Who is that masked man?
Hi Brandon,
I also emailed the following to you. I check my email in the morning and at night during the week and several times a day on the weekends, so please don't sue! :lol:
I fished Lake Kissimmee about 10-12 times over the course of 5-6 years. It was known as a lake that one could get skunked on unless you knew how to fish it. A lot depends upon how high or low the lake level is. I would prefer to fish it if it was a little lower than normal.
If Jerry Lundsford is still the owner-operator of the Oasis Fishing Lodge he might be willing to give you some tips. His lodge is located at the intersection of the Kissimmee River and route 60 on the north side of the street. His number used to be 813-692-1594. The 813 exchange may have changed, I'm not sure.
I remember fishing one Saturday and Sunday ( 1 1/2 days) tournament on Kissimmee when the water level was fairly low. We were going to fish one of my spots first in the middle of the lake where there was a grassy island. Knowing that the water level was only about 2' on the outside of the grass island, we came off plane about 100 yards from the grass and put down the
trolling motor. A fish splash near the boat about 100 yards off the grass island, we looked at each other and said "there's fish out here!" We never made it to the emergent grass shoreline. In 15 minutes I had my limit of 10 bass and in 45 minutes we caught about 30-35 fish - all in the 1# to 1.5# size. We should have left after we got our limits, because when we went back the next morning they had sore mouth and we couldn't catch them. We still came in 2nd place even though we only caught a couple of fish the next day. This grass island is NW of Bird Island and east of Phildelphia point.
This time of year the fish are usually active, chasing shad or golden shiners. They usually reveal themselves on the surface when they are mauling the baitfish. Be alert. You may even see sea gulls diving after the left overs. Be observant. Topwater lures, Johnson silver minnows in black with yellow skirt, silver with white skirt, or gold with white skirt, and spinnerbaits are good lures to have tied on. The fish are usually schooled up tight so if you catch one there are usually more around them
close by. If you can find a current flowing - from a river flowing into the lake, you can usually find shad and bass. If the river is 10-20 feet deep and it enters the lake, the lake bottom may only be 5-6 feet deep. That dropoff and 5-6 foot flat can be dynamite. Where is Kissimmee river dumps into Lake Okeechobee, is just like that and I have caught many limits of
bass on those 5-8 foot flats (on the lake bottom) outside the river channel where it opens up to the lake.
If the water is low, I would look for grass, either hydrilla or peppergrass outside the emergent grass (maiden cane and joint grass) shorelines. Again I would use the Johnson spoons and spinnerbaits and also weightless plastic worms. We didn't have Senkos back then, but I would skip a Senko worm weightless right over the thick matted hydrilla and peppergrass. Hold onto
your rod and don't set the hook until they take it under. I would use 15-20 lb test line throwing Senkos over the thick grass.
If the water is fairly high, the bass may have moved into the shorelines. Sometimes you'll have a bullrush (round reeds) shoreline, followed by some open shallower water with joint grass, maiden cane, hydrilla, peppergrass and eel grass mixed together. Where the inside water meets a 2nd shoreline,
and where there is a mixture of several types of weed cover, you might find the bass this time of year if the water is up. If the water is deep enough and open enough, you might also be able to throw some shallow water crankbaits at them also. They also migrate up and down the boat lane that run perpendicular from the solid shoreline and from the open lake through acres of grass toward the shallow shorelines. Boat will run the boat lanes helping to clean off the bottom and deepen it a little. Run your lures in the boat lanes but hang onto your rod.
Be observant while you're fishing. Listen to what's going on around you. This time of year the bass may tell you where they are at with all there feeding and thrashing on the water surface. It is not the time to have the radio blasting. Most of the time if you see them thrashing up the water 100 yards away in an opening in the grass, pretty good chance they will stay there long enough for you to catch them.
If it is really windy at first light and the water is real rough, if the wind starts dying down around 9-10 a.m., watch out. When it calms down around 10-10:30 a.m., the fish might go on a feed rampage on the grass points that were too rough to fish at first light.
In the river, just down stream of the locks, sometimes there's a point formed by the new river and the old river channel. A shallow sandcovered point might stick out 1/4 of the way into the river. Sometimes the fish will stack up on those. Crankbaits, carolina rigged worms and drop shot worms would work on those. The winding old river channel was blocked off and a straight channel cut straight down to Lake Okeechobee. There was some
talk about restoring the old river channel, but I don't know if they have done that.
My favorite worm colors were junebug (dark green with metal fleck) and red shad (red/black). I don't know if they will work today, but that's what I'd be throwing.
Lake Kissimmee is about 12 miles long and about 5 miles wide at the widest.
I also remember a big tournament being won by a local angler (he beat Tom Mann and Roland Martin) in Little Lake Jackson. They got to it by going part way up the east shoreline of Kissimmee, going through a small canal loaded with water hyacynths (they raked there way to this small lake) and loaded up on the bass. The weather was cool and very windy and they were unaffected by both. If you look at a road map, you will see little Lake
Jackson east of Lake Kissimmee. If the water is down, the canal to the lake would be close to dry. You may want to look into fishing little Lake Jackson in the future.
I hope this helps. Let me know how you did.
