Happy New Year! Start the year off right and go out and catch some fish. The bass are finally schooling due to the recent cooler weather and are chasing shad and fattening up for the spawn during the January and February full and new moon phases. The bass bite in the Harris Chain of Lakes has been a little slow due to the recent cold fronts moving in and out, but that should be changing soon with the recent warming trend and moon phases of January. Try chatter baits, bright orange or chrome blue back Rattle Traps, Junebug or black with blue tail trick worms, senkos or speed worms worked slowly along the deeper Kissimmee grass. The bigger fish will be staging close to the mouth of canals, creeks or the Dead River. Areas with different types of cover like Kissimmee grass, reeds, cattails, eel grass, hydrilla, lily pads in the same area will hold the bigger and better sized fish. Slow troll a large live wild shiner under a cork and hang on. Lake Harris, Lake Eustis and theirs canals, plus Lake Dora and the Apopka Canal will be the best places to look for the first wave of bedding bass.
Lakeside Bait and Tackle in Tavares near the Buzzard Beach boat ramp is selling a ton of minnows and says that the crappie are really starting to show up on Lake Dora, in Lake Eustis and Lake Griffin, they are catching them on zip jigs, roadrunners and minnows rigs. Look for them to move up in the shallows on the next new and full moon phases in later January and February. If you are going to fish for crappie be sure to get registered and enter your fish in the 11th annual Shad and Crappie Derby. Lake Side Bait and Tackle and Nobles Marine are both sign-up locations – it only takes one fish to win! Take a kid fishing with you and start the New Year off right, good luck.
