KLBL - Lake Florida

After canceling last Thursday we finally had our first Standings league night. There are only 9 teams fishing the standings this year which was less than we hoped for, but on the other hand having only 9 boats on the water will make getting to the spots we want to fish a lot easier. Lake Florida is almost entirely surrounded by houses which means its got a lot of docks and this is what most people choose to fish. Theres also a good deep weedline bite which is what my dad and I have focused on the past couple years. The lake used to be known for kicking out a lot of big fish off the docks but the last couple years even a 3 pounder is a really good fish out there. So the weights were typical for the past few years. 1st place had 8.87 lbs, 2nd was my dad and I with 8.67 lbs, and 3rd was actually a tie at 8.18 lbs but one team had a bigger fish so they took 3rd outright. The big bass for the night was 3.83 lbs.

Like I said earlier my dad and I have pretty much focused on deep water only the past few years but with the spring we've had and the water temps still in the mid 60s we decided to start shallow on the docks. We had a limit weighing about 7 lbs within the first half hour by skipping Strike King Bleeding Bait tubes under the docks. This is my favorite bait for dock fishing because it is a double dipped tube meaning it has a lot of plastic so its heavy and skips really well. After that we hit one of our deep spots which is a combination of rocks and weeds. We started a little ways down from our waypoint and as soon as we reached it, it was on. We caught 4 fish between 2 1/2 lbs and 3 lbs within 10 minutes, culling out all of our dock fish. But after that it was done. We couldn't buy another bite out there which is strange because it seemed like they were stacked up pretty good. After that we bounced around hitting some other deep spots and a few more docks with no success. We finally went back to the good spot but once again got nothing. Then we tried a newer deep spot that we haven't really fished as much but are finally starting to learn. The fishing was slower there but we did end up catching 4 more of those 2 1/2 lb to 3 lb bass. All of our fish came on watermelon Picasso jigs (with my dads own skirt color combinations) with Lake Fork Pig Claws and watermelon Berkley Gulp Turtleback worms.

Towards the end of the night I could feel a cold coming on and sure enough when I woke up this morning I was feeling sick as a dog. Thats going to make it tough tomorrow when we plan to head up to Lake Minnewaska to start practicing for the Big Bass Bonanza tournament. If we end up doing bad in that tournament you know my excuse, I was sick as hell during practice. Just Kidding. But hopefully I'll be feeling better tomorrow and we can get on some good ones. It's gonna be a slugfest I think. I'll report back after our practice is complete.