Captain Phil

I'm not into Walleye fishing myself. My friends eat everything they catch and walleyes are always on the menu. I have caught a few exceptionally large walleyes while pike fishing. The lake is full of small pike under ten pounds that can get to be a nuisance. If you throw large pike lures in Lac Seul, you will tangle with a fish worth the effort. The largest pike I catch in Loc Seul are caught casting a spinnerbait in flooded timber. Rainy overcast days are best.

It's a challenge. My friends troll spinners with live minnows out the back of the boat. They catch walleyes all day. I sit in the front and cast. They call me "The Man of A Thousand Casts!" I throw big spinnerbaits and large Cisco plugs. They don't make fun of me when I bring a fish in the boat that won't fit in the rod box. ?

For a number of years I fished with friends on Lac Seul Lake in Ontario. We flew into Dryden and drove out to Lac Seul Lodge where my friend owned adjacent property. My friends were walleye fisherman and I fished for pike. This lake is literally eaten up with huge fish. I have caught walleye up to 10 pounds and pike up to 25 pounds in Lac Seul. I saw a photo of Al Linder with a 50 pound musky he caught there. https://www.lacseullodge.com/

Let me give you some small examples of what I am taking about. The first tournament I ever fished was in South Florida. It was in the dead of summer and very hot. I rode around the lake all day jumping from spot to spot. I kept passing a boat anchored near a pumping station. He could have been cat fishing for all I knew. Fishing was tough and I felt good to boat three keepers. When I went to the weigh-in, that guy had 28 pounds of bass and he wasn't going to tell me how he did it. What he was doing was fishing running water. At that time I would have never thought of doing that. If I had not seen what he did, I would not have learned that lesson. Another time I followed Charlie Orm (Top Water Charlie) and watched him with binoculars. He didn't know I was watching him. Some people may think that was unsportsmanlike. It may have been, but he wasn't going to post a YouTube video on how he won all those tournaments. If you want to be a better bass fisherman, learn from one who is. You can only learn so much about bass fishing while sitting in front of your computer.

What it comes down to is experience. It takes many years of fishing to learn how to catch fish when other's don't. Tournament fishing is very competitive. No competitor will tell you "exactly" how they beat you. When you are standing in line at a weigh-in next to someone with 32 pounds of bass and you have two small fish, you probably think that person got lucky. That is until they do it over and over again. Unless you fish competitively, you will never know how you stack up. I'm not talking about turning Pro. Club and local tournaments will teach you all you need to know. Your average weekend bass fisherman rarely discovers anything they haven't known before.

In every tournament I have ever fished, someone always finds fish. I can't remember a time when this wasn't so. That said, I have seen anglers win tournaments with a few small fish when everyone else caught nothing. Here in Florida, cold fronts are the worst. Before the front moves in, bass bite like there's no tomorrow. It's during the calm high sky weather after the front that things get tough. Normally, getting skunked is a matter of location, not a lack of fish activity. Water and temperature fluctuations can cause fish to move where you can't reach them. When this happens you feel like the lake has been poisoned.

The best neighborhoods are where people have similar interests and expectations. My neighborhood is mostly retirees. We all have projects of some kind. My next door neighbor is building a small airplane in his garage. I have restored a number of classic cars in mine. We both make some noise during the day. We both stop working after 6 PM. Most everyone is in bed by 10 PM. Homes on our block are well kept, but not exceptionally so. There are no kids. Most people have dogs, but they don't bark excessively. We have a home owner's association, but the rules are not that strictly enforced. We have lived here for 25 years and have no plans to move. Before you buy a home in any neighborhood, look around. Would you want to live next to yourself? If the people and families are like you, you will most likely fit in. If not, don't move there.

