Captain Phil

Welcome! There are quite a few Florida fishermen here. Most are bass fisherman, but there are sections for other species. I have lived and fished in Florida all my life. I don't believe there are many places where I haven't fished. If you have any questions about Florida fishing, you came to the right place.

Some insurance companies off safety course discounts. Check around. It's amazing to me that people are allowed to purchase and operate high powered boats without a license or instruction of any kind. I once bought a 31 foot Cigarette Boat with two 200 Offshore Mercs. The dealer handed me the keys without asking if I knew how to start it much less get it out of the marina. Is it any wonder people get hurt and killed in boats? Everyone who buys a power boat should be required to take a minimal course before they go on the water.

I started fishing seriously when I was in my early twenties. Tournaments were just becoming popular and my trusty grape Mann's Jelly worms just weren't cutting it. The pros in the magazines were catching bass on spinnerbaits. At the time, spinnerbaits were not popular in Florida. I believe the first spinnerbaits I bought were Zorro Aggravators, Lindy Spins and Okiebugs. Try as I might, I could not get a bite on a spinnerbait. I even had a nick name for them, I called them "Christmas Trees" because they were flashy. One day in Okeechobee, I was sitting at the mouth of an airboat trail in Pelican Bay fishing a stretch of pads. I saw a spinnerbait in my box and looked at it in disgust. Nothing else was working, so I tied it on. I chunked it in the pads a few times when an eight pound bass engulfed my spinnerbait. This made me a believer and I started using them more and more. Spinnerbaits must be fished around cover. This cover could be a field of hydrilla, isolated pads or a boat dock. The closer you fish to the cover the better. They trigger strikes. Spinnerbaits are big fish lures. All spinnerbaits have a cadence where they work best. In Florida, the best spinnerbait reel is 5/1. Here on the Harris Chain, I get calls and emails from tournament anglers looking for an edge. It's not that I am a great bass angler. It's because I have fished here for nearly 50 years and I am accessible. I tell them if they are looking for a big fish, tie on a spinnerbait. Time after time, the big fish of the tournament comes on one of these baits.

Maybe it's a Florida thing, but I have never done well here casting or flipping jigs. Florida bass seem to prefer soft plastics. I know northern anglers love them. Some of my best fish have come on spinnerbaits. Spinnerbaits work best around cover. They don't work as well for me in clear or open water.

I have most likely owned more boats than the majority of forum members. Many of them I bought used. There are many things that go into building a quality boat that you can not see at first glance. For example, a boat built to last in salt water has much better wiring and hardware than a boat made for fresh water use. I have seen boats that looked good on the outside that were constructed poorly underneath. Skeeter boats have quality where it counts. The hull is as tough as it gets. The grey carpet in my ten year old Skeeter was not torn or worn. In ten years, my 150 Yamaha still ran great. The engine height in a Skeeter bass boat is fixed at the factory. If a Skeeter porpoises, it's either loaded wrong or the motor is incorrectly trimmed. The question each bass boat buyer should ask is, What is most important to you? If you want people at the ramp to think you have the fastest boat on the lake, buy an Allison or a Bullet with a motor so large it barely floats. If you want people to think you are a pro angler, buy an expensive boat with two of every electronic gadget you can find, wrap it with a photo of you holding two ten pounders and your name emblazoned on the side. If you want a rugged boat that will get you there and back, last for a long time and won't throw you around in rough weather, you can't do better than a Skeeter.

Years ago, the Miami Herald Newspaper held an annual fishing contest. They had a number of categories including largest overall, pound test groupings to numbers of fish. One of the categories was number of LM bass caught. One angler always won. He claimed an astounding number of bass each year, well into the thousands. As you would expect, there were numerous complaints. I actually wrote a letter to the newspaper stating that his claim was impossible. The uproar was so great that the newspaper sent an observer to see what he was doing. They went out into the Everglades with a pocket hand counter. The angler fished with a 4 inch Rapala on an ultralight spinning outfit. They counted every bass caught on the counter. Most of the bass were under 12". Some of them were a few inches long. The tally was easily over 100 fish per day for weeks at a time. Eventually, they dropped the numbers category altogether.

Depends on when and where you are fishing and what you are fishing for. I know canals where you can wear yourself out catching 10" bass. When the water is low in the Everglades, 100 bass a day is totally possible. When the water is high, you can go days without a strike. I would rather catch one bass over four pounds than a live well full of 12 inch dinks. If I catch one good fish a day, I go home happy.

