|
| |
FWC ANNOUNCES TOP STRIPER AND HYBRID BASS HONEYHOLES
December 29, 2004
Contact: Rick Long (850) 487-1645
Bass anglers don’t have to hang up their fishing rods for the
winter just because Florida’s legendary largemouths pretty much come down with
lockjaw when the weather gets too cool. Fall and winter months offer the
best striped bass and hybrid bass fishing here in the state that bills itself as
the Fishing Capital of the World.
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) has
some tips for anglers who would like to go after these monster fish that
scientists call “morones” – (because of their scientific family name, “Moronidae”).
“In Florida, morones keep to freshwater,” said FWC fisheries
biologist Rick Long. “Atlantic and Gulf saltwaters are too warm for
them.”
Striped bass – stripers for short – can get enormous.
The state record is a 42.25 pounder, bagged in the Apalachicola River in 1993.
Anglers catch stripers on heavy bait-casting or open-faced spinning tackle with
12- to 25-pound test line. For big stripers, live shad or small eels are
the best baits. For smaller stripers, yellow or white 1/8- to 1 ½-ounce
jigs are good baits, and so are plastic twitch baits and poppers for surface
fishing and also spoons.
Sunshine bass – a hybrid product of artificially crossing a
female white bass with a male striper – also are among the heavyweight morones
in Florida’s waters. The FWC stocks a million of them in fish management
areas and other public waters every year. So far, the state record is
16.31 pounds. That one came out of Lake Seminole in 1985. Sunshine
anglers use lighter gear than striper fishermen and many of them favor lures
that resemble shad. Other popular baits include live minnows, live or dead
shrimp and chicken liver, fished on the bottom.
“White bass are smaller, but they are scrappy fighters on
light tackle,” Long said. “They’ll hit flies, spinners, small plugs
or minnows.”
The state record white bass is 4.69 pounds, and it came out of
(where else but?) the Apalachicola River in 1982.
FWC fisheries biologist said the most productive morone fishing
in Florida in 2005 will be:
-
The Apalachicola River/Lake Seminole – This is the home of
all three state record morones. In the lake, stripers and sunshine
bass congregate along the old river channels and near the dam in fall and
winter. They migrate up Georgia’s rivers in the spring. In the
river, stripes and sunshine bass range from the dam to the coast during fall
and winter around pilings, deep channels and drop-offs. Larger ones
hang around the dam in the spring. They go after bucktail jigs and
crankbaits. White bass feed in schools, and they like live crayfish
and freshwater shrimp.
-
Lake Talquin/Ochlockonee River – This system produces lots
of 10- to 20-pound stripers that take to live shad, jigs and spoons.
White bass, rebounding from recent drought, historically approach state
record size. They are all over the place in the fall and winter and
migrate to the dam in the spring.
-
St. Johns River – The FWC doesn’t stock the river with
sunshine bass anymore, but it still has a few. Stripers are a
different story with 8- to 12-pound fish showing up regularly. Striped
bass move throughout the river in fall and winter. The best spots to
catch them are around jetties, the bombing ranges in Lake George, the lower
Oklawaha River, Buffalo Bluff, Shands Bridge, Buckman and other bridges in
Jacksonville. The big stripers congregate in cool-water creeks in the
summer. Live shad and shiners, jigs and shad-imitating crankbaits are
the baits to use in this river.
-
Blackwater/Yellow rivers – In this northwest Florida area,
the FWC stocks these waters with stripers every year. The best fishing
is in the upper Blackwater Bay, near the river mouths in the fall and winter
and upstream in the summer. Sometimes, the best time to go is at
night. Be prepared to bag 10-, 20- or even 30-pound striped bass.
Use live mullet, menhaden or shrimp for bait. Shad-imitating lures
also work.
-
Choctawhatchee River – The FWC stocks this river with
stripers and sunshine bass. The main fishery is between SR 20 and
Choctawhatchee Bay in Walton and Washington counties during fall and winter.
The baits to use are live finger mullet, shad and menhaden. During
cold weather, anglers use shad-imitating lures to bag fish from
surface-feeding schools. During summertime, the fish seek out
cool-water tributaries.
-
Escambia River – The FWC has begun stocking this river
annually, alternating striped bass and sunshine bass. Anglers catch
both species in the lower 10 miles of the river during fall and winter.
The fish migrate up-river in the spring. Dawn and dusk are prime times
for striper fishing, especially on a falling tide. In the lower tidal
part of the river, points of land extending into the river are good fishing
spots. The best baits on this river are live mullet and menhaden,
shad- or mullet-imitating lures, live shrimp and twister-tail type jigs.
-
St. Marys River – Striped bass are the most popular sport
fish in the St. Marys River and connected waterways. The FWC stocks
the St. Marys with stripers, but it also gets some migrating fish from the
St. Johns River. Stripers tend to spend the winter in the lower river
and move north above U.S. 17 in the spring. On the St. Marys, anglers
bag stripers between I-95 and the town of St. Marys near the mouths of the
larger tributaries, along deep banks and around the I-95 Bridge Pilings.
On the Nassau River, which is connected to the St. Marys, striped bass hang
around the confluence with Thomas Creek to below U.S. 17 around Pearson
Island. In the summer, stripers congregate in tributaries with
cool-water discharge. Trolling along or casting to steep banks with
jigs or shad-imitating lures is the way to go on this river. Live
shrimp work too.
-
Eagle Lake – This is a 200-acre reclaimed phosphate pit in
Hamilton County. It’s a fish management area that the FWC stocks
with 50-100 sunshine bass per acre annually. The lake’s abundance of
shad nurtures sunshine bass to 6 or 7 pounds in two years. Fall and
winter are the best times to go. Rapidly retrieved crankbaits fished
deep and suspending shad imitators work well on this lake.
-
Edward Medard Lake – The FWC stocks 100 sunshine bass per
acre annually in this 700-acre reclaimed phosphate pit in Hillsborough
County. Most of the fish anglers catch in this lake are 1 or 2 pounds,
but some 2-year-old fish tip the scales at 6 pounds. Fall and winter
are the times for fishing in Edward Medard Lake, and the best techniques are
drifting in open water with live minnows or bottom-fishing with dead shrimp
or chicken liver. Trolling with deep-diving crankbaits also is
effective in finding sunshine bass schools that often congregate along
drop-offs. The lake has a nice fishing pier with good fishing.
-
Lake Osborne – Lake Osborne (356 acres) and Lake Ida (159)
acres, are the largest water bodies in the Osborne Chain of Lakes in Palm
Beach County. The FWC stocks Lake Osborne with 28 sunshine bass per
acre annually. Most of the fish find their way to the dinner table by
the time they reach 1 pound, but some of them make it to 3 pounds. The
lake has plenty of shad that provide a source of food for the bass and a
source of bait for anglers. Fishing is best in winter and spring
months, and the baits to use are live minnows and chicken liver, fished on
the bottom near the Sixth Avenue Bridge and in deep holes throughout the
lake. Bank fishermen catch lots of sunshines here at the southern
limit of the species’ range.
More information about morones and morone-fishing is available
at MyFWC.com/fishing/forecast/index.html.
HPC/CR
|
Vote For Top 100+ Outdoor Sites
