N Florida Mike

I use a 6.6 mh rod with 12 pound mono. I gut hook the most fish with flukes. If you wait much to set the hook you will gut hook them. Sweep hook set is best. Use gamakatsu hooks for the sharpness. I use them weightless for the most part. Imo using weight ruins the action of the bait.

Had a young friend from church over this afternoon to take advantage of the springlike condtions. We caught 27 on trick worms, flukes, and senkos. The bites came mostly in 2-3 big flurries throughout the afternoon. High was pushing 80 !! I lost 2 fish 5 minutes apart that didnt budge when I set the hook. Mission accomplished though, in putting him on some fish.

The Fla. state record is 16 pounds 2 oz. ( or maybe its the world record) My son and his friend caught a 13.2 and a 12.5 in the same day. They are very hard fighters, hard to hook, not the easiest to clean , but excellent on the table.

Next door to me were drug dealers. I could tell you so many stories it would nearly fill up a whole thread page. It was really bad. The end result was we had prayed A LOT about it. And told the police several times. I am armed, but I really didnt want it to end that way if I could help it. One night we heard a muffled BOOM, and the swat team had thrown a tear gas granade in the door ( I think ) and they busted the 3 of them for selling crack. Nobody has lived there for years now ( We love it )

My first "boat" was an inflatable raft. It was impossible to control with any wind at all. You mostly just went around in circles in it. It got a little hole in it and would start sinking. Tried duct taping it . ? Sometimes I waited too long to put air in it and it WOULD sink. It just got to be too much after awhile and I started using my friends JB.

My friend used to fish there a lot, using shiners. He once caught several fish between 9-11 pounds in one day. He fished mostly open lake brush piles that were sticking up. I went with him the next week or so, and we caught one 4 pounder, and we caught him in the rim canal to the right of the ramp coming out. .It seems they had sprayed the lake for weeds, and it shut down the fishing apparently.( we didnt notice the sign until we came back to the ramp.) Most everyone had seen the sign and went to farm 13.

This is a long one. My wife and me made plans to take the kids camping and fishing at a remote lake in the Ocala National Forest. She was taking the kids early to a swimming hole at a spring on the way there. I was going to meet them at the spring after work, and we would all go to the lake together. So I get off work , load up , and head south. I decided to stop at a bait store in the last big town before the forest. I come out of the bait store, turn the key, and nothing happens. Dead battery. So I get 2 different people to try and jump it and its not working. So about that time an OLD F-150 pulls up and the owner gets out and its evident he is very drunk. He sees my plight and is sure he can jump start my truck. He could not. So he says he'll show me where the closest parts store is , if I'll drive. So we get in the truck and it doesnt take long for me to realize that, on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being the worst , the brakes were a 1.5. I would have to bow up in the seat, and put all my weight down to get it to stop. So we make it to the parts store, and its the girls first day on the job. And theres about 100 batteries on display. The manager comes out and gets me the battery and I put it in the back of the truck, get in, turn the key.... And nothing happens. So we had left his jumper cables back at my truck. We go back in and convince the manager to come jump us off .His truck starts, and we head back to the bait store, and I put the new battery in. But the old drunks battery wont start again... So Now I try jumping his battery off with my new battery but its no use... So now he wants me to take him back to the parts store to get HIM a new battery. I glanced at my watch, and realized I was now very late for my rendevous with my family, so... I know it was probably wrong but....I bailed on my alcohol induced friend. I may have offered to take him home minus the truck, I dont remember. But I was genuinely worried about my family, because I thought they would be lost in the woods, wife would be mad, etc. I doubt that he remembered anything the next day anyway. And me getting him a new battery would have caused him to drive drunk. So I go as fast as I can to the spring, and everybodies gone, and its getting dark. Im still 20 miles from the lake, or 60 miles from home. Was not sure my wife knew where the lake was so I had to decide to go on to the lake or turn around and go home. No cell phones in those days .Decided to go to the lake. I get there, and Im driving around the lake looking for them. No campfire visible. Im careening down the dirt road through the palmettos and my middle son jumps out and flags me down. The next day we got up, and went fishing as planned, and it was HOT. Ice had melted in the cooler, but was still pretty cool. We all had a drink, but before long we were all searching for our own private palmetto, because we now had the runs from the water. I dont remember if we caught any fish or not....

We had something along these lines a few years ago, but it didnt go very far as I recall. Tell us your funniest fishing story that happened to you.

