Camp Mack on the Kissimmee River

Happy Monday Spacefish!

I apologize for not having a report last week, I normally do my report work on Sunday – but because it was a holiday weekend, I actually hit the road, and took the show on the road! Naturally this planned weekend trip coincided with absolutely horrible winter weather conditions, temperatures in the 40’s and 50’s, high winds and lots of rain. All I can say is, what a long strange trip it’s been, so let’s go.

Camp Mack

So I have to say, staying at the camp in a cabin with no cell service and wifi in the heart of “Old Florida” was as enjoyable as you can possibly imagine. Camp Mack is a place steeped in history and tradition, and today serves as a remote outpost surrounded by thousands of acres of great Bass fishing, and serves as a great vacation destination for those that pursue a variety of nature pursuits.

This area on the Kissimmee River had been inhabited by Native Americans for over a thousand years before the arrival of Europeans, it served as a military fort during the Seminole Wars, a cow camp for Florida Cracker Cowboys, a steamship stop during the 1800’s and for the last 100 years has been a place for outdoors hospitality. Camp Mack is truly a gem and a place that still offers tourists and visitors a taste of beautiful “old Florida”. To read more, and to look into your own stay there, here is a link to their website.

Our cabin was a fully functional living space, with a bathroom and kitchen. There is an outpost store that serves as a gas station/bait shop/supply store. That being said, if you plan on eating your dinner at a restaurant, you will be limited to one option, which is the Gator Mack Bar, and the food there is phenomenal. Great wings, great burgers, great people.

Fishing Overview

If and when you visit or stay there, there are fishing options galore. There is a boat ramp/launch area there within the camp, but there a many other lakes and ramps within driving distance of the camp. 2 miles south of the camp, is the world famous Lake Kissimmee, but there is also Lake Hatchineha, Lake Rosalie, Tiger Lake, Lake Marian, Lake Jackson, Cypress Lake, and Lake Weohyakaphka (Good luck pronouncing lol) all within miles in each direction of Camp Mack. That being said, the drive times to fish these lakes could be longer than expected due to the lack of roads, which in my opinion is actually a good thing.

I stayed at the camp with, and planned to fish as much as possible each day with a distant cousin, and friend – Mark. I feel terrible about this, but Mark had been battling the flu when he arrived, the conditions being terrible, continued to battle the flu and had his fishing significantly derailed – which I feel terrible about, but nonetheless, it was great fellowship we had, and I hope he is able to get to feeling better as he has been battling this thing for several weeks now, the attempts to fish in the cold, wind and rain certainly contributing to the prolonged illness.

The First day we worked our way up to Hatchineha launching from Camp Mack and fished there, we came back, had a quick bite of lunch from the outpost store, and then went and fished Kissimmee, launching out of Lake Kissimme State Park. Day 2 we woke up 2 hours before sunrise, drove south and launched out of Shady Oaks, Mark caught a nice fish, we guestimate to be about 4 pounds or slightly bigger, and by 9 am he was feeling pretty terrible. We went back to the camp, got him some flu medicine and he spent the rest of the day in bed, I went back out and fished. For this trip I launched from the camp again, but went south along the Kissimmee River, and fished the Northwest corner of the lake, which ended up being to that point my most productive one time outing catching 6 fish, it was cold and windy but the sun was at least shining that afternoon which I thinked helped the fishing. Up to the point we had been fishing in non-stop rain and the bites had been tough to come by. I had caught only 3 total fish during the first day of fishing. The last morning of the trip, I launched out of the state park again, I caught 6 fish again, but fishing Tiger Cove, and the east park of Lake Kissimmee was able to catch 3 fish that I would describe as “decent”, but nothing in the trophy category.

Ultimately I was disappointed that we booked a weekend trip to Camp Mack and did not catch a trophy, I feel terrible for Mark – but I have learned that in fishing, as in life, nothing is guaranteed, and most things are outside of the grasp of your control. That being said, the weather was atrocious, and dealing with the flu at age 60 for lack of a better term, just being dealt a sh**ty hand. That being said, it was still an awesome experience in many ways, and I can assure you, my fishing trips to Lake Kissimmee are only just beginning – I really want to go back and take a whack at it under better weather.

Adapting to Conditions

So I have detailed the conditions we were facing, which meant a shift in tactics to grind out any sort of success. I did try and throw around the Speed worm as a means of locating fish, but this just did not result in the type of catch rate, or even hits that it normall does. Bass fishing in Florida, in my experience can be total feast and famine sometimes. One of the things that I have found to be imperative to success is locating fish, and establishing patterns. This can be made difficult when dealing with extreme cold, or extreme heat, as the lack of activity in the fish, makes them hard to catch when employing “cover water” tactics like cast/retrieve swimming baits.

That being said after a bad day 1, I was able to have two swomewhat productive outings by just trying to pick areas that looked good, and fishing slowly. The main source of fish being caught was the old school stick worm, I used the Fish, or Die Ramrod in Philadelphia (Junebug Red) to catch the most fish, and 2 of the 3 largest fish. I fished this bait on a Ugly Stik Spinning Rod with a Penn Pursuit 3000 Reel with 10 pound braid tied to 20 pound flurocarbon. I used a 3/0 Gamakatsu EWG Worm Hook, and fished the bait weightless, weedless, and painfully slow. I’d throw it out, do nothing for 20-30 seconds, reel in slack line, lift it off the bottom, reel in slack line, and just do that all the way back to the kayak. I would throw this bait into any sort of good looking cover and vegetation I could and let it slow fall and shimmy.

I also was able to catch a few on the Zoom speedworm in Junebug Red rigged up Texas style with a pegged 3/16 oz tungsten weight, and another “ok” sized fish by punching heavy cover with a Heavy bait-caster set up, 65 pound braid, a 1 ¼ oz tungsten weight pegged with 2 bobber stoppers, heavy flipping hook with a Gambler BB Cticket in Black/Blue.

By fishing this way, I’d get into an area fish for 30-45 minutes, and most of the spots didn’t result in fish, but when I would find them, I’d usually catch several in that area, feast or famine, not my style of fishing. But it is what it is, and we do what we have to do to take a seemingly bad outing and turn it into something somewhat productive.