FRESHWATER FISHING

Happy Monday Spacefish!

After making my last two reports compilations of best places to fish in the winter (early winter inshore fishing spots and the best winter kayak bassin’ spots , I am going to go back to a specific spot report. This past weekend I felt some of the time constraint of a December weekend. Christmas Shopping, putting up outside lights (yes, I know I am a slacker and should have done that already – my kids have been giving me a lot of flack over the past week) and workplace Christmas party. So with all of that going on I had to make a tactically strategic choice of where to go fishing. I knew the barometric pressure was up, and it was chilly in the morning, I wanted to find protection from the wind, and I wanted to do some Bass fishing.

So with all of these factors in play I ended up fishing the C-54 Canal. Compared to Stick Marsh/Headwaters it’s more convenient to get to, located much closer to Babcock than the latter places, and it provides a much easier loading and unloading scenario than Headwaters. The C-54 Canal is the channelized north fork of the St. Sebastian River, west of the spillway. It connects the spillway to the Stick Marsh, which is located 6-7 miles down the Fellsmere Grade Road. Speaking of the Fellsmere Grade Road, it is MUCH improved with the hard packed gravel.

There are some pro’s and con’s to fishing the C-54. The pro’s are that it offers wind protection nestled down inside of the Sebastian River bluffs, and compared to some of the nearby fisheries, it is relatively unpressured. The con’s are that it is kind of boring to fish from a kayak compared to Headwaters and doesn’t offer nearly as many options of vegetation and cover to fish. That being said I have found the bite here to be a little more consistent because there isn’t as much mental cat & mouse to play – but that being said, most of us that engage in the dark arts of kayak bassin’ like to play the cat & mouse game.

Launch Spot

So there is a public boat ramp, located right next door, and west of the Indian River Rowing Club – C-54 Canal. There is also a nice spot to launch a kayak or canoe just north of the actual boat ramp, so depending on your preference and set up – both options are in play.

As far as where to fish, there are not nearly as many variables in play here. You either go east, or go west. For me I usually try and figure out whether the fish are pushed up in the shallows along the reeds and lily pads on the shorelines of the canal, or if they are holding out in the middle laid up in the deeper holes. This canal offers depth contour and deeper water than almost any Florida lake you can fish, especially the natural lakes. But there is not nearly as much vegetation & cover, so this can offer an advantage when fishing in the Winter, or Summer, when those fish may opt for deeper water that regulates the water temps.

Pictured below is a screen shot from US Fisher Maps showing where some of the holes are. I have always had success fishing under the Babcock Bridge here as well, as the picture above is a nice one I caught under the bridge using a Chatterbait.

What Worked for Me

So let me start off by saying on this past trip, I did not catch a ton of fish. I fished from 730ish to 1130ish, and I only caught 6 fish this trip. That being said, 5 out of the 6 were in the last hour or so, once the weather warmed. Most of the fish were dinks. I had success dragging and bouncing Speed & Trick Worms along the bottom of depth contours. For this trip I used the Fish, or Die Musket on a Mission Fishin’ Swivel Jig Head, and the Zoom Speed Worm in Junebug Red. I landed 3 fishing worms on the bottom. I used heavier than normal weights – ⅜ oz to get the baits down to depths I don’t usually fish.

I also landed 3 fish working the shallows in the last hour I was on the water. I landed 2 on the Fish, or Die Warbird in Shellshock (Bluegill) colorway, and caught my last fish of the day, the dinkiest of the dinks, using a Bitters Okee Magic Salty Sling on a wacky rig presentation. I am not a big wacky rig guy normally, but it is something that I want to add to my arsenal on slow days.

I had been here on two previous trips, the picture at the top of the report was my best C-54 Bass caught in June on a Z-Man Bluegill Chatterbait with a Fish, or Die Minutemen in “Bugle” (Green Pumpkin/Purple Flake). I used this heavier jig to get lower in the water column and retrieved it just fast enough for the blade to vibrate.I caught two fish on the Chatterbait, a dozen or so on Zoom Speed Worms, and one on a Plopper style topwater, made by Hendrix Fishing.

Kayaks By Bo

Holiday shopping is in full swing! Don’t forget to make sure to give yourself, or the lucky kayak angler in your life something from Kayaks By Bo – with awesome sales being run on items across the board, make sure to stop by and check them out!

Thank you for taking the time to read, I hope everyone has a fantastic week! Stay safe, be happy, and go catch some fish! Until next time!

Happy Monday Spacefish!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday! We traveled to Georgia over the break to see family on both sides, we returned home on Saturday night. I was able to get out and fish yesterday. It was a new spot in my ongoing research to find the best winter inshore fishing spots. It was “ok” I will go into more detail in a future report about this spot, one of the reasons I did not do as well as I hoped to write about it, was because of the wind. It was a classic winter time North wind, and it made it difficult to fish. Now there are certain times of the year when breezy weather can be beneficial to inshore fishing, but the winter is not that time, especially when it is bringing in chilly air temps.

But it did get me thinking about something, I thought about my fishing trips over the past 2 years on the weekend after Thanksgiving. They have both been freshwater, Bass trips, and they both were pretty successful.

