Captain Phil

This bass lives around a sunken dock on Little Lake Harris. This dock is not visible from the surface. I've caught and released this same fish numerous times. Never on the same day. I know it's the same fish as it has distinctive markings. Over the years this fish has grown from about 5 pounds to 8. Haven't caught her in awhile.

You are not alone with your question. As stated above, Florida bass are different than northern fish. This has more to do with the environment than the fish themselves. Most Florida lakes are shallow sinkholes with little or no offshore structure. Bass are ambush feeders and will be in and around any cover they can find. If a lake's water visibility is low, the fish will be shallow and will hold tight to cover. You should learn some basic information about Florida aquatic plants. Kissimmee Grass grows on hard bottom. It holds fish year round. In the summer, you want to fish the deepest thickest grass beds you can find. I want my water to be at least 4 feet deep with 5-6 feet even better. If the weed beds contain other plants like reeds or pads, all the better. Don't waste your time on long straight stretches of featureless grass. Ride around the lake and look for points, islands, docks and anything different. This is the best time of the year for flipping. If you have never used this technique, you should leave your other rods at home and learn to do it. The difference in your summer fishing will amaze you. The bass in the photo below was caught in the middle of the day in August. Hydrilla changes lakes. It can turn a featureless lake into a bass aquarium. If hydrilla is topped out, you can flip the mats. If it's sparse, you can fish it with a worm on the bottom. Summer is also a good time for pad fishing, even in the middle of the day. Docks and bridge pilings are obvious bass holdouts. In any case, don't expect summer fishing to be the same as in April. For me, summer is a big bass month. Afternoon rains raise the lake and the fish follow the water level. Fishing tournaments all those years taught me a lesson, someone always finds fish. You can too.

Went out yesterday morning on the Harris Chain with my wife. At 9 AM, the temperature was already in the high eighties heading into the nineties. The lake was like glass. By 10 AM, I hadn't seen a fish. Pulled out my flipping stick and headed to a deep area of pads, grass, docks and shade. I started down the grass line and caught three fish in 20 minutes. I'm telling you this so you know bass don't shut down when it's hot, they move. In the heat of a summer day, they aren't going to be in the same places they will be at 6 AM. Think like a fish.

Tipping a guide is greatly appreciated. It's not mandatory. If your reason for booking a guide was entertainment and you got what you paid for, you should tip whatever you are comfortable with. Some of my paying customers were tournament fisherman looking for local knowledge. I considered them a business to business transaction and never expected a tip. If they did well in their tournament, I was happy for them. At the time, a full day bass fishing trip ran about $350 a day. $50 tips were common. If the customer told me up front we were fishing for a trophy and he caught one, I got $100 or more. Here's a photo of one happy angler below. If we had a bad day, which happened sometimes, I refused to accept a tip. The life of a fishing guide is tough work. There are much easier ways to make a living.

This certainly hasn't been my experience and I have been using a casting reel since 1962. As others have stated, braid needs to be tightly spooled. I use a pair of cotton garden gloves when I spool my line using my fingers to tension the line as I reel. This provides more control than a phone book. There are things to like about braid, just as many not to like. On the good side, braid has no stretch and it's thinner. This is offset by the fact that braid is more visible under water. On the negative side, braid tends to backlash more than mono. This is especially true if you are attempting to make long casts. Braid backlashes can often be are harder to pick out. Brad is more visible to fish in water than mono. Braid is more buoyant which changes the way plastic baits fall. Braid is expensive. Braid is rougher, harder on rod guides, has more surface tension and hangs on logs and reeds. A discussion of braid vs. mono line is similar to religion and politics. There are braid lovers and braid haters. Both lines have advantages and disadvantages. Don't be afraid to find out what works best for you.

As long as you are using a leader, the color of your line won't matter. When using live bait for offshore ocean fishing the water is extremely clear and there is no cover. The fish can swim right up to the bait and inspect it close up. I've seen all colors and strengths of line used successfully with fluorocarbon leaders. In that style of fishing, there is a big difference between mono and fluro leaders. If a sailfish can detect the line, so can a bass. When bass fishing in Florida, I fish mostly with clear or natural green colored mono. If the water is very clear, I may use fluorocarbon. I didn't always. Some time ago it was proven to me that flouro gets more strikes under those conditions. The only time I use braid with no leader is when frog fishing in very heavy cover where I may have to dig a large bass out of the cover with 5 pounds of weeds hanging off it.

The Trailer Valet is a love/hate device. Works good on flat concrete. Won't work on grass or rock. 8 degree inclines? Good Luck. I use one to get my boat in and out of my garage. Eventually moved my boat out of the garage behind my house. My Trailer Valet XL is for sale. Make me an offer.

