davecon

I'm blessed to live where I do, west central Florida, so with that being said, I fish for bass mainly in the winter/spring when they are spawning. Somewhat spoiled as I have been doing this a looooong time but it's gotta be 5 to be good. 7ish is nice, over 9 is what I'm after. Some days you zero, Florida cold fronts can completely shut them down, but an average day is 15 to 20, a really good day is 25, and have had many 75 to 100 fish days. Now most will will be the bucks 3 or under but usually get several over 5. The rest of the year I fish for Snook. Nothing like em. Use the same tackle and many of the same lures. They are incredible fighters. If there were snook distributed all across the country there would be no Bass Pro Shops, no Bass boats, no bass tournaments, it would be all Snook. Trust me on this.

SLOW DOWN !!! So slow you can barely stand it. If you can't smoke half a cigarette during one cast you are fishing too fast. Keep it simple, black or green pumpkin worms with as light of a sinker as you can get away with.

I'm in west central Florida and night fish with only 2 lures. A 12 inch worm with a glass rattle and a Musky Jitterbug. Both lures in black only. The Jitterbug is made from wood. When I got down to only one wooden one I bought a plastic one, took all the hardware off it and had a woodworking friend make me a body from cedar. Then painted that black and attached the hardware. The plastic ones are easy to have hooks pulled from. Don't catch many but the size makes up for it.

Interesting subject. Reminds me of a trip many years ago in a local river. Wife wanted some fish to eat so I brought home a few. Was surprised to find about a dozen small black worms/eels about 7 to 9 inches long in this little bass's stomach. The bass was only 15 or 16 inches long and ironically I had been fishing with an 8 inch black worm similar to a trick worm. Has never happened again to my knowledge but I don't keep bass too often. On the same subject, about 40 to 45 years ago (good gawd I'm getting old) there were a few local bait shops that on rare occasions would have live eels for sale. They were usually 10 to 14 inches long. Best baits I've heard of. Hands down better than wild shiners, and I'm in west central Florida. We would fish them on weedless hooks. Cast them out and move them very slowly to keep them from burrowing into vegetation. They were pretty hardy and you could usually catch quite a few bass on one. Hardest part was holding on to them. Had to use a cotton towel to stand any chance of gripping them. Just food for thought.

Suggest that you visit the next outdoor show in your area and talk to the FWC biologists if they are there. Word of warning - you may have to pi@# them off in front of several people to really get their attention. Shouldn't be that way but it seems to work. They don't like to be embarrassed.

I'm in west central Florida so it's not a fair comparison, plus I have been doing this a long time. Three largest are 14.1, 13.5, and 11.3. Have caught literally hundreds between 9 and 10. Nothing you couldn't do if you lived here. Don't catch as many as I used to as I only fish for bass a couple months out of the year now as I am eatin up with Snook fishing.