N Florida Mike

I’m getting all the mileage I can out of memorial weekend. I fished a little more this morning and found them biting great, right before it rains. They were biting the Big bites 6 inch stick worm in watermelon red. I lost the big one of course. Didnt budge when I set it , and came off. It was a long hook set though, so couldn’t keep enough tension on the fish. These stick worms are thicker too, so harder to keep a fish on.

Oh, ok. Thought maybe I was missing a gator or something. Where are you there?

What am I missing here?

put a speed craw trailer on one and see what happens…?

I’m not a spinnerbait expert but I do fairly well with them when I use them. I do best with a slow to moderate retrieve. The best fish Ive caught with them were on sunny days, same for numbers. I know this goes against conventional thinking , but that’s been my experience. A little wind is also helpful.

Got a couple bream while mostly bass fishing . The second one ( a very dark shellcracker, possibly a hybrid with a warmouth) ate a uv speed worm. The first was caught with a roostertail in a bedding area…

Started out with a booyah pc this morning at crack of dawn. Got this 20 inch fish for my first frog fish of the year. I had thrown it by a bulkhead, saw a slight wave of a fish, twitched it ever so slightly and boom! Had another fish subtly sip in the frog exactly where I caught a 7.3 a few years ago on a frog. I swung and missed on that one. I tried a buzz bait for awhile to no avail, and a long drift with a chatterbait, also with nothing. I threw the uv speed worm for awhile and got several smaller fish. Hooked a 3 pounder on a roostertail near some bream beds but lost him with a jump near the boat. That was fun on the ultra light! I did catch another smaller one on the roostertail.I then got another good fish or two on the yum dinger…

Nice catch ( and mountains) I plan to go first thing tomorrow. My plan is to fish topwater for at least 1.5 hours and see how it goes. Thinking of using a frog, a buzz bait, and maybe a devil’s horse…

That fish is an absolute TANK. How did you place in the tournament?

I once set the hook on a fish and missed. The worm went over the boat and landed about 20 feet on the other side. I reeled up the slack and a fish had picked it up already. Got that one.?

I feel more like the nut usually…

I use no leaders for ANYTHING.

My go to bait is a zoom super fluke. Especially watermelon red , watermelon seed, watermelon slice, red shad and houdini colors. Someone gave me a couple packs of yamamoto flukes once and they worked well also.

I have fished the Santa Fe river several times,which goes into the suwanee. Catching suwannee bass was one of the highlights!

Praying for you and mom. I’ll tell our mens class at church tomorrow as well… I’m glad she’s showing some improvement.

I’m easy to please. But I have a few in mind. 1. Fish and camp for a week or so along the suwannee river. Never fished it, but it’s been on the list for a long time. 2. Would like to fish for at least a few days in the mountains of North carolina or tennessee.( At somewhere I can catch some smallmouth! 3. I’d love to spend a week camping at my old haunts in the Ocala national forest. Good bassin and cats on a trotline ! 4. I would just love to go inshore fishing with my middle son, at our normal range anywhere between Mayport down to St Augustine . We usually do very well for Redfish, flounder , sheephead, black drum, you name it. But he’s 1000 miles away ….? I’d also like to have a week or so and just fish a different lake or two in my area every day…

I need to get mine tested again .It’s been high for 20+ years. I think mine is at least partially hereditary. My mom had it for years. Of course, the crisco she always fried everything with might have had something to do with it too…

Praying for you. My best friend passed from covid on my birthday last year. Still kind of in shock, for lack of a better way to explain it… Like yours, mine was a once in a lifetime kind of friend. Very Very thankful to have known him for as long as I did…

I know tides are in effect at least to palatka. Past there to the south I can’t remember. @GRiver would know down there. When I fish the river , I fish high tide up in the cypress. At low tide I fish outer weed edges ( if you can find any) , and under low slung docks. Spring runs off lake george are also good because of the cooler water. Fishing artificials in june can be tough here. I’d be on the water at daybreak. Summer bite is better in the early A.M. You also might consider ponds. There are a lot of them in N Florida. Nearly all of them hold fish. It’s easier to find and catch fish in them.

Got a warmouth on a super fluke on the first cast this morning at the church pond. The bass didnt cooperate there today…

And it is actually is a matched set. I don’t think any of my other combos are. It just feels right.

CC Corey is good and he does the palatka/ Rodman/Ocklawaha river areas. I know he uses shiners. Not sure if he does artificial trips. You can watch his videos on North Florida Angler. I tried to get his contact info but my internet isnt working at the moment… Sean Rush is another good one, I think he does mostly Rodman. Warning though- these guides are often booked months in advance.

I’ll never forget Roland Martin’s fish he caught out there that looked like a dd. He was wearing waders in chest deep water and the fish flipped out of his hand as he was holding it. It was part of the introduction to the show every week.

I’ve never done well during a rain. Fishing after a big rain has been the same, except for a few times finding a good inlet coming from one water body towards the one I’m in. Another is an outlet I fish after a hard rain. They turn on eventually there, but not immediately following a big rain. It’s usually a few hours after. My experience is that catfish really turn on during and after a hard rain. I dont fish in the rain much because I don’t have a good rain suit, and a lot of the rain here in summer and other seasons includes lightning.