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 3/20/10 -Xtreme Series

We fished our second Lake Tarpon Xtreme Series Tournament of the year yesterday and again we had trouble locating keepers. We caught about 10 fish all day with 2 keepers (14in) weighing 3.14 lbs. The winners had over 12 pounds and there were several nice limits caught on a beautiful day with bluebird skies! Air temps started at about 50 degrees and warmed up fast to over 75 degrees. The water temps ranged from 60 to 66 degrees. The wind started calm in the morning but kicked up pretty good and was at least 10-15 mph most of the day shifting several times. We got both keepers on Bitter Slings, one on junebug and one on watermelon. We had no luck on lipless baits or texas rigged worms. Hopefully our normal money spots on Lake Tarpon will start producing with a warmer April!

Camp Mack Open Results 10/31-11/1

This past weekend marked the first tournament of the Camp Mack Open series out of Camp Mack on the Kissimmee Chain. They will have a total of 12 2-day tournaments leading up to a 3-day classic next December. Tournaments will take place on the first weekend of each month through 2010. I love fishing Kissimmee so I decided to try my luck against the locals. I think I held my own even though I placed around 11th out of 26 teams, most of which were local Kissimmee Chain anglers. I finished with my limit 5 fish each day for a 2-day total of 17.35lbs. The winner doubled me up with over 16 pounds each day and bagging both big bass awards with an 8.04-lber day 1 and an 8.05-lber day 2. 2nd place was around 23 pounds and I forgot the rest but will post the results once the are posted by Camp Mack.
Water temperature was 79 in the mornings, heating up to 85 by mid afternoon. Fish seemed to be somewhat active but most were caught on Culprit Junebug worms and Bitters Slings in blue/black fished slowly.

For more details on this series go to www.campmack.com/CampMackOpen.asp

UPDATE: HERE ARE THE RESULTS FOR 10/31-11/1

Lake Tarpon Report 2/23

Got out and messed around on Lake Tarpon yesterday for a few hours with mixed results. I started fishing about 1:30pm in Salmon Bay (Anderson Park) throwing a trap in the hydrilla with no bites in about a half-hour. I saw little surface activity or baitfish so I moved on. I tried a couple deeper residential canals with a rapala shad rap again for about a half hour with no hits. Again, no surface activity so I moved on to another spot. I tried the John Chestnut area, working some senkos around the shoreline but the Sunday traffic was to much so I again moved on. I decided to hit a canal on the west side of the lake where I figured there to be clear water and there are usually at least some small fish this time of year. I threw a Bitters Sling in X-mas (junebug with red and green flakes) and started to get some bites. I caught my first largemouth about 3:30pm under a dock at the mouth of the canal measuring 15 1/2 inches and close to 2 pounds. I continued down the canal tossing my Bitters Sling under pontoon boats while chatting with a resident sitting on his porch having a beer. He told me the fishing has been so-so and that the females haven't really moved up to spawn yet. I noticed a few nests with a few small males scattered around but nothing over a pound. I got two more small ones on the X-mas slings before exiting the canal and focusing on a line of docks in the mid-lake area. I got one more there at 5:00pm measuring 15" under a dock and decided to call it a day. Total came out to 4 bass-2 keepers and one missed at the boat. Temps were around 70 with water temp about 64. A small front basically moved in the whole time I was out there but only dropped the temp a few degrees. Either way it was nice just to get out land throw some casts!

North Tampa Bass Classic-John's Lake Results

We finished up 2008 with our 2-day Classic tournament on John's Lake this weekend for North Tampa Bass Club and the bite was not what we usually expect from John's Lake. Saturday started off slow for my co-angler and I as we started in the cut entering Clear Lake. There was absolutely no surface activity most of the day and bites would turn on and then off just as quick! My co-angler John McCallister got his limit of 5 fish for the day with 5.12lbs I believe and I managed 3 fish for 3.12lbs all in Clear Lake. We got most of the keepers on the dock line on the south side of Clear Lake with a bunch of small ones mixed in. I was using my Bitters sling baits in black and John was using black with blue flake (yamamoto I believe). We got a few keepers on a hydrilla line we found on the other side of Clear lake as well using 7.5 inch Culprits in Junebug. The wind was kicking pretty good most of the day making it a little difficult as my trolling motor is on it's last leg and has very little power! The water temp was between 68 and 72 the whole day and the cloud cover lingered for most of the day. Not bad conditions especially for what the forcast was for Sunday!
Sunday morning started off with the air-temp around 40 and the water temp around 68 but the wind seemed to hold off for the first hour giving us a chance to maybe pick a few off before that wind starts howling. We started on our hydrilla line and I managed to get two hits in the first half hour or so but missed both. I knew that would be huge as it was going to be the kind of day were five bites might be all I see! We wound up getting nothing at that spot so we moved to docks were we started getting some hits. By this time it was about 10:00am and with a noon weigh-in we needed keepers bad! I managed one quickly but that would be my only keeper for the rest of the day. John managed to pull 3 off the docks to finish the weekend in 3rd place. Nice tourny John! Steve Jarret won the tournament with 11+ lbs and will maybe leave a comment on where he was fishing:)