My wife was in Real Estate for nearly twenty years. She sold lakefront property out of her office in Mount Dora. I assisted her many times when customers had questions about the lakes. Buyers are all different. Some want to live in tightly controlled developments where the home owners association controls everything from the condition of your lawn to the color of your front door. Other buyers want no control whatsoever. If you purchase a home without community control, there is nothing to keep your neighbors from doing something you may not like. Dogs are one of the most contentious issues. It is common in Lake County to drive by a 70 year old mobile home with cars in the yard to get to a million dollar lakefront estate. I have been in homes where the dog smell was so bad I had to leave. I have seen home bathtubs sitting on concrete blocks. I have also been in homes that my wife sold for millions of dollars. A home is the biggest investment most people make. Your home is valued by what's around it. Keep this in mind before you buy a home in a neighborhood where your neighbors don't or can't take care of their property.

If all the electronics fell off my boat I won't miss them. I learned to catch bass when the only depth finder I had was a stick. Shallow bass are active bass. A fish you can see on a monitor is not necessarily a bass you can catch.

For those who can afford the price of admission, Disney has great bass fishing. Back when I was guiding, I applied to be one of their fishing guides. I discovered there was a long waiting list for those positions and most were current Disney employees. Fishing in Disney is nothing like fishing in the real world.

Packs of dogs barking? Cars parked along the street? Black lagoon pools. Shooting range in the back yard! Sounds like a great Real Estate Ad. ?

Every pond, ditch, canal, sink hole, rock pit and lake in Florida contains bass. When I was a kid, we caught 6" bass in a military base runway ditch 10 feet wide and 100 yards long. Most all ground water in Florida is connected underground. The State is made of porous limestone with numerous underground springs. Most canals were dug for flood control or to drain a swamp. I have seen thirty pound snook and hundred pound tarpon in road side ditches. They weren't brought there by birds.

I agree. One of the biggest issues with this fishing technique is losing fish that you don't know have your bait. Rod sensitivity can be a significant aid or hindrance to your fishing sucess. You don't want a pool cue for flipping. You want a rod with a sensitive tip and a strong backbone. Strikes can be very subtle. The line and the hooks you use are more important than the rod or the reel. Modern braided line is much better for flipping because it telegraphs vibrations better than mono. A few years back, I would have argued the reverse. Every 50 years or so, I change my opinions. ? These are the best flipping hooks I have found. These looks will stick a bass by it's weight alone.

I use a twenty year old Shimano Castaic CA-200 for flipping and pitching. It's so beat up I can't read the name on the reel and all the paint is worn off the side plates. How many bass have I caught with this reel? A lot... This reel has the flipping trigger which I love because I don't have to switch hands to engage the reel. Any reel will work, they will bury this one with me. ?

This post is why I much prefer fish pads with a spinnerbait over flipping. If you can get the bass to strike near the surface, you have a much better chance of landing it. Digging a bass out of pads is like untying the Gordian Knot (Google it). Some may be asking how I throw a spinnerbait in a pad field? The answer is you have to pick your spots and be accurate with your casts. It also takes guts. You will get hung up, so get used to it. The reward is worth the trouble. Big bass seek out pads. Pads are big bass condos. I often ride around the Harris Chain jumping from pad field to pad field. I rarely get skunked and most of my fish are over 4 pounds. I use heavy line and haul the bass out before it has a chance to know what's happening. Try it, it works.

It's not your line that is causing these problems. Pads are about the toughest cover to fish vertically. What happens is the bass sucks in your bait then proceeds to wrap the line around the pad stems. By the time you set the hook the fish could be a yard or more away. As soon as you detect a strike (or think you do), reel down and take out as much slack as possible. Fifty pound braid is strong enough. I use Power Pro, but most any quality line will do. Even then, 50/50 is about all you can expect to land. Snelling your hooks will help by tilting the hook into the fish.

Tournament fishing is tough on your body and your mind. Sooner or later they all retire. Clunn is an anomaly. I can't imagine what he feels like. Tom Mann wrote a book about this titled "Think Like A Fish". Roland Martin lives in the Keys. He fishes for salt water fish as well as bass. Your mind stays sharp, but your body breaks down. KVD was one of the best.

