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Looks like it just started to turn north. If you’ve seen any videos of the Bahamas you know what this thing is capable of. The storm surge was unbelievable. One video by an official showed the water, not just waves but solid water, half way up his window and he was on the second floor of his house, 15 feet up!

Sam, she should be fine at UCF. It’s a big campus with all concrete construction. Probably have to suffer though without power for some time but we all will be.

Mike you might want to get a hotel room for Sunday and Monday at least, just in case you need to bail. You’d be welcome here but we’re in a mfg home here in the UCF area and are going to brothers place.

I’ve nursing a bad back so watched a good bit of the entire tournament. Edwin definitely had a unbelievable day. With only an hour and half left he caught all those fish. He was catching them on every cast for awhile and the best the boat official could do was write them on the scoresheet. Once the dust settled he was able to update the scoretracker. At the broadcast booth, JT Kinney suggested they probably should mute the other competitors when they finally updated, for obvious reason as the comments we probably not G rated. ? It appears they did just that as there wasn’t any response to it for some time. Probably a good call ?

Welcome Anthony

I’m pretty sure he’s going in October Frank. Correct me if I’m wrong Mike but I don’t think Okeechobee has peacock bass.

Last I saw Ott wasn’t in the top 20 and Wheeler was in 14.

Agree Jake. Redcrest, really, that’s all they could come up with.

I’ll probably regret this but try a big flutter spoon where they were busting prior.

What FFF said.

Deep divers would help find the deeper grass, that’s kinda what I meant when I said to back off the shoreline. Trolling would be another good way to locate them as well and cover more water ??

Gonna be next to impossible to find any deep water structure without a depth finder. Best you could do would be back off the shoreline and hope for the best. I wouldn’t expect to catch any giants this time of year in Florida but it happens. Especially if you can find them out deeper. I’d just be happy to catch fish in this heat. As mentioned above, if you can find any current, fish it. Carolina rig would be your friend there. Schoolers should be active for the first hour or so if you can find them. We’ve been catching a few in the St. John’s on flukes and shallow crankbaits around cover.

My wife fishes with me most of the time. She catches her share and then some. She has a certain number of lures she likes to use. That allows me to try other lures to see if they want something different while she uses the tried and true ones. Win, win.

Lots of places and guides/charters between Islamorada and Key West. All depends on what type fishing you want to do. Half day will limit some of your fishing opportunities but you can do reef for yellow tails and mutton’s, bridges for tarpon or backcountry for inshore species. Weather will play a big part in you decision. I would throw a post up in the Keys section of the Florida Sportsman forum. There is also a sticky in that section with lots of good info.

I prefer to fish with someone else. I usually fish with my wife. That allows me to do what I want while she fishes a couple of confident baits. And trust me, she will catch her share of fish. Buddies I fish with know their stuff to but we may have different styles and techniques so we bounce stuff off each other and always do better than solo. To each their own but I prefer company when I fish.

Check out Airmar website

Alec, fortunately a lot of the wildlife can escape the spraying by flying away. But the native grasses, pads, underwater plants and trees cannot. This is where the real damage is being done...to the fisheries that rely on that vegetation. All of you that have ever fished there, and many lakes in Florida, would be amazed at what they look like now.

I can only speculate Hawgenvy but my guess is someone is getting “paid” for all this spraying. Plus the spraying contractors may be getting paid per gallon so they spray everything. Probably a little of what Koz said too, lazy workers who don’t target but spray everywhere.

I haven’t seen or heard anything NGB. My guess is they are doing some backpedaling now or will be soon. It was always an individuals word against theirs in the respect to seeing the spraying. Now with this video, there’s video evidence. I’ll be curious to see what happens.

FFF, I remember fishing Grassy island years ago. I was shocked last year to see it had almost disappeared. I thought at the time something was wrong but could only guess. With this video, now we know. NittyGritty, the only spraying I understand is when it is used to clear a waterway for navigation. Other than that, they are killing our lakes, rivers and wildlife. The hyacinth they are spraying can be removed by mechanical harvest. We have seen them spraying the St. John’s river all the way up the bank into the trees and willows.

If this doesn’t make you mad nothing will. I think, like they do, that this is part of the Lake Okeechobee problem.

Florida in summer is not the place you want to go to get a 10+. Shiners will not survive our summer water temps for long. I fished the Marsh a week and half ago and the water was down another 8-9”. Lots of stumps starting to show ( and more laying just below the surface) so those not familiar with the lake beware. Summer in Florida typically means flipping heavy cover and that can be a grind. If I were you, I’d wait until early spring to come down here. My bet would be California or maybe Texas.

Looking for ways to fish rivers, specifically smaller ones like the St. John’s size in Florida. Constant flow, lots of river bends, no oxbows or creeks, like the big ones most states have,to speak of. Cover/ structure consists of docks ( but most are pretty shallow) pads ( some have decent water depth 2-3’ others about a foot) and lay downs. River gets a TON of boat traffic on the weekends but I go during the week and early. I was thinking frogs and flipping in the deeper pads. Maybe crankbait or flip the laydowns.

Top water dude is correct. Florida bass get a lot of pressure and it is year round, not like up north where it gets iced over for months. Fish up north seem easier to me to catch than fl bass as they only get so many days a year to eat. As for other species there are pickerel, catfish and panfish to catch but again, they feed year round like bass and don’t have to feed as heavy during certain times of the year like their northern cousins. A lot of what you see on google will be private. I would suggest looking for retention ponds near highways, businesses and outside of developments. They may look like they don’t hold fish but you will be surprised. Since you have a kayak you could make the trip down to the fellsmere reservoir and try that. Check the group out on FB if you do that thing. They will give you some insight and updates.

Blue, that’s the way it is from January to March down at the Marsh. Bumper to bumper boats. I’ll go down there that time of year but April & May are MUCH better from my experience.