Lake Tarpon Xtreme Series Tournament 6/19

This past Saturday's Xtreme tournament on Lake Tarpon was a carbon copy of the past 4 tournaments for my partner and I as we had close to 10 pounds good enough for about 5th place out of 12 boats. We just can't get anything over 3lbs this year but we aren't the only ones! Limits are not so hard to come by but if you can reel in a 4 to 5 lb'er it seems you are set for 1st or 2nd. 1st place was again about 14 lbs with big bass in the 5 lb range. Gone are those 17-20lb stringers it used to take to place on Tarpon and where are those 8-9 lb big bass that used to come in every tournament? I'm not sure if it's the cold winter and hot spring or over-spraying of pesticide or cutting of the hydrilla fields or overfishing but the size is definately down on Lake Tarpon. The numbers are definately still there as my partner and I have been catching 20-30 bass each tournament. This past Saturday, we got most of our fish on the East side of the lake in about 8 feet on the outside edge of a grass line on texas rigged plastics. Don't think the color mattered as we used several different colors and got bites on most of them. The water temps were 88-89 degrees around most of the lake although we found an area that was around 85 degrees but with no fish:)

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 4/17/2010-Xtreme Bass Tournament

Finally, we got some active fish as we fished our 3rd Xtreme Bass Series Tournament on Lake Tarpon this past weekend. The weather conditions were perfect on Saturday for a healthy bite and the bass did not dissapoint! Unfortunately, we couldn't get a kicker in the boat but we caught over 30 fish on the day with a 9-lb limit. The top three spots were around 14, 12, and 11 pounds respectively with big bass about 4.5 pounds.
We started the day on the East side of the lake using topwater and texas rigged junebug culprits mostly. They were hitting topwater for about the first 45 minutes but the action on top died off and we started getting bit on the T-rigs dragged through the grass and reeds. We were able to get one keeper (14 inch) on top water and one on a worm before moving in and getting two keepers off of docks with a Junebug Bitters sling. After several hours, we decided to move on in pursuit of some larger fish. We hit the mid-lake area on the West side and were able to find a little better quality but still no kicker. We got a few in the two pound range under docks and another two pounder in the grass on a lipless bait to fill out our limit at around 9-lbs. Overall, the weather was great and the fishing was excellent! Oh ya,and the new Nitro 929 ran like a dream!! Kev and I had a great time on the water and thats what it's all about!

Water temp:74-75 degrees
Air temp: 70-85 degrees
Partly cloudy, pre-front conditions
wind: calm in the morning,SSW 5-10 w/ gusts to 15 mph in the afternoon.

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!

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!