Florida lakes are shallow with little offshore structure. I can count on one hand the number of times sonar has helped me to catch bass in Florida. When I started fishing out of State, I quickly learned their value. My first sonar was a flasher. It didn't tell me much, but at least I could see depth changes. Today's electronics are phenomenal. My current bass boat has two Lowrance Hook Reveals, one forward and one in the dash. Unless I was fishing for $100,000, I wouldn't waste my money on Live Target.

I have owned at least a dozen bass boats from a 15' Terry Bass to an 80 mph Gambler. I owned a 2000 Skeeter 185 with a Yamaha 150 for ten years. It was one of the best boats I ever owned. Porpoising is not unique to Skeeters. All pad hull bass boats will porpoise under the right circumstances. The most common cause is too much trim. Back when high performance bass boats first came out, everyone wanted to create a "rooster tail" behind their boat. We thought it looked cool, so we trimmed the motor up until the prop was nearly out of the water. All we had at the time were two blade props, which made porpoising worse. I can remember when we had to have the passenger run to the front of the boat just to get on a plane. Scary stuff! Mounting the motor too high can cause porpoising. Skeeter's come from the factory with the motor mounted where it should be, but you don't know what a previous owner might have done. Another cause is too much weight in the rear of the boat. Moving your junk around will help. In rare cases you can find boats with a hook in the bottom. Modern epoxy construction has pretty much eliminated that situation. In all my years of riding in bass boats, I find most owners of these boats don't know how to operate them correctly. Your boat will not run faster if you trim the motor too high. Every boat has a balance point. That balance point is a compromise between speed and comfort. If you want a race boat, buy one. If you want a boat to fish, trim the motor down and back off the throttle. Your boat has more than two speeds.

I grew up in South Florida and spent over 30 years fishing those canals. Your fishing will depend on the water levels. March is a good month for bass fishing in South Florida. The worst cold fronts will be over by then. You don't need heavy tackle to catch fish in the glades. A spinning outfit will catch all the bass you want. The water is fairly clear. You can catch bass on most anything. If you use a Rapala and make long casts, you will catch fish. If you grow tired of catching small fish, use big plastic worms on the drops. If water is running, fish bends and canal intersections. You don't need to run far to catch bass. If you can, fish on weekdays to avoid the crowd. Good luck!

If you Google "Mojo Rig", descriptions will vary. A Mojo rig for bass is an ultralight Carolina Rig. I fish this rig on 8 pound mono and a spinning outfit. Years ago, anglers used split shot crimped a foot or so ahead of a soft plastic bait. The spit shot tended to get caught up in whatever was on the bottom. A Mojo weight is a small cylindrical weight held on with rubber spinnerbait skirt material. A special tool is used to thread the line through these weights. Mojo weights easily slide through rocks and grass. If they get caught, the rubber slips down to the weight instead of breaking off. I use 1/4 oz. Mojo weight. The best bait I have found for a Mojo rig is a 4" Zoom Finesse worm or lizard. A Mojo rig will catch bass when nothing will. Years ago I won a tournament on Rodman in the dead of winter using a Mojo and a 4" lizard. I may have been the only one who caught fish that day.

When you are first starting out, use a 1 oz. weight. This will keep the weight on the bottom. If you have trouble with the weight picking up weeds or bottom debris, downsize the weight. One of the most effective fishing techniques is a Mojo rig, which is an ultralight Carolina rig. It was a tournament secret for many years, much like a drop shot. Works great on highly pressured waters.

Use these hooks and you will land more fish.

When I first started fishing a Carolina Rig, I had zero confidence in that bait. To gain confidence, I started trolling a Carolina Rig out the back of the boat while I fished from the front. It worked so well that I found myself constantly running from the front of the boat to unhook fish. You need hard bottom to fish a Carolina Rig or the sinker will dig up the bottom. It's a very effective technique.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) will conduct the hydrilla treatment on Lake Yale previously scheduled for Fall 2022, the week of February 13th, 2023. If you have any questions, please contact us at: Nathalie.Visscher@myFWC.com or HarrisChain@myFWC.com QUESTIONS? Contact the FWC