One of the things I do, or at least try to do, is to keep a log book of fishing trips. Whether it was good, bad, ugly, or epic. I try to write down my thoughts going into the trip, and my thoughts afterwards. It helps me to build on positive trends, and nip negative ones in the bud. So I went back and looked and I saw that I had picked the spots I did to gain protection from the north winds.

Kayak Bassing – Winter

So I am not sure honestly what my all time PB Bass is, but I know that I have caught some of the bigger ones in the Winter-Early spring time, this time of year I enjoy Bass fishing more than inshore fishing. Inshore fish tend to slow down with their metabolism, the weather gets colder, they don’t move as much and don’t eat as much. Now this is true amongst Bass as well, but they also spawn earlier in Florida, so you will see them eat more to gear up for spawning season than an inshore species like Snook, who spawns in the summer.

Also Bass tend to be more aggressive and bite lures more than inshore fish as well, so with all that being said, Bass fishing can provide more action during the colder weather months than inshore fishing. Those factors are why I tend to do more Bass fishing in the winter, and more inshore fishing in the summer. The Bluebird skies and the post frontal high pressure days affect Bass too, but I have had more success catching Bass in good size, and numbers on those type of days, than I have catching inshore fish.

Spot #1 – The Stick Marsh

One of the areas that has been good to me in December-January is the northern part of the Stick Marsh. Launching out of Fish Fellsmere Grade Recreation Area I get through the canal that leads boats to the main lake, but instead of going south, I head west where there is roughly 3 miles of wind protected shoreline and structure. To be fair, I have had great days in other times of year fishing this same path, but getting the protection from the wind in the winter is pretty clutch. My best areas have been working that area about halfway between the east & west sides of the lake when you can push in behind the submerged palm trees and work that pocket about a mile or so down. Sometimes the fish are in the trees, sometimes they are on the outside, and sometimes they push up in the shallows near the shoreline. It may take a while to find the pattern, but once you do, you should be able to catch a lot of fish, and catch some of quality size as well.

The pegged weight Texas rig Speed Worm has always been good to me in this area, during this time of year, but a Watermelon Red Fluke style bait, and a Black/Blue Senko works well too, especially if the fish are moving slower and want something more subtle. I fish both of these baits weightless and weedless. They are both all time-classic Bass fishing staples, but remember to be patient and fish them slow and patiently. Both baits are designed to trigger bites on “the fall” and Stick Marsh does not have the same type of underwater vegetation as most Florida lakes.

Spot #2 – Lake Toho

So for Lake Toho I have two spots within this large lake that both offer the same advantages. The two launch spots are Whaleys Landing Public Boat Ramp which is located in the south-eastern corner of the lake; and Brownie Wise Park or Big Toho Marina in the northern part of the lake.

They both offer lots of places to fish with plenty of structure/cover that not only serves as vital fish habitat, but it serves as a buffer from the chop on the water that can be a real pain in the you-know-what when you are fishing from a kayak. The first spot I’ll talk about is the north end of the lake, here is a map of the areas I like pictured below. I drew lines of the areas I went to from the Big Toho Marina.

I fished this spot last year during Christmas break, and I went to the outside edges of the grass line first. I launched early in the morning and it was chilly out, so I targeted this area with deeper water, somewhere between 6-8 feet. As the sun rose and the weather warmed I gradually went into where it was shallower. I did well in the area around the channel where I could target depth contours and still works baits in the emergent vegetation which is the #1 type of cover on Lake Toho.

I never caught anything of great size, I just caught a ton of fish on this trip, it was a 25+ catch day on two presentations, a Gambler EZ Swimmer in Copperfield on a screw-lock belly weight hook, and a pegged tungsten Texas Rig with a Zoom Junebug Red speed worm. The T-rigged work around the contours and the Gambler in the grass.

The other spot that worked well last winter was this area of Lake Toho launching out of Whaley’s Landing and heading SSE towards Friar’s Cove. This is a great place to fish during pre-spawn and during the spawn as you can find good spawning grounds inside the outer edge of Kissimmee Grass. I’ve caught some decent fish out of this area. Mostly I have caught good numbers here, but I was with a guy who caught an absolute tank in this spot in January of 2023. That was the day I became a believer in the Swimming Senko style of bait, which works well here on a Texas Rig, the same way I do speed worms. But I have also had success with fluke style baits, especially targeting pockets around the spawning areas.

The color pattern that has worked well for me is a natural green pumpkin/watermelon color with red and purple flakes. Also anything natural with some additional gold flake works well too. I don’t know why, but those colors seem to outperform the Junebugs and the Blacks/Blues in this corner of the lake.

Summary & Conclusion

These two fishing spots are not the be all, end all. There are other spots out there that offer protection from the harsh winds that sweep down from the north country. I think the key to the formula is to find spots that offer wind protections but have enough water to hold a large number of fish, and enough structure and cover to get them to concentrate and have depth contours and areas with deeper water and areas of shallower water. Not to sound like a broken record, I feel like I end up saying this a lot here, but fishing the fish is way more important than what you throw at the fish. Colors matter, size and profile and ability to rig matters but none of those things matter if you don’t present them to a fish.

Is there a spot you like to fish in the winter months? What am I missing, I would love to hear from you if you have any spots or suggestions for great winter time kayak Bass fishing!

I’d like to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving, and a (early) very Merry Christmas, make sure to check out Kayaks By Bo when you are out doing your Christmas shopping! Thanks for reading, until next time!