Kayak Fishing Lake Toho & Shingle Creek

Happy Monday, Spacefish!

I hope everyone is doing well, and had a fantastic Labor Day weekend. This week I am going to talk about 2 places that are very close together, but fish very differently, and are also connected. We’re going to talk about fishing the northern part of big Lake Toho, as well as fishing a body of water that feeds it, Shingle Creek.

Where to Launch

Big Lake Toho is a big lake, and I will come back to it multiple times for future reports. There are several places that can be launched from, so we will cover this lake in sections. For this report, I woke up really early, fished Toho for about 3 hours, got off the water, got a 7-11 hot dog & fountain drink, then drove the short drive over to the launch point at Shingle Creek, and fished that for another 2 hours and then called it a day.

For the Toho portion I launched from the Big Toho Marina located at 69 Lakeview Dr, Kissimmee, FL 34741; and for the Shingle Creek portion I launched from The Paddling Center at Shingle Creek Regional Park – Steffee Landing, located at 4280 W Vine St, Kissimmee, FL 34741. This is a great place to go for someone looking to rent a kayak, and try their hand at paddling or kayak fishing that may not have a kayak and wants to give it a spin before they invest in a vessel of their own.

Fishing Big Lake Toho – North

So let me first talk about where I fished, I stayed within eye sight of the Kissimmee Lighthouse on the northernmost banks of big Lake Toho, knowing that I was going to try and limit my time on the lake, I did not want to wander off too far, I went down the west shoreline, fishing it slow and thoroughly for about an hour or so, and then working my way back north going around the east side of the big island in the middle of the skinny north section of the lake, and spending an hour and some change picking apart the fields of scattered hydrilla in front of the light house.

Disclaimer: I didn’t catch any big girls, lunkers, hawgs, or toads, but I caught a ton of fish in the time that I was fishing. I caught 19 Bass in 2 hours of hard fishing, which for me, is about as good as it gets. I was on the water at first light, and they were aggressive, I had a good bite on the topwater frog, and when that slowed up I fished a swim bait, eventually going with a worm, and catching most of my fish on the worm. The Frog that I was using was the Fish, or Die Ambush Frog in King George’s Wig (White), rigging it on a 3/0 EWG Gamakatsu.

I used a 20 pound Mono leader tied to a 20 pound braided line with an FG knot. I went ahead and used a leader because I knew once the topwater bite died, I would want to work a weightless weedless trick worm through the grass and hydrilla, so I wanted a line material that would allow me to tie on a non-slip loop knot to the hook for increased action to the bait.

The Frog bite was good, I ended up with 6 total fish caught on the Ambush. Once the Frog bite slowed, I went with the Fish, or Die Minutemen swimbait in Bugle (Green Pumpkin/Purple Flake) which caught 2 Bass, as well as a Chain Pickerel. Then I switched over to the Fish, or Die Warbird (Jerkbait) in a special color they made for me, which I am really excited about, it was a watermelon red with gold flakes. I caught 2 more off of this bait. The bait that really shined for me on this morning, was the Fish, or Die Minutmen (Trick Worm) in the same color, due to the heavy vegetation I fished this bait rigged on a 3/0 EWG, the same rod, reel and hook as I used for the Frog. I threw it out into cover and slowly let it settle, giving it light pops and twitches. This bait was getting hammered.

The only thing I regret was that in hindsight, maybe I should have aborted the Shingle Creek part of the game plan and stayed on Toho to keep catching fish in high numbers and keep whacking away until that lunker finally bit, but I stayed true, got of the water to regroup and go on to the next phase of my trip.

A wise man once said “never leave fish to find fish”, but I am obviously not a good listener!

Fishing Shingle Creek

One thing that I liked about this lake, is that it is relatively small, which means you can cover a good bit of it in your first trip. Like many natural lakes in Central Florida, it is a soup bowl shaped lake, with emergent grasses running from close to the shoreline to 30-40 yards offshore. On the south end of the lake there are houses with docks, and fields of lily pads in between them. I spent an hour fishing topwater but also going through trying to establish a pattern. I ended up getting my first bite on a swimbait a little over an hour later, and for the next 3 hours fished swimbaits and speedworms on the outside edge of the grasses and caught roughly 25 Bass.

I was able to cover about half of the lake in 4 hours. I also worked lily pads when I came across them catching Bass amongst the pads, but these were smaller than the ones I was catching along the edges of the grass. On the south-east corner of the lake there is a cove. This area was the most productive of the trip for me. But my advice to you, if you got and fish this lake, be prepared for them to possibly be in another pattern, but this time of year, the offshore edges of grass/reeds, or any sort of emergent vegetation and structure is a good bet.

Beautiful Shingle Creek…I will go ahead and give you a numerical style rating. My fishing experience on Shingle Creek was a 3/10 – I only caught 2 Bass in 2 hours, and they were both small. The aesthetic experience of Shingle Creek was a 10/10 and made up for the lack of fishing production with an astounding “cool” factor. On an extremely hot day, it was a tight winding creek lined with tall Cypress trees which provide good shade, and the amount of wildlife I encountered was outstanding. I even saw deer in the middle of the day along the banks of the creek which was pretty awesome! I also saw owls, wading birds, and bobcats. I am not saying this is a bad place to fish, it’s just that in the 2 hours I was on the water here (middle of the day in the hottest part of the year) it was slow. But I would 1000% go back here and fish, if for no other reason, than for the views. Anytime you can go fish in a setting in which people pay money just to go kayak, you’re on to something, tugs on the line are just icing on the cake.

The two fish I did catch in Shingle Creek came on the Fish, or Die Musket (Trick Worm) in Philadelphia (Junebug Red). Which I fished around the bases of the submerged Cypress trees lining the creek. I had the worm rigged on a 3/16 Oz Charlie Brewer’s Spider Slider Jig Head. I would drift along the shoreline and flip/pitch this presentation onto the trees and let them drop down, letting it settle on the hard bottom and give the bait subtle twitches, letting the tail do the work to attract the strikes with a dead stick approach. Pictured below is one of the two small Bass I caught that afternoon.

Florida History – Shingle Creek

For those that love to get off the beaten path to find cool places that have significance to Florida History, the launch site, The Paddle Center is located at Steffee Landing, which still has an incredibly intact Florida Pioneer home, the Steffee family homestead, on site.

For those that may want to dive even further into the local history, right across the street, on the other side of Vine Avenue is the Osceola County Welcome Center and History Museum.

Conclusion

This was an action packed day. It was hot, I drank 12 bottles of water, 3 28 oz Gatorades, and a 32 oz fountain coke, and somehow was still pretty dehydrated upon my return trip home. But it was worth it, I think next time I will try and limit myself to one body of water, but both of these mini trips got me excited to go back. It is no secret that big Lake Toho is home to fantastic Bass fishing, but Shingle Creek is definitely worth the experience as well. I hope you all have a fantastic week ahead, I feel cooler temps around the corner and an exciting fall fishing season coming our way. Tight lines, and good vibes everyone, until next time!