This problem is worsened by the fact that Ranger recently reduced the RT178 swing away tongue length by 9 inches putting the trailer closer to the tow vehicle. Also, I was in a gas station when this happened and was attempting to make a U-turn at the pumps. You should avoid making very tight right turns and/or severely jack knifing the trailer at the ramp. Under normal driving operation you would be fine with the removable first step. I put this down to "Murphy's Law". If something bad is going to happen, it's going to happen to me. ?

Here's a followup on Trick Steps. When I purchased my Trick Steps, the manufacturer advised me to buy a removable bottom step. This is a $75 option. I purchased this option and it reduces the space between the steps and the tow vehicle. After installation, I removed the bottom step and went to the gas station to fill up the boat. The first pump wasn't working, so I went to another pump. When I made a tight right turn, a piece of the main Quick Step unit cut a hole in the bumper of my new Explorer. This was totally my fault. My wife was with me and I told her it was a good thing it happened to me and not her. She agreed 100%. If you are going to install Trick Steps, be aware of this. Since I have had my Quick Steps for awhile, I can tell you the bottom step is optional. I don't use it as I can step on the trailer and step directly on the second step. My wife is shorter and needs the bottom step installed. The Quick Steps are amazingly strong. I weigh 230 pounds and they are very steady. They make getting in and out of the boat much easier.

It is not difficult to catch largemouth bass in South Florida. Those canals and rock pits have some of the best bass fishing I have ever seen. A few of those canals are so full of exotics that black bass don't have a chance. You can catch Oscars (cichlids) all day on a beetle spin. They are fun, but they are not bass. South Florida is a very diverse fishery. You never know what's on the end of your line. It could be a black bass, a snook, a tarpon, a redfish or a South American transplant. I've even seen jack crevalle in Lake Okeechobee. I am OK with any fish as long as it gets big enough to put up a decent fight. Oscars don't do it for me.

There are some very large bass swimming around in South Florida. Hard to guess an accurate weight from just a photo. Looks like a pretty long fish. Did you get a length? From your hands, I'm guessing at least 8 pounds. To weigh over ten, it needs more girth. Looks like a healthy fish. Nice catch!

I lived in the Keys in the nineties. Fished there all my life. If you want to catch snook and tarpon this time of year, night fishing is much better. Your guide should have told you this. Unfortunately, customers seem to always want to fish when the fishing is tough. They either show up in the heat of summer or during a cold front in January. We had a serious snook cold kill off about ten years ago. Since then, a restocking program has been very productive. The Everglades is full of small snook. It's nothing to catch 5-6 a day out of Everglades City or Flamingo. TV shows are entertainment, not fishing forecasts.

This has been going on in Florida for years. There are canals in South Florida that are wall to wall with Oscars and all types of aquarium fish. Even a few piranhas have been caught. It's difficult to catch a bass in those canals because the exotics get to your bait first. Peacock bass from South America have been stocked. My wife spotted a large pet python roaming my neighborhood in Central Florida. The Everglades is full of those snakes and the State is encouraging people to hunt them. Those big snakes are eating all the raccoons and small mammals. There may be a T Rex out there as far as I know. ?

Your post reminded me of an experience I had years go. Back in the day, I read everything I could find about bass fishing. This was before the Internet. One of the magazines I read was Fishing Facts. It was a northern fishing magazine full of walleye, smallmouth and pike info, but I read it anyway. The authors were the Linders. In this magazine they talked a lot about jig fishing. I saw an advertisement for some hair jigs and bought them. They were beautifully tied hair jigs and very realistic crayfish imitations. I took them out to the Everglades to see if they would work. I fished them on a light spinning rod bouncing them off the bottom. They caught bass like crazy. Later, I started experimenting with small black marabou hair jigs. They worked great too! Largemouth bass fisherman prefer mostly soft plastics. They may be surprised to learn how well a small hair jig works.

We do not have smallmouth bass in Florida. I never throw a spinnerbait without a trailer or a trailer hook. If you don't use a trailer hook, you will never know how many fish you are missing. My goto trailer plastic is a Zoom split tail trailer.

Don't know. My boat is currently back in the garage where I can't get to it.

Speaking of the 70s. You think my hat looks stupid, you should have seen me in my green jumpsuit! ?

This is a common occurrence in Florida. We don't have many crystal clear lakes and definitely no smallmouth, but the reaction is the same. Think about what would happen if someone changed the air you breathe in your house so you couldn't see across the room. Treatments like this make similar changes to the environment and it takes a while for fish to adapt. Contrary to what many anglers believe, modern aquatic control chemicals do not kill fish. I remember fishing a tournament after a major hydrilla treatment in Lake Istokpoga. All the hydrilla in the lake was destroyed within a few days. The fish that were living in it all went to the only cover they had left. The water was so turbid you couldn't see more than six inches. The shoreline pads were full of huge bass and flippers had a field day.

