the forecast was supposed to be for today. We went with raingear on board and got a sunburn instead! There was a tournament weighing in at the ramp and we heard alot of the same: "not much." one guy had a 4lber (dead) and one guy claimed to have an 8 in the well. We didnt stick around long enough to see how it played out. They were a good group of guys and they seemed to have a good time regardless of what they caught. (i think me and my pops would have taken them all, had we entered hahahaha...) i think we caught those fish because we were taking our time and were not competing!
The Day's Stats:
Watertemp: 81-85degrees
Air Temp: 85 degress (felt like 100 at least)
Wind: if any, 5mph out of the west/sw???
Current: steady, coming from Toho down to Kissimmee. If you didnt anchor or stay on the trolling motor you would be off your spot in a matter of seconds.
Baits: Fluke (wat/red), carolina rigged trick worms (junebug and wat/red), flipped junebug stick baits and trick worms. Frog: Chubby Frog (pearl/clear legs) w/ 1/8oz 5/0 Meat hook.
Rods: my brother's set (my reels are getting cleaned!!!)
Pictures:
This is my dads toad, they have matching bellies...hahaha (but it is a boat record...no good for me) ...check out the gator in the backround and the markers that give away the spot if you've ever fished there!
My 4lb5oz bass, note the sore on its jaw and the redness from the anal fin to the tail... I catch a lot of girls in the spring that look like this???
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