And bacon. Good job charlie !

My son got some nice sheepies and is fryin' em up as I write this. The biggest was 6.9 pounds. Also a 26.5 inch red is in the mix. Sheepheads are about the top of my list for eatin'.

I hear ya. I'd be down for that myself.

Yeah, I'd say that qualifies as a good fish. ? Get a weight on her ?

I have had more rude boaters than kayakers. The only time Ive gotten really angry at kayakers was when we were saltwater creek fishing and trying to outrun a storm back to the ramp. We came up behind a pod of kayakers and they would not get out of the way so we tried to pass and got stuck on a sandbar. We were not trying to speed pass them fast and maybe swamp them, but just pass them. The wind was blowing right in our faces at that part of the creek, and they were going very slow. It took us awhile to get off the bar, and then get back to the ramp and they had just got there and were VERY slowly loading up. ( picture a sloth doing it ) , all while the storm is bearing down. I finally backed the trailer down between them, almost getting stuck again on the dirt/sand ramp. I literally could not say a word to them because I knew at that point it would not be good. I own a kayak, J.boat, and bass hunter, but I use the JB the most. I could write a book on all the jerk boaters I have encountered through the years, and landowners as I was fishing by them. Kayakers? not so much.

Yeah, he kept it in there for when he shiner fished.

. I take that as a joke ( hopefully ? ) I actually had a co-partner in a tournament do that, and was trying to get me to say he caught it. He was half-kidding, but I think he might have done it if I had agreed.

Dang, when I fished tournaments we didnt have any rules like that.About the only rule I remember us having was no cast netting fish, and being on time for the weigh in.?

Got to fish at a couple of my work route ponds. ( I do sales, so often have gaps of time between stops ) Today I was at one of the parks I frequent. I usually fish the middle pond first. Today I started there ,felt the thump, set the hook, and the fish broke the hook off at the shank. Went back to the truck to retie, and when I got back a dad and his kid were right at the best spot at the drain ( where I was fixing to fish ). The kid was throwing rocks in the water , smh. So I bailed out from there and went to the front pond ( where I hadnt caught any before.)Ended up getting these 3 healthy fish on a zoom super fluke. Watermelon with gold flake. Now if I can just sell something today....

Go with older , more experienced fishermen. I learned the most new stuff the fastest this way. I only had 2. One friend taught me the basics, and the other was more in depth. I have learned most of the rest by fishing myself , and occasionally a tip here and there from friends, and of course, bass resource.

That happens every time you fish, lol. So if that is your logic, then just give up fishing completely.

Another nice bullhead.

I havent been out this year yet, just catching a few bank fishing. Today was very windy and cool but didnt feel like going and battling the wind. So I did me some lazy man dock fishing and caught me a 5.10 on a little bream. The beddin' is starting too. They have began scooping right by my bank, like they do every year. This fish was out away from the bank, but was holding just offshore gettin' ready !!

When I was in my teens / 20s , I not only targeted bedding fish but kept all of them ( as did most of my friends ) It was because we were taught by our parents to keep fish to eat because many of them had had a hardscrabble life and one mor fish on the table meant the little mouths at that table were fed again. I fished very heavily the small lake I now live on and caught and kept dozens of big bass but it never seemed to affect the fishery in a negative way. I grew up this way but in my 30s began realizing how beautiful these bass are, and realizing they arent quite as good to eat as a lot of the other fish we caught. So I started catch and release of all fish over 17 inch, bedding fish or not. That being said, I dont think it one bit unethical to bed fish. I do it but never keep them and release them asap. No harm, no foul . And Just because you find a bed does not mean its easy to catch the fish. It does greatly annoy me now if people keep big bass esp. in a small pond or lake and off a bed. But its maybe hypocritical thinking, because I did it for years.

My wife and me have an understanding. I keep up with the honey do's , and when I want to go fishing, she doesnt complain. Great way to live. But I still love that Brad paisley song !

I drive around working all day. I pass ponds continually, dozens of them every day. I often wonder if that one has anything in it or not, what bait looks like it would work there , whether or not Id get run off or mugged ( depending on what part of town Im in ) if I tried fishing it , where to park, etc. Sometimes, the daydream turns into reality !☺

Ive done real well with junebug , esp in lower light conditions. Ive caught a lot of fish with black grape using worms other than trick worms.