The past two weeks have seen some good bass fishing action on the Butler Chain, as well as a few other Central Florida Lakes. Butler Chain, the artificial bite has been holding pretty steady, with wacky rigged Gitem KO's and Gitem Shads catching some good numbers as well as quality. Little Lake down has seen the best action, with Mike and his son getting a nice double, with Mike having his bass follow his shiner all the way to the boat as we were going to make a move. This bass struck at his bait twice, before finally getting hooked up, and his son immediately getting his hook up, had these two fighting side by side.
Lake Down itself, seen some good action in the north east corner, with some scattered schooling action, small Storm swim baits catching some good numbers in the deeper drop offs. Lakes Sheen and Tibet have held the same pattern now for several weeks, whacky rigged and T-rigged Gitem KO's catching bass in and around scattered grass beds.
Most of the bass being caught are currently in the 8 to 18 foot depth range, with a good majority of them suspended right along the drop offs in 10 foot of water. There has been some schooling action on lakes Tibet, Sheen and Lake Down, but for the most part, this action has been limited and usually early on in the day. Watch your electronics, as we have come across some big bait fish pods on lake down, with some good quality bass being caught in those areas.
I have also been scouting an old lake I used to fish years ago, a small Orlando lake, this lake is only 205 acres in size, but has some good bass in it. Early morning top water bite has been with the Secret Weapon Lures BuzzrBait and the Original High Roller 3.25 inch. Top water bite has been around the coontail in deeper waters with some very aggressive hits, with the top water bite dropping off by 8am. From there, moving into deeper waters and working the Storm swim baits have been the ticket to catching some good bass.
Scattered grass beds have been a good ticket also, catching several schoolie sized bass through out the day with Gitem KO's and Shads, deeper water coontail beds have been good with 10 inch worms with ¼ ounce weight pegged for the quality bass. Being a line watcher is a big key, as the bass have just been picking up the baits and swimming off slowly, usually heading to the deep water drop offs.
Capt Tim Fey
Bassfishingfl.com