Skeeters are well built boats that last. They don't have the flash of an expensive boat, they just work. All the best local tournament fisherman I know run Skeeters unless they are sponsored by another boat brand. I beat the crap out of my 2000 Skeeter fishing tournaments for nearly ten years. I sold it to a young guy that is still fishing tournaments with it. That said, there are differences among used boats. If you buy one that has been well maintained and cared for, you will be pleased with your purchase. If you buy one what has been abused, you will be unhappy. The only thing I don't like about Skeeters is their factory trailers. They are made for Skeeters exclusively and have no adjustment. They are made of steel and prone to rust. A Skeeter rigged by the factory should have a Yamaha outboard. Make sure you can get local service. Yamahas are very reliable, but Murphy's Law is always part of owning a boat.

Each lure has it's own unique attributes that can influence fish attractiveness. The Devil's Horse lure is a good example. By adding a larger hook on the rear, you can tilt the lure's nose up and the tail end down. This changes the action of the lure significantly, slowing the retrieve and reducing the splash made by the props. I seem to catch bigger fish with the lure modified in this way. Poppers can be made to pop louder with the tail down. Walking the dog is easier with a higher running lure. Anglers who fish top water all the time have developed all kinds of tricks. It pays to experiment.

Not all bass spawn at the same time. I have fished bass on beds in Florida in every month from January until June. My PB was caught in January. The best time to go fishing is whenever you can.

There is a world of difference between a 12 volt and a 24 volt trolling motor. 12 volt trolling motors are for canoes, not bass boats like yours. Bite the bullet and upgrade to a Minn Kota 24 volt motor. Buy two new deep cycle batteries and run new wires. Install an onboard charger and you will be good to go. Your frustration level will decrease substantially.

Retiring to Florida is a mixed bag. I have lived and fished in Florida all my life. I'm 74 and my wife and I are both retired. You don't want to retire to the most populated areas. They are too crowded, expensive and the lifestyle is too hectic. This generally disqualifies most any place south of Lake Okeechobee. The far North end of the State and the panhandle are less populated. In the panhandle, you will be dealing with major hurricanes. It's very quiet and pleasant between storms. Be prepared to be totally wiped out if the right one comes along. This leaves Central Florida. While the I-4 corridor is heavily populated, the numerous small cities around this area are pleasant. It may be best to rent a house before you buy in any area so you can find out what it's like. We live in the Mount Dora, Eustis, Tavares area and we love it. We don't wait for an hour to eat dinner in a restaurant and we are close to good medical doctors and facilities. The Villages is the largest retirement community in the country. The lifestyle in the Villages is not for us, you may like it. One of the major problems we fisherman have in choosing a place to retire is our wives. If you are like me, you would live in a fish camp. My wife would not. She wants things to do and people she can be friends with. This is one of the major reasons people move to the Villages. In the Villages, you can stay busy 24/7 if you choose to. There are fishing opportunities everywhere in Florida. Some of it is better than it was 50 years ago. From my home in Eustis, I am 45 minutes from Rodman, the Harris Chain is in my backdoor and the Kissimmee Chain is less than an hour away. There is no end to the number of small lakes, canals and rivers. All of them contain nice bass. Living on a major lake in Florida is very expensive. Homes on the Harris Chain start around $500K for a fixer upper. Most are nearer to a million. A better option is to buy a home not on the water and store your boat in a marina. In season, there is a waiting list for dockage. My boat is moored on Little Lake Harris. I pay $175 a month for dockage with a lift. I am 5 minutes from some of the best bass fishing in Florida. Hurricanes are not as big of a problem as most people are lead to believe by the news media. Unless you live near the coasts, they are more of a nuisance than a danger. In 70 plus years, I have been through many a hurricane. Andrew was the worst. I am yet to have any major damage to my home. However, anything is possible. Winters in Florida are pleasant. Right now the temperature at my home is in the sixties. The summers are hot and humid. If you have allergies, living in Florida is a challenge. Thankfully, we have airconditioning. Florida is a microcosm of the US. We have every race, nationality, economic class, educational background and social group possible. If you don't like diversity, you don't want to live here.

Heavy rods are murder on your back and arms. I use a collapsible 7' 6" medium heavy graphite rod for flipping. I buy my rods at Bass Proshop for under $50. I never use braid for flipping. Flipping is all about the drop of the bait. Braid's rough texture hangs on the cover impeding the drop, so I flip with mono. I use green Trilene Big game mono in 20 and 25 pound test and use fish attractant to help the lure fall as freely as possible.