I recently purchased a new Ranger RT178 with a 75 Merc 4 stroke. I've owned numerous bass boats over the years. Started with Terry Bass in the sixties, then Hydrosport, Ranger, Gambler, Skeeter and a custom built Storm. I also owned an aluminum Bass Tracker for a while and a Lowe Roughneck for ten years. I'm 74 years young. I refuse to let age keep me off the water. I want the looks, performance and quality of my old bass boats without the weight and cost. A 17 foot aluminum bass boat is about as large as I can handle by myself comfortably. My Ranger tops out close to 40 mph loaded. That's fast enough for me. From what I have seen, there aren't any "bad" aluminum bass boats these days. Some are more stylish, have better carpet, seats or higher quality components. I paid less than 28K for my complete rig and I have $2K in electronics and extra features. One thing I would suggest. Most of these boats come with a 12 volt trolling motor. Upgrade to a 24 volt. All I can say about my Ranger so far is good. It turns heads at the ramp and gets me to the fish.

Joining a good bass club was a huge game changer for me. This was in the early seventies when tournaments were just starting. My fishing buddy and I thought we were good fisherman, but we wanted more. We applied to join the best bass club in Florida. Before they let us be members, they took us both to Okeechobee to see if we were good enough. We were both so nervous we could hardly fish. They let us in anyway. The first tournament we fished, we caught a few fish. One angler caught 23 pounds and we thought he would win. The winner weighed 32 pounds. We couldn't believe our eyes. Fishing bass tournaments is the best way to take your fishing skills to a higher level. It's also a very humbling experience. You will learn things you will never learn by reading about it or watching a video. If you want to get better, fish against the best.

Spinnerbaits are great night fishing lures. The slow steady retrieve helps bass to track them down in the dark. The line stays tight all the time, almost guaranteeing a good hookup. One of the best night spinnerbaits was one that is no longer made, the Deadly Dudley. It had a single blade similar to a buzz bait, but it was pulled under the water. The spinning blade made a "whooshing" noise on every cast and it had a unique underwater sound. I have never used one, but I would think a blade bait like a Jackhammer would be terrific at night. In my youth, I fished many a hot summer night alone in the everglades. Caught a lot of big bass and was bitten by more than one mosquito. Funny the things you do when you think you will live forever. ?

Soft plastics. The first plastic worm I ever saw was a Creme Scoundrel. We fished them weightless because the Texas rig had not been invented. When Tom Mann created the Jelly worm, it created a sensation. The list of worm manufacturers that you don't hear about today is lengthy. Many of them were regional in popularity. Producto, Pace, Culprit, JW and Fleck all had their day. Some are still available. I knew Charlie Infinger when he was experimenting with making his own worms. He's gone now. The company he founded, Charlie's Worms, is still around. I use a lot of Gambler products. Russ Bringger was a great fisherman. I learned about Zoom worms from a bank fisherman. When I was loading my boat, I saw a guy fishing on the bank catch a nice bass. He showed me a Zoom worm with salt in the bag. I bought a bag and never looked back. Best plastic worm ever created. At one time, I had two giant garbage cans full of plastic baits. As I went through the cans, each one brought back a memory. I managed to cull my collection down to one cardboard box. Each bait in that box is a stone cold bass killer.

Look for running water. With all the rain we have had, that shouldn't be difficult. Get out of the main lake and fish deeper residential canals. Top water early, then switch to worms on the bottom. Fish the deepest heaviest cover you can find. Look for areas that have a mix of vegetation. Pull out your flipping stick and go to work. Look for shade like pads and boat docks. Slow roll a spinnerbait as close to the cover as possible. When you think you are close enough, get closer. Some of the best bass fishing in Florida comes in the heat of summer, you just have to find the fish.

You never know what long term effect you may have on a kid's life. The first fish I caught by myself was a 4" blue gill. This lead me to a lifetime of great experiences. Before I retired, I was involved in volunteer charity work back in Miami. I wanted to work with kids by introducing them to fishing. I found a local government program where troubled teens were housed. They earned points for good behavior and could use their points for outside activities. Accompanied by a counselor, I was able to take some of these kids offshore fishing in my boat. These kids had never been in a boat before. One of them was the daughter of a notorious drug dealer. Another lived in a house with no windows. I often wonder if I made a difference in their life? One of those kids you are teaching to fish could be President of the United States some day. We need more programs like that.

I'm top of head hair challenged. I wasn't always that way. Back in the seventies, I had my hair cut by a "stylist". Today, I get the #1 cut at a barber shop. Ball caps have always been the standard bass fishing head covering. I have a closet full of them. A few from tournaments that are over 40 years old. It's hot in Florida, so I preferred mesh hats as they are cooler. About ten years ago, I went to my wife's dermatologist. She's light skinned and I'm definitely not. What looked like a small spot on my head about the size of a pencil eraser turned out to be skin cancer. It wasn't melanoma, but it needed to be removed. I ended up with a cut on my head about 3 inches wide. My son is an avid fisherman as well. He's had his ears reconstructed twice. For all those reasons, I wear a large floppy hat. It's looks stupid, but given the alternative I'm OK with it.