Our Fishing is Better Than You Think

Living in Lake County, we are all just a few short casts from some of the best bass fishing in the country….if you know how to catch them!  As a boy, I grew up in South Florida where every ditch and canal had bass.  We would ride our bikes all day and walk the banks hoping the find that perfect spot.  Back then, my favorite lure was a Dalton Special top water plug.  I can still remember when my fishing buddy called and told me about a fantastic new lure he found that caught bass like crazy.  I also remember my amazement when he told me the lure was a purple plastic worm!   

Forty years have come and gone since that day.   Bass fishing has been a life long passion for me and is the reason I moved to Lake County in 1996.  When I arrived everyone told me the lakes were dead.  By that time, I was a seasoned tournament angler with a lot of confidence.  I struggled to find fish and the fish I caught were few and far between.  Worse yet, the lures that caught fish in South Florida didn’t seem to work here.  Each Sunday I would go to the Palm Gardens tournament weigh in and see bags of bass being brought to the scales.  Not bags of small fish but huge fish!   Seven, eight, nine and even ten pound bass coming from the very waters I was working in vane.  What was I doing wrong? 

I eventually discovered that bass fishing in Lake County is very different than most other places.   The watercolor, seasons, water depth, temperature variation and available cover all combine to make our bass very selective.  Add the tremendous fishing pressure that our bass are subjected to and you have a recipe for a lot of fishless days.  The good news is that our lakes are full of bass and they can be caught. 

In the coming months, we will explore Lake County Bass fishing and hopefully provide you with information what will help you to catch more bass from our lakes.   My goal is to help more people to enjoy our great bass fishing.  There is nothing better than spending a beautiful sunny winter day on a lake in Florida, except catching fish at the same time.