I always thought pontoon boats were for people who were not that serious about bass fishing. The problem has always been how to control and position the boat? A pontoon boat would always blow into the wrong bank and fishing in the wind was nearly impossible. This issue has been solved by the new GPS trolling motors. I installed a Minn Kota Trevora on my pontoon. It's like having a guide run the boat for me. The anchor lock feature is amazing. It holds the boat in position at the touch of a button. This lets me fight fish instead of fighting the boat. If you are going to trailer your boat, you don't want a pontoon. The guy I bought my pontoon from sold it for that reason. My pontoon is moored in a marina on Little Lake Harris. At my age, it doesn't get much better than that.

I would look for a quality brand used boat owned by someone who loved and cared for it. The best used boats were owned by retirees who have passed or can no longer use it. They are normally well maintained with low hours. There are a lot of those in Florida. I would want a boat from a well known manufacturer that is still in business. I would want a boat that had been garaged. I wouldn't buy a fiberglass boat with serious stress cracks. If it's a bass boat, the condition of the carpet will tell you a lot about the boat's history. What engine you buy will be based on the availability of service. Mercury and Yamaha are the best in this regard. It is better to buy a used boat with a smaller engine than a racer. Maintenance will be less and the motor will most likely have lower hours. Aluminum boats are inexpensive, easy to trailer, light and generally have smaller engines. I ran an 18' Lowe side console aluminum boat for a number of years. It was a good boat. It was not the best boat in rough water. My Skeeter was the best bass boat I ever owned. It was an 18' fiberglass bass boat with a 150 Yamaha Pro Max. I ran the heck out of that boat and it never let me down. With the price of new boats these days, I doubt I would buy new. I could write the check, but it would keep me up at night. My buddy just bought a 20' Skeeter with all the bells and whistles for $60K. I paid $11,000 for my used pontoon boat and I catch more fish than he does. If you have the money to spend, there is nothing wrong with using it to make you happy. Personally, I can't see the value in shelling out $60K to catch fish a foot long. When I was young, I would have thought differently. Once this Covid-19 stuff is over, I suspect the market will be flooded with used boats. So many people bought boats who will park them behind their house. May be better to wait a little?

Over the years I have owned just about every boat imaginable. From an 8' boat I built myself out of plywood to a 40 ft. twin diesel sportfish. If you must pay someone else to work on your boat, you are going to pay a lot more than if you do the work yourself. Don't buy an old boat blindly no matter how great the owner tells you it is. Some years ago, boat manufacturers quit using wood in boats and switched to composite materials. You don't want a boat with any structural wood under the fiberglass. If you are going to buy a used boat, buy a quality boat less than ten years old. I bought a 18' Skeeter Bass boat in 2,000 and ran it constantly for ten years. Except for a few scratches, the hull looked like new when I sold it. Before you buy, look at other boats of the same age and make. This will tell you how they hold up. Modern outboard engines are so much better than old engines there is no comparison. Buying an old two stroke outboard is asking for trouble. Four strokes are the way to go. They use less fuel and hardly ever break. Change the oil when you are suppose to and you should be fine. I change my own oil and it's a piece of cake. Paying a factory trained mechanic to check out the motor before you buy is worth the investment. The biggest problem with boats is corrosion. Old boats will almost always have bad wiring connectors. This issue is on going and there is not much you can do about it other than spraying your connectors with WD40. Another issue is lack of use. A boat that is used more will have less maintenance problems than a boat that sits for months at a time. A boat that looks like a bargain may not be one. Always buy the best quality you can afford. Get used to the idea that you will spend a considerable amount of time and money working on your boat. If this concerns you, use OPBs (other people's boat).

Anise oil? Haven't heard that term in years. Brings back a lot of memories. Back in the day we wouldn't dream of going bass fishing without anise oil. We used to keep dipping pots of the stuff in our boats. Our carpet was stained and we smelled like licorice for days. There is nothing magic about anise oil. That doesn't mean it's not worth using. It has three purposes, it masks scents, it lubricates the bait and it makes your bait shiny and more lifelike. It's also messy. Modern bait attractants are better than pure anise oil. I use Bang. It comes in a lot of flavors. Old timers used WD-40. Anything that gives you confidence is a good thing.

A steady retrieve catches fish when fish are active. What I am speaking about is catching fish that are not active. Unfortunately, this is the case more often than not. If you could see fish, you would realize how many fish there are that don't bite. Where we fish, bass see thousands of presentations. Most of them don't warrant enough attention to be noticed. To be a better fisherman, you must make your lure stand out above the rest.

