Hot Bite at Fox Lake

Happy Monday Spacefish!

This past weekend the temperatures were hot, and so was the Largemouth Bass bite at Fox Lake! This is a fishery that I have always enjoyed coming to, and one that I think gets overlooked here on Florida’s Spacecoast, with so much focus and attention going towards Headwaters, and Lake Toho; it is easy to forget what a gem Fox Lake is, especially if you live in northern Brevard. Since I started writing my weekly pieces for Spacefish I have tried to get up here at least twice a year, this was my 4th total trip to Fox Lake, and this was my most productive trip yet – I have always caught decent numbers here, but I finally had a good 20+ catch day, with a few quality fish sprinkled in to make it feel special.

Where to Launch

One cool thing about Fox Lake is that they have an actual kayak launch dock, which is pretty cool to use; it is located in the Northwest portion of Fox Lake PArk, just to the west of the boat ramp. The address is 4400 Fox Lake Rd, Titusville, FL 32796.

What Worked

So I started out throwing a hollow body frog, the Hendrix Fishing Voodoo Frog in Midnight Potion, I got 3 blowups, but went 0/3 in the landing department, which was slightly disappointing, but I was hooking up deep into lily pads, I was actually throwing the frog on the bank and sliding it into the water, so I realized how shallow the fish were, I switched over to the Zoom Speedworm in Junebug Red and started targeting the same areas and it was on. With the worm the hook up ratio was a lot better, and I ended up catching 17 fish on the speedworm. I threw it on a 7 foot baitcasted setup, with 20 pound braid, Texas rigged with a ⅛ oz tungsten worm weight pegged down on the hook. I also caught 4 fish on the Fish or Die Musket in Philadelpia (Junebug Red).

I have been to Fox Lake 4 times, and this water is super tannic, the Bass here are dark; some are almost jet black – black/blue and Junebug type colors are the most effective here, even on bright and sunny days. The Musket I fished weightless and weedless on a 4/0 hook, I split the diamond tail and fished it like a fluke stick, with a jerk bait cadence and this was effective when I needed to skip under overhanging trees, and when I needed to skip into gaps in clumps of reeds. That’s it folks; I’d like to talk about more, but even I am smart enough to KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid) when the getting is good.

To borrow a quote from one of my favorite fictional characters, John Lakeman – “it’s never simple like that.” So many times I feel like it’s never simple, I go to a new place, or a place I haven’t been in 6 months and that first 2-3 hours I am having to figure out the fishery, find the patterns. So many times I go out, and I am grinding and probing. It was really nice to go out, and pretty much from the get go get on fish, and keep getting bites at a pretty consistent rate the whole time I was on the water, it reminded me of going to Headwaters before it was over pressured.

Best Type of Areas to Fish

So outside of the Speedworm being the best thing to fish with in any Florida lake outside of live shiners, I think the most important thing I can pass on in this report is what type of areas were fishing the best for me. I haven’t been doing a crazy amount of Bass fishing over the past month or 2; but going back to my Toho report a little while back, and my Lake Baldwin report 2 weeks ago there is a trend that has held up in 3 different lakes fished in 3 different parts of Central Florida over a 2 month span. The trend is finding different types of vegetation (cover) within close proximity of each other. The biggest two fish I caught were hanging close to grass mats and lily pads. The most consistent bite came from fish hanging on the outside edges of reeds, that were close to lily pads. But there is an area on the Southeast part of the lake where there are overhanging trees along the shoreline, and there are reeds and lily pads in the area as well – this area produced the most for concentrated numbers of fish.

Once the wind picked up a consistent pattern was finding an area where the water was moving, but you could get a cast in to an area that was protected, that served as an ambush point. Pictured below is a fish that ate the bait almost as soon as it hit that water. It was tucked up into this shaded pocket that was protected from the windblown water, the area looked like the perfect hidey hole for an ambush predator to nab easy food as it drifted by, I was able to get a cast right into the right spot; which made for an enjoyable catch! I (think) I got a good video of it, and will post on my instagram page this week – “spacefish_kayakangler” if you have instagram go check it out!

Conclusion

After a great outing there this past weekend, I highly recommend going to check out Fox Lake – the nice thing about the trends I experienced this past weekend is that this would be a great lake to go fish if you are a novice kayak angler, or maybe you are an experienced saltwater angler that wants to mix it up and get a little taste of the sweetwater! Most of the areas I fished with roughly within a mile of the launch spot. This is a healthy fishery with a lot of fish to be caught, and this isn’t a place where you have to cover a bunch of water to find them, or have to employ professional level fishing techniques to generate bites. With a little luck & persistence I think you may end up like me, with a pile of chewed up and torn soft plastic worms to clean out of the back of your kayak; thank proverbial junk pile that always symbolizes an action packed day on the water.

To re-count, my key takeaways that I think would make for an easy to execute gameplan are:

– Find areas with mixed cover (emergent vegetation).
– Fish a Junebug Red or Black/Blue Speedworm on a Pegged Texas Rig with either a ⅛ or 3/16 oz tungsten weight; use a slow to medium straight retrieve.
– Have fun!

Thank you for taking the time to read my report this week; I’d like to say THANK YOU to our paddle partner, Kayaks By Bo for supporting our No Motor Dispatch each week. We’re getting close to summer time, that means warm weather and longer days – no better time of the year than late spring, and early summer when it comes to kayaking, paddle boarding, and kayak fishing – stop on it to Kayaks By Bo and browse their amazing inventory of kayaks, paddleboards, Yak Attack accessories, and on the water apparel! Thanks again for taking the time to read, I hope you all have a fantastic week ahead. Stay safe, be happy, and go give a fish a lip piercing! Until next time!