NORTH CENTRAL FLORIDA

The New Year finds our lakes in very nice shape, both level and vegetation-wise.  At least, that’s the assessment of a fisherman who has enjoyed and closely watched them for half a century. Lots of other folks enjoy the North Central Florida lakes, and they might have a different view.  The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission calls everyone with interest in the lakes a “stakeholder”. Every one of the stakeholders seems to have a bit of a different take regarding how the lakes are, and how they should be. Once, our lakes were managed as fisheries.  Now, jet skiers, kayakers, water skiers, bird watchers, and advocates for the invertebrates that live on the Orange Lake tussocks have equal say in their management. At any rate, Orange, Lochloosa, Santa Fe, Newnan’s, Rodman, and a multitude of other, smaller ponds are presently beautiful in the eyes of fish-catching fishers – and they should be prime for productive winter and spring seasons. In 2017’s post-hurricane months, the newly-filled waters unexpectedly put out better catches of speckled perch than of bass.  Oh, the creeks and run-ins draining the surrounding woods flowed hard for weeks after Irma scaled the state, and they certainly did concentrate the bass and produce lots of great bass catches.  But, when the water ceased to flow, the bass action really toughened up.  On the other hand, a remarkable crappie bite on all our lakes has not let up.  Fishers employing just about every speck-catching technique have filled 25-fish limits.  Most have found their fish drifting or rolling the open-water depths with minnows or crappie jigs.  But casting little jigs and spinners with ultralight tackle works, too. And the canepole-with-minnows-in-the-pads bunch has hauled out plenty of slabs. The primary speck and bass spawns should get started this month or next, and we’re anxious to see how good the crappie fishing might be in the lily pads of Lochloosa and Orange Lakes….and under the Newnan’s Lake cypresses…when the big ones congregate around the shoreline cover. Even more, though, I’m looking to see how bassers fare with the local large mouths that have evaded them successfully for months.

Gary Simpson
Gary’s Tackle Box
5721 NW 13th Street
Gainesville, Fl.
garystacklebox.com    /    garystacklebox@gmail.com