So we are planning our next trip there. It’s been years since I fished it. It is one of my favorite lakes I’ve ever fished, because it has everything - Grass lines, cypress trees, Deep water for a Florida lake, large size, docks, and is somewhat off the beaten path. I have not done overly well there, but I’ve only been skunked there once, during a night tournament. It is a very special and scenic lake .  There are a number of you tube fishing videos on the lake, I included one that was done by a semi- local that gives you an idea of what it’s like .Recently someone had a thread about “ If you could live anywhere what would be your ideal place” etc. I picked where I live now. But if I ever had another choice , it would be Santa Fe , or maybe George’s lake, which has outstanding numbers fishing. 

Wondering if anyone has fished Santa  Fe and done well or not… 

 

 

Went there Thursday 12/30.My buddy caught the only fish of the day,about 2 pounds on a red Rattletrap. 

   My first time there ,beautiful lake.

47 minutes ago, mfnew said:

Went there Thursday 12/30.My buddy caught the only fish of the day,about 2 pounds on a red Rattletrap. 

   My first time there ,beautiful lake.

What part did you fish? We primarily fished little Santa Fe in the past. I think every fish I ever caught there was on culprit worms around Cypress trees.

West of the boat ramp, cypress trees and boat docks.

I fished the Ocklawaha 1/2/2022 which is close. 7 1/2 curly tail June bug color. All my bites were very close to shore and around the trees. Hope it helps 

on a side note, I didn’t know of George’s lake, I live near the north end of  Lake George thought you were taking about that until I googled it. 
 

I’ve fished the Ocklawaha and found it to be difficult. There are some huge bass in there but hard to catch unless you use shiners.

 

George’s lake is one of my favorite lakes besides the small lake I live on . It’s definitely a numbers lake, right now the hot bait is a 7.5 inch zoom UV speed worm in june bug red …More people tend to fish it for specks than bass, I guess because the avg. bass is 12 inch in there. You rarely get one over 16. 

 

Ive fished Lake George a few times. Came in 3rd in a tournament once, fishing the river just north of the lake by Drayton Island… using mostly red shad culprit worms…mostly in the pads…

Pads and eel grass are slim pickings around  Drayton now.

that’s why I go to Bear creek or the Ocklawaha and the little connections in between. Culprits still work here 

What do you think killed all of it? The river used to be full of eel grass , esp. up here. Is FWC having it sprayed? Seems like they’d know better if so…

When Erma hit it did it’s number on the eel grass, but the FWC had it sprayed about 3 yrs after that really wiped it all out. Lilly pads, cattails, and eel grass. It even killed about 6” of grass in the yard, I don’t have a sea wall. 
What ever they sprayed was different than before, I was over 150’ away when they came thru, my eyes watered and my throat felt weird for about 15 minutes or so. Different kind of chemical I am assuming, never did that before, not that I make it a habit of being close proximity of them spraying. Hours later everything started changing color or wilting….. since then no more cattails, Lilly pads or eel grass. 
 

Back to the first topic. In the video, he says his main bait was a green pumpkin chatterbait. I’d be hung up in the first 5 minutes fishing the cypress!

Yep, I don’t know how he does it. Most of my fishing some kind of plastics Rigged weedless. 

Me too. I noticed it looked like he caught one there with a white fluke too ( a 5 pounder).