Many anglers believe success in bass fishing is about finding fish. I have been fishing the Harris Chain since 1972. If you put a map in front of me and asked me to check off spots where I have caught bass, the map would be covered up with marks. Putting a bait in front of a fish does not mean it will take the bait. There may be very slight differences in how a successful angler works the bait over the average fisherman. This difference may be in speed, cadence, lure size, color, pattern, vibration or any number of variations. Years ago, I fished with an excellent rattle trap fisherman. He caught fish after fish from the front of my boat while I watched. He handed me his rod and told me to give it a try. I caught nothing. I gave it back to him and he caught fish. What was I doing wrong? What was he doing right? I eventually learned to "trigger" strikes. Watch a video of KVD catching bass on a spinnerbait. You won't see him chunking and winding like 99% of the fisherman on the lake. You will see him "work" the bait. Fish are everywhere. It's up to you to make them bite.

Fishing pressure? Two weeks ago, the lake in my back yard hosted a bass tournament with 200 boats from all over the country. From now until June, we will have at least two bass tournaments each week. Add in all the prefishing, and you have some very tough conditions. Since it seems everyone is moving to Florida, things will just get worse. When this happens, you must do what others don't. You also must reduce your expectations. Lighter line, smaller lures and longer casts will help. The fish are there, it's up to you to make them bite. Scouting out new places and techniques pays off. 90% of the fish are caught by 10% of the anglers. Find out what those 10% are doing and do it.

Rodman is a great fishery. We are lucky it's still there. Environmentalists have been trying to shut it down for years. It's been there so long, it is the environment. Thousands of different birds, fish and animals call it home. Back in the seventies, it was the best place in Florida to catch a double digit bass. Most of the big bass caught in Rodman are caught on live native shiners. Rodman is full of hydrilla. To control the hydrilla, it gets drawn down from time to time. Weed spraying is not allowed. If you are going to fish it for the first time, you need a guide. It's not an easy place to navigate. Rodman is a reservoir left over from the defunct Cross Florida Barge Canal dreamed up in the sixties. It was formed by damming up one of the most beautiful natural rivers in the world. If you run the river at the north end, you can get a small glimpse of how beautiful this river was. Restoring Rodman back to a river would destroy a significant recreational resource. It would turn this great fishery into a field of muck for 100 years. Now that the damage has been done, let's hope they leave it alone.

Florida is full of lakes like you described. Any weight at all will often bring back a load of bottom crap. If you are going to fish plastics, you must fish them with as little weight as possible. Wacky rigs are one option. Another is to fish a weightless Texas rig with a swivel about a foot in front of the bait. It's a Carolina rig with no weight, just the swivel. You can fish it in deeper water and it's weedless. I fish this rig on a spinning rod with 8 pound mono. Try it with a Zoom Trick worm. If you don't get bit, send it back to me for a refund. ?

This will depend on your club's rules. In the bass clubs where I was a member, the co-angler had control of the boat for 1/2 of the day. At least that was the way it was suppose to work. It didn't always work that way. I fished as a co-angler numerous times. I considered it an opportunity to learn something new. I gave advice if asked, but I didn't push my own agenda. Fishing in the back requires different tactics. If I out fished the boater, I was gracious about it. The boat owner has made a huge investment. Give him/her respect and let them do their thing. Watch what they do and learn even if you think you can do better. At the end of the day, thank him and offer him some gas money. You'll make more friends that way and you will appreciate it when you are the boater.

Vienna sausage? ? Seriously, when I was fishing tournaments I didn't take time to eat. I may have packed some crackers, but that was about it.

My most epic bass road trip was to Lake Erie. Two years in a row, three of us rented a house on Pelee Island in Ontario. We left our homes in Florida towing a Ranger bass boat at 6 AM in the morning and drove straight through. We crossed into Canada and got on the ferry at 9 AM the next morning. We started fishing that day. The smallmouth bass fishing around that island is phenomenal. Using tube jigs loaded with 5/8 oz. weights, we caught bass all day long. Our bass averaged 2-3 pounds each. We caught two over 6 pounds. We caught an occasional Walleye, which we ate for lunch. If you ever get a chance to go there, do it. As far as Florida Kayak fishing is concerned, you don't need a big boat to fish for bass in Florida. Every body of water in Florida larger than a puddle has catchable fish. Here on the Harris Chain, you can fish six mile long Haynes Creek with a Kayak. Some of our best winter bass fishing is in that creek. Many residential lakes have small ramps where you can launch a canoe or kayak. Some of these fish have never seen a lure. Some bass in these small waters grow big. This fish was caught in a small residential lake less than a mile from my home.