Lakeland Central Florida Fishing Report – March 2017

March brings many wonderful things to Central Florida; among my favorites are Detroit Tiger’s Spring Training and fantastic bass fishing! Both are greatly enjoyed in the near-perfect early spring weather. Can it get any better than getting up to a gorgeous sunrise on the lake, making memories catching some bass with friends and family, then off to a Spring Training ball game in the warm afternoon sunshine?! For this humble fishing guide, life doesn’t get much better than that.

Once again this year, February brought more cold fronts than I honestly care for, and a nice steady weather pattern will be openly welcomed. This will be important so that the fish stabilize and are in their normal routines, eating robustly and spawning to create more healthy fish for our future anglers. One last note on February: despite the cold it did produce some of the bigger fish of the year once again.

Starting off our forecast in Winter Haven, we’re going to be throwing a handful of baits. You can honestly catch quality fish on everything in the tackle box, including the kitchen sink. Name your favorite bait: crankbait, spinnerbait, lipless crankbait, popper, walk-the-dog / spook, frog, fluke, senko, lizard, craw, jig, swim jig, swim bait, etc., and it’ll catch fish in March. I’ll be fishing with clients throwing a variety of lures, and more-or-less just out playing and having fun because that’s truly what this is all about. When it’s a family trip with the future of the sport – our younger anglers – we always have a couple dozen shiners onboard to try to prevent any lulls in the action.

Moving back over to Lake Hatchineha and the Kissimmee Chain of Lakes we’ll be scaling back the lure selection slightly. Since I spend the majority of my time up tighter to grass, pads, hydrilla, and any hyacinth mats I can hopefully find, I’m utilizing frogs, swimjigs, Gambler EZ Swimmers, and your typical flipping and pitching worms and craws. Just because it is my comfort zone, I really like to try and find cleaner water. Here’s where it can get tricky to add to that mix: I’m always looking for the sunny side of the lake in the early morning. I feel that the sun gets that side active quicker than fishing in the shade this time of year.

As most of the common ramps are very crowded right now, please use PROPER BOAT RAMP ETIQUETTE. This means using the pull-offs to do all of your unhooking and boat prep, not the ramp lane itself. And please practice Catch, Photograph, & Release, especially of the big fish. Good luck on the water!

Capt. Scott Taylor is the officially sanctioned guide for VisitCentralFlorida.org.

Capt. Scotty Taylor
855-354-8433
Scott@TMCGuideService.com