N Florida Mike

Here’s my fav. Country female singer..

Im hoping you’re right. In my lake the bluegill population is the best it's been in years so...

Fine with me .

Trilene XL up to 10 . 12 and up , big game. Very rarely have one break off. I was a Stren man for many years. Just too many breaks. . Used P line for awhile. Strong, but way too kinky. Then it was yozuri hybrid. Great at first, then it seemed each time I re- lined , I got more breaks. Finally very satisfied with Berkely lines.

Yep, same decade.

Same. I got a flu shot once . Got sick the next day. Hadnt been that sick in a long time. I did, but only because I was a kid and my parents thought it was a good idea...

We came in 2nd in a tournament once and I caught a lot of our fish fishing a hydrilla edge with a devil’s horse. We would have won had my partners 4 pounder not come off right at the boat.

I was about to post about the exact same topic. As many of you know, I live on a small lake. The fishing has been outstanding for many years and I have managed the lake for bass fishing, which essentially means I let every fish over 17 inches go, and I occasionally keep some of the small fish to thin the herd. An average day I usually catch around 3-5 bass an hour. The last few months the fishing has really declined to being the worst fishing in the last 10 years. The last 9 hours I fished, I only caught 6. Nothing over 2 pounds. I have a friend from work who was over and said he saw some otters. I know we have nutrias which arent fish eaters so Im hoping they weren’t otters but... there’s no other way to account for the drastic decline of fishing. We had 2 get in around 13 years ago that I saw but the bass fishing remained good , even though they ate most if not all the catfish. So it’s contradictory evidence at this point. Im looking at getting some traps. ( and prayer ) . Hoping against hope that maybe its the less clear water this time of year or the colder than normal winter we had thats causing the slow fishing...Im also 100% sure its not from people keeping the fish because I do easily 95% of the fishing and very rarely see anyone else fishing, and when I do its obvious they arent going to dent the population the way they fish! ? . So at any rate, I hope our lakes will recover.

Man, don't you know it. It wasnt like that 30 years ago... I go armed in there now, or I dont go. Still havent had any issues. Except all the homeless people camping at the best spots...

I tend to fall back in my best producing baits. If that doesn’t work I remind myself that my PB was caught on a day when it was the only bite I got...

NO. But I did catch a fish on my first cast with a whopper plopper. I have never caught another one on it so...?

9^^ Not usually a fan of country rap ( C.rap) but that one was entertaining. ????

? Astor isnt too far from one of my best ONF lakes.

Or the legendary Florida skunk ape ?

So it looks like you fished the river? Great catch!

I may have told this before, but here goes. Me and a friend were camping in the Ocala nat. forest one night, not at a campground , but way out in the woods off a little 1 track 4 wheel drive trail.We sat up talking til around 11 and decided to call it a night because we were getting up early to fish in the morning. At 1 o’clock, I suddenly woke up. There was something out there, maybe 200 feet away. Sounded like a cat-like grunt/ groan , is the best way I can describe it. I asked my friend “ Are you awake ?” and he said yes, in a nervous tone. He had heard it too. It finally quit, so we dozed back off. Exactly at 3 oclock the exact same thing happened, except it was now app. 100 feet away. Again, we dozed off. Exactly at 5 guess what happens? More strange grunt / groan sounds, but now it’s right outside the tent. My friend was now as far back in the tent as he could get. My curiosity overcame fear and I quickly unzipped the tent flap and shone a light toward the sound. I saw nothing, and heard nothing run off, but the sound stopped. I don’t remember getting back to sleep after that. As soon as the sun came up , we were looking for tracks , but there were none. No explanation, but my friend swears it was a rare florida panther. Im not so sure. Both of us basically grew up in the woods, but never heard a sound like that before or since that night.

Tilapia bed in April mostly here . I cant get one to bite anything after watching several videos advising diffrent baits.

Never!

I have had NOTHING but Cooper tires in 36 years of owning 3 trucks. I have had mud tires , and all terrains , and have never had 1 blowout or bad experience from them. I Highly recommend them...

Senkos are amazing producers. I have done ok with pit bosses, but not on the same level as senkos. Only zoom super flukes are on the same level as senkos in my experience.

When I was a kid , we lived right on the edge of suburb and country. Everything to the south was country. Everything to the north was suburb, then city. There are 4 times more people here now than when I was a kid, and they are still coming . The suburbs have gone 15 miles south of me now. The growth here in NE Florida is insane. I would much rather live way out in the country but probably never will. My moms little home town in NC went from 250 to 750 in her whole lifetime. Wouldnt mind living in that area... Just like mayberry ?.

I don’t even have to leave MY dock to have dogs bark at me. It seems like my nieghbor watches for me to come out, and as soon as I do, he lets his dogs out...

I only use flukes on spinning, and have no problem except a loop once and a while on one combo . I do use the magnum flukes on a old ambassador with a 7.2 lightning rod., with 50 lb braid. I can throw it a mile. Have only had 1 birdnest I couldnt pick out.

Why dont you lip or net the fish then?

It depends on how much time I have. More time= more areas fished. Less Time = Hitting the best spots.