Final Day of Practice on the Harris Chain

Everyone knows Florida fish don’t like cold weather and there’s a freeze warning out for day of the Weekend Series event on the Harris Chain this Saturday. Running wide open in those temps will put a chill in the bone. 

I got a little worried about the cold front so I decided to take a look at my spots one more time. The water temperature has dropped another 5 degrees to The fish are still there, but the fish were smaller and you had to work to get a bite. There’s no 5 bites an hour anymore. It’s more like a bite an hour if that and the fish seem to be getting smaller.

Everyone’s got to put up with the same conditions. Heck, Shaw Grigsby and Ben Matsubu weighed in over 20 pounds at the PAA event on Toho yesterday. I can’t believe the size of the 13.36 he weighed in. I guess it’ll take 20 pounds at Harris as well.

Practice on the Harris Chain

I spent all weekend on the Harris Chain and think I’ve got some fish located. The only problem is that the two spots I found are on different ends of the world. There’s a cold front coming in this week and the water temps have probably dropped 5 degrees the past few days already so we’ll have to see how the fish react. Water temps only got up to about 65 and will probably drop some more by Saturday.

I’ll be rattletrappin Griffin in the morning, but it’ll require running about an hour on my boat to get there. Then I’ve got to lock through before the guy shuts down for lunch at noon. My flippin fish is on Harris and I’ll probably have about 3 hours before I have to weigh in.  The fish I get here on the Gitem Sugar are bigger but I’m concerned the cold front may shut that place down so I’m gonna try to get my limit before I start flippin.

The only reason I’m making the run is that all my bites on Harris has been coming in the afternoon. I hope my gamble pays off, but I am excited about my prospects for the Weekend Series tournament this weekend.

Pre Fishing the Harris Chain

I fished mostly Lake Eustis yesterday with the water temps starting at about 65 degrees and ending up about 70 and the only thing I figured out was that they’re not here. Thanks to Phil from Lake County Bass who showed me a few spots on Lake Eustis a couple of weeks ago.  I started out the morning throwing a wacky rigged watermelon red fluke along the bridge pilings in the dead river with no takers so I proceeded to go into a residential canal there that’s usually pretty consistent.

I tried shaky heads, wacky rigged senko, and a weightless senko to no avail, so I headed over to the mouth of the Dead River and pulled in a nice 3 pounder off the pads on a chartreuse LongShank spinnerbait with double colorado blades. It’s the area where Mike Mclelland won the Elite series event last year, but there were 3 boats fishing it already so I didn’t spend too much time there. I checked out the L canal where Peter Thilveros won the Elite series event a couple of years ago and not even a bite.

The cool thing about the Harris Chain is the people. Everyone’s super friendly and you can’t avoid talking with somebody. In both the canal in the Dead River and the L canal, the only thing I’d hear is that the fishing hasn’t been good this year… Yikes! It got me thinking that maybe I should spend more time on Lake Griffin. I did get some quality fish in the Yale Canal and the Ocklawaha a week ago, but just not numbers. You go a long time in between fish. 

Not seeing any signs of life in the canals, I determined the fish aren’t spawning yet and headed to Haines Creek where I caught a few at the base of the Cypress trees on a senko. I then looked for prespawn fish on the north end of Lake Harris. I flipped a junbug weightless senko and a black Chigger Craw with red flakes for 2 hours in the Kissimmee Grass without a hit before sunset.

Not a real productive day, but at least I know where they’re not at. 

I plan on fishing sun up until sun down this weekend and I’ll be focusing on some shell beds in Lake Harris along with prespawn shallow kissimmee grass and also the marsh areas in Griffin. I sure hope I find them this weekend.

Finally Have Some Fish Located Before a Tournament

After 2 long days of serious searchin, I finally found some fish for the Xtreme Tournament at John’s Lake on January 3rd, 2009. I was starting to get worried because all I could find for a while were 12″ fish, but today was a fantastic day. I even dropped my phone in the water but it landed on some weeds and it still works. I never have that kind of luck.

I fished 2 areas and caught a 4 pounder on a Gitem Frog in the marsh area at about 8:00 and caught another keeper on a white Booyah Swim Jig with a white Zoom Ultra Vibe trailer. I then went to my secret area where I fished a few tournaments before that’s protected from the north winds that’s so prevalent this time of year and caught this 5.8 pound beauty on a Gitem Junebug Senko within a few minutes. I figured I better leave them alone until the tournament so I called it a day.

I tried like heck to get bit on a white Termintor spinnerbait with silver Indiana blades and my chartreuse Booyah with gold willow/colorado combo once the wind picked up but never got any takers. Water temp started at 58 and ended up being about 65 when I left at about 1 o’clock. The wind was calm in the morning and started blowing about 10 knots out of the north around 10:00.

I sure hope these fish are there when tournament time comes, cause I’m gonna rock da house. I think I can weigh in 15 to 20 pounds which is usually enough to win it on John’s Lake. Sometimes practice sucks and you do good and sometimes you practice good and suck in the tournament. We’ll have to wait and see but feelin good now.

For once, I’ve got some big fish located before a tournament and I sure hope no cold front comes in to mess things up for me. We’ll have to wait and see.