Lake Baldwin (Orlando)

Happy Monday Spacefish!

Last week I had a chance to get over to Orlando and fish another lake in the urban jungle that I have never fished before – Lake Baldwin. This lake is located on the NE side of town, which makes it an easy commute from the Space Coast, roughly an hour from Melbourne, so if you are a north end of Brevard person this lake is roughly 40ish minutes away, which depending on the times of day, make it more conveniently located than other places for Bass fishing. I was excited to go check this lake out, as over the last year this is the 7th different Orlando location I have covered on Spacefish. One thing I like about the Orlando lakes is the fisheries are all a little bit different, and compared to the St. John’s River lakes, Headwaters/Stick Marsh, and Fox Lake, it is interesting to fish in an urban area.

Where to Launch

I launched my kayak from Lake Baldwin Park, located at 2000 S Lakemont Ave, Winter Park, FL 32789. This is a really nice park, and also holds a single lane boat ramp, as well as nice restroom facilities and picnic tables. When I talk about launch spots, sometimes I ask myself why I provide commentary on the parks and places I launch from, for those that know me well on a personal level I sometimes talk just to talk, I do love to talk. However, on this trip the forecast looked sketchy and I always bring a backpack full of clean clothes and deoderant so if I ever get pouring rain, like I did on this trip, I can change into clean clothes afterwards. My hour drive home was much more pleasant from having the ability, and the facilities to get cleaned up and changed in afterwards.

Fishing Report

Lake Baldwin is almost a perfectly symmetrical circle, there are some deep holes throughout the lake. There is a lot of eel grass under the surface, and some lotus pads in patches along the shorelines, and there are reeds along the banks of the lake. I was able to catch a handful of fish in the lotus pads, but most of the fish caught were in hanging out in the eel grass and the magic number for water depth seemed to be around 4 or 5 feet. I didn’t have a crazy good day in terms of the total number of fish, but a big part of this was weather. I was on the water at daybreak, but the wind picked up early, and it drizzled off and on all morning, but the rain and wind really picked up later in the morning, I caught a nice fish in the 5-6 pound range but was having so much trouble with on the water navigation and poor visibility in the heavy rain I ended up getting out of it and letting it pass over, once the bigger rain band passed through the sun came back out and but the wind was still a little on the stiffer side, but I was able to get back out and catch 7 fish in the 2 hours after the rain, I caught 6 fish before I was driven off the water. All in all, I was there for roughly 6 hours, but in terms of actively casting and retrieving it was more like 3-4 hours of actual fishing. After the rain cleared up I had another chance to catch a quality fish, but ended up getting taken down into the eel grass and the fish came unbuttoned. Also, pictured below is an area that was my biggest hotspot of the day, it featured a depth contour where shallow 1-2 feet quickly dropped off to 4-5-6 feet within one cast’s distance, I was able to catch roughly half of my fish in this one spot, think the wind blowing water around this point of the reeds also contributed to the hot bite at this spot as well.

What Worked – Topwater

The morning conditions were perfect for the topwater frog, overcast skies, intermittent rain, and choppy surface due to wind. I fished the Hendrix Voodoo Frog in OG Green, I used the popping version so that I could make the bait chug and splash and cause more surface disturbance than usual. I also threw around a topwater, walk the dog style plug and caught 2 very small dinks, but I was not able to effectively work this bait in the choppier water, or in areas where the lotus pads were thick, or in areas where the eel grass was topped out to the surface. I ended up catch 3 total fish on the Hendrix Voodoo Frog.

What Worked – Swimbait

The Fish, or Die Minutemen in Bugle has been a good swimbait profile, and color for me for the last few months. The color is like a Green Pumpkin with Purple Flake, but due to the windy conditions, combined with rain and largely overcast skies, I added a little twist with a gold underspin to add a little extra flash and vibration to get more fish keyed in on the bait. I was able to catch 4 fish on the combination with 2 solid chunks coming on this presentation. The key was finding areas where thick, topped out eel grass gave way to a ledge or drop off, the fish seemed to be keyed in on ambushing smaller baitfish on the drop offs from 2ish feet of water to 5ish feet of water, so I was casting up into the shallows and retrieving this bait into deeper water.

What Worked – Speedworm

Of course this would not be a proper Bass fishing report if I didn’t talk about speedworms, I made some tweaks and adjustments here as well…just kidding I threw the ole faithful – Zoom Junebug Red, on a 3/16 oz Texas Rigged Tungsten, pegged at the hook. I caught 4 fish, all on the smaller side, all around the lotus pads. So nothing to brag about, but this is Florida, the speedworm is always tied on, and the speedworm almost always produces something.

Ok, so first off, it was a fantastic morning for topwater. In the first hour or so of daylight I caught 4 different species of fish, and one human finger, and ended up catching 9 total fish, in the world of artificials, that’s about as good as it gets as far as action goes. So as far as the “good”, this is my good. None of the fish were of trophy size, but man, it is fun when the fish are hitting topwater and you can go out and have a numbers day on top. The picture at the beginning of this section was my last topwatwer fish of the morning, a fun sized Sea Trout, and here below is my first Snook, and the one that also led to the bad and ugly.

Conclusion

It was kind of a wacky day for me with the weather, but it was a good day of fishing nonetheless. I caught a nice quality 5-6 pounder on the frog, and a dozen other fish to keep the numbers up and make it a fun outing. My only regret was catching my biggest Bass of 2024 in the driving rain, and instead of taking my phone out, relied on my GoPro for images, and they came out kind of crappy, but hey that’s life (and fishing) and the cold hard truth is, without the heavy rain, that fish probably sees in the the calm clean (clear) water that Lake Baldwin is known for, that this is an artificial and would stay away from it due to being in that lake for years and probably having a hundred topwater frogs thrown at it before. So the rain giveth, but it also taketh away.

Thank you for taking the time to read my kayak report this week – I’d like to thank Kayaks by Bo for being our paddle partner on our weekly adventures. If you are wanting to go test drive a new potential kayak, make sure you check out Kayaks By Bo in Titusville, the only place you can try before you buy!

I hope everyone has a fantastic week! Stay safe, be happy, and catch lots of fish! Until next time…