Lake Tarpon Report 2/20/10 -Xtreme Series

Feels good to back fishing Lake Tarpon on a regular basis again as my bassin' partner Kevin and I have decided to fish the Xtreme Bass Series Lake Tarpon Division after taking a year off. Unfortunately the fishing was slow for us as we couldn't seem to get any bites until the afternoon hours. We tried fishing canals and the mouths of canals early but couldn't find any fish as the water temps lingered around 55 degrees until the sun came out around 11:00am. The warmest I saw the water temp was 59 degrees and the air temps ranged from the high 40's to the high 60's later in the day. We only caught about 6 or 7 fish all day with 2 keepers for 3.60 pounds. We got one keeper on a rapala and a 2-1/2 pounder on a Bitter's Sling. I saw quite a few anglers fishing traps but I don't know how they did. Winning team had 13.10lbs with big fish weighing 5.55lbs. Second place had 10.58lbs. There were a total of 9 teams with 3 teams catching their 5-fish limit. Hopefully, with a little warmer weather we can get some more teams out there in the upcoming tournaments!

Bigger bait is the key to catching bigger fish

Bigger bait is the key to catching bigger fish

North Tampa Bass Club-Lake Tarpon Tournament

Well it was a struggle all day for me and my co-angler Eamon as we couldn't seem to muster up very many bites as we threw everything imaginable in countless spots! We started at the mouth of Salmon Bay (Anderson Park) throwing traps but couldn't get a hit. They must of turned on or moved in sometime after we left because rumor has it anglers from the Tarpon Toms Trail were slaying them there later in the afternoon. We headed south to the Cobbs Landing area where it was a little calmer and also where I got a few bites on Thursday but nothing doing today as I threw flukes, senkos, and texas rigged worms. Surface activity was non-existent as it was for the whole day. We then bounced around to John Chesnut area, south cove, mid-lake bar area, and several canals on the East side of the lake with still no fish. I had one hit under a dock but broke my line on the set. Very disappointing to work so hard for a bite only to have it break off! I missed a couple of other small hits through out the day as did my co-angler before heading back North to Salmon Bay for the last hour of the tournament to try and work some rattle trap magic! Unfortunately, my trolling batteries died on me so we had to do a couple of drifts ripping our traps through the hydrilla. I was able to get one 8 incher at 2:40 to save me from being skunked and then at 2:50 I nailed a 15 oz keeper to get me on the board! Thanks to Eamon for persuading me not to call it a day after the trolling motor went down! The winner was John McAllister with somewhere around 6 pounds caught on several different baits. Big bass was around 3lbs. The winners of the Tarpon Toms Trail had around 13 pounds with big bass around 4 pounds. Overall the weather turned out to be decent with no lightning and temps from 60-70 degrees all day although we did get rained soaked the second half of the day and the wind was howling! Water temps were between 62-64 degrees.

Lake Tarpon Tournament pre-fish 1/28

I got out and pre-fished Thursday for my Saturday tournament on Lake Tarpon and I was able to stick a couple keepers but overall the bite was slow. Water temp was between 64-66 degrees and the air temp was around 70 degrees and the water level was very high. Got on the water about 11am starting in the sandy point area with no success. Hydrilla was much thinner in that area than normal as is the norm around the lake these days with the all the spraying. Moved across to the Cobbs Landing area and was able to get a few keeper bites but couldn't land them which is fine since I was pre-fishing. I missed 2 on a junebug trick-worm and 1 on a green pumpkin fluke. I moved around flipping senkos and flukes with no success except for a small keeper sized bass on a black/blue senko in the canal north of Dolly Bay. Overall, I couldn't establish much of a pattern bite I was encouraged to get a couple nice bites after the cold weather. We shall see what happens on Saturday!