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Thanks Phil

As Aaron said. Softer twitches than with a spook. And a good amount of slack line.

When you buy a new rod, reel or lure.

Are they black or white crappie?

2.5 for me, wife got a. 2.7. That’s a slab for sure.

I’ll run a foot of 30-40# flouro like I do for bluefish and mackerel. It will get some shredding occasionally but I just replace when it does. Rarely loose a lure even to them. And a pickerel’s teeth can’t compare to those two.

We are just the opposite. Our regular guy is a joke. We have community mailboxes and everyone has had mail issues. Now when he’s out and we get the substitute, things go smoothly.

What inline spinners are you guys using? And is there a particular size and color?

SK Rage Craw or a Bitters small naked swimmer.

I’m just south of you in Debary. High water in the St. John’s is always tough. The fish move back into the woods making them unreachable in most places. These hurricanes raised the river to unprecedented levels. Most of the ramps around here are still closed and the river is still no wake. With that being said, spinner baits, plastics and frogs all work at times. Flipping works as well. Black & blue has always been a consistent color on the river.

I don’t keep secrets anymore. Used to when younger but now I share with those that want to listen. What I’ve found is most don’t, listen that is. They just keep doing what they do with the same results. I tend to throw a lot of different lures until I find something they like. I used to stick with certain baits and try to force feed the bass but realized you can’t do that a long time ago.

As crypt said, Miss Cape or the Double O are the best head boats in the port. Weather looks like it’ll be good next week for offshore. good luck

Well I wish that was the case for me but it wasn’t

Thanks Phil

I won’t buy another Lews rod. Had a KVD jerk bait rod break about a foot from the tip after 6 months of minimal use. Called Lews multiple times and left messages every time. Never got a call back. I’m done with them.

I watch the pro tournaments on the lakes I fish. That’s the St. John’s river, Harris chain, Kissimmee chain and Stick marsh/ headwaters. While I watch some of the other lakes, if it’s a FFS tournament, I’m not interested. I do like watching the ones that are more old school, shallow water based, like the one in Texas last year on MLF.

Fluke/soft jerk bait is what you want. As mentioned above, Bass Assasin is what I always used. I’ve done best with baby bass, new penny and avocado. Electric chicken will work too. For a small swim bait, I always used a 1/4 oz. red head jig with a white or root beer/ chartreuse tail. Topwaters, it’s hard to beat a spook or Rapala sub walk.

Yep, those silver reels from the 70’s were the best Phil. The 6500C was the premier reel for light tackle saltwater fishing back then. I had one that I used for deep jigging. Had it modified with an upgraded aluminum spool and oversized drag washers as the plastic spools were subject to busting from too much pressure. Love the picture Phil?

I like it..

Can’t remember the last time I bought from BPS or any other big store. I’m fortunate that I have one of the best “ small shops” in Florida in Bitters Bait & Tackle . John carries everything you could possibly need and then some. He’s got more name brands than BPS.

Saw this on a recent FB HW page and figured I’d pass it on: “Mark, if you’re asking about right now—and not later in our snowbird season, the parking lot is 25 boats on a nice weekend day. But as Bobby said, January and February is peak snowbird season. We will have 100 trailers trying to squeeze into 34 spots.”

Yes Z, the road to HW & SM are a piece of cake compared to Kenansville. Its been years since I’ve been there but it was terrible. But like you said,that keeps the pressure down as well as being way off the beaten path. Toxic, some others lakes to consider are Garcia and Blue Cypress near HW and the Marsh. Typically nowhere near as crowded as the other 2. Blue Cypress used to have cabins to rent but don’t know if they still do. They are both smaller lakes too.

Some other thoughts about HW. The lake looks like there should be bass everywhere…but they aren’t. Its one of the fishiest looking lakes you’ll ever see. It fairly simple to navigate the north portion of the lake but once you get down to the Lake Egan part, it gets a bit more challenging. Because of the areas that are unfishable, whether due to thick vegetation or hydrilla so thick you can’t get through it, the remainder of the areas get fished hard. I mean daily pressure. It’s normal to see 15-20 boats or more on a weekday. I don’t fish weekends but I’m sure the boat count goes up 25-50%. There are also a dozen guides fishing it regularly including Roland.

The shiners only is a fallacy. Yes a lot of people use them there and they catch a lot of fish using them. But artificials still catch fish. And a lot of them too. HW is just like most lakes in that it takes time to figure it out. I’ve only been able to fish it a half dozen times myself but always with artificials and always caught fish. Sometimes not as many as I’d had hoped. My biggest there is 9.8 on a speed worm in June. The lake is 10,000 acres but fishes smaller than that because of areas you can’t access due to vegetation. Plus it is full of hydrilla. And it’s thick, and I mean matted thick, in a lot of places which affects one’s ability to fish it effectively. Throw in a LOT of fishing pressure and you have a lake that can be tough to fish. And the pressure will increase substantially in the next 6-7 months. There are a couple of FB groups that have regular reports that would help you fish the lake. Just search HW. As for the Marsh, it’s a shadow of its former self but still produces good catches. Biggest problem is the lack of vegetation and water clarity. It still gets a considerable amount of pressure as well. I do believe HW is worth the trip if you are down here. Good luck wherever you decide to go.

Another Florida boy checking in. Like N FL Mike stated, no brown bass, walleye or big pike but I think we cover the green bass. Our crappie fishing isn’t bad either. Now throw in our saltwater fishing, from flats, inshore, beach and offshore, and I think our fishing’s pretty good. And the fact we can fish somewhere in the state year round, well there’s that?