Lake Tarpon Report 5/25 Tuesday Night Tournament

I had a rare Tuesday night off of work so Kevin and I decided to fish the weekly Tuesday night tournament and try our luck with lakes best. We started off getting on a few fish in the northwest end but couldn't get anything over 12 inches so we moved across to the northeast side to fish some docks but nothing doing there either pitching Bitters Baits and chunking rattletraps. With an hour gone from the 3 1/2 hour tournament we decided to head south to our money spot where we picked up one keeper pushing 2 lbs. With about a half hour left and darkness settled in we decided to take a quick jab at one last spot and we hit paydirt! Unfortunately, we only had about 10 minutes to try and get a limit before we had to race back to the northend of the lake! I nailed a quick keeper on chug bug as they were popping everywhere in front of us! A couple minutes later I got another strike in the pitch darkness on a chugbug, this time she was giving me a good fight so I knew it was a decent fish! Trying to net a nice fish in total darkness can be a little tricky but Kevin scooped her up like a pro on got her in the boat. She went 18 inches and over 3lbs but it wouldn't be enough as we ran out of time and had to get back to the ramp for the weigh-in. We rolled in 4 minutes late so we decided not to weigh-in our 3 fish but would have had around 6 pounds. Around 14 pounds won the tournament with big bass about 4 and half pounds. Temp was a balmy 80-85 degrees with water temps around 87.

Lake Tarpon Report 5/15- Xtreme Series

We fished the 5th tournament in the Xtreme Bass Series out of Lake Tarpon this past weekend. We had a good tournament catching around 25-30 fish for the 3rd straight tournament but again it seems the big mama's are hard to find out there! We had our limit with a total of 10.40 lbs taking 5th place out of 11 boats. 14+ lbs won the tournament as it seems that has been the magic number every tournament out there this year! Big fish was again around 5lbs. We caught most of our fish later in the day fishing docks with Bitters Baits Slings and Kimani Senkos. I caught fish on Bitters junebug, blue w/ black tail, and rootbeer candy. I also threw black/ red flake, blueberry, and watermelon seed with no success. We caught a couple nice keepers in the morning on chugbugs but overall the topwater bite was a little slow. The worm bite for us was non-existant although the winners worked worms all day. The pattern for most of the teams was work fast until you find the fish and when you find them you have to hammer them because they are really schooled up in little pods. The air temp was low 70's in the morning and warming up to 90 in the afternoon. Winds were light in the morning but picking up quickly to 10-15 mph with gusts to 20 mph out of the southeast and turning into sw later in the day.

Lake Tarpon Report 5/8

We fished the 4th annual Charity Bass Tournament for Breast Cancer yesterday on Lake Tarpon. We caught 25-30 fish all day and brought a 5 -fish limit to the scales weighing 9lbs with a 3lb kicker. We finished in the middle of the field of 16 boats with the top three spots paying out. First place weighed in around 14 pounds with the next two spots in the 12-13 pound range. We caught most of our fish on Bitters Slings with a few caught on topwater chug bugs and a few on texas rigged junebug worms. Air temps were pushing 90 degrees as was the water temp as it was 85-86 degrees in most areas. Wind was heavy at 10-20 mph with gust up to 25 mph. Seems like the fish are in a post spawn pattern and with the temps where they are, they will probably be moving into their summer hide-outs shortly!