Today I had the pleasure of Bass fishing in the Florida Everglades and taking out Scott and Richard Garrison from Scottsdale, AZ. Richard now lives in California.
They met me early morning to head out for a day of fishing in the Everglades. We got out on the water and started to throw top water baits. We caught a few on top-water, but that bite wasn’t really good do to the water temp being in the low 60′s. We then changed to plastic and started catching fish consistently throughout the day.
If you are visiting South or Central Florida for work or vacation and want to experience the best bass fishing that there is to offer then please give us a call. We can be reached at (888) 629-BASS or email me…
Today I had the pleasure of fishing with repeat customers of mine Jim Cain from Cahokia, TN. They have been fishing with me for the last four years and it’s always great to see them. We went out to seek the mighty peacock bass today, so we headed to the Miami area due to the resent cold fronts. It always good to move further south for the warmer water.
Fishing today was good, but you had to work hard to catch them…it’s called fishing to most of us, in most case it makes the reward of catching them that much better. James and Jamie caught peacock bass, a tarpon, a snook and a big jack. All of these were caught on one fishing trip today!
Thank you for the good time guys, looking forward to seeing you again…
If you are visiting South or Central Florida for work or vacation and want to experience the best bass fishing that there is to offer then please give us a call. We can be reached at (888) 629-BASS or email me…
What a great time we had today with Dave & June Thurber of Turns Falls, MA.
Dave & June are repeat customer for several years now and while they got to enjoy fishing with Capt Mark Shepard for a few days, I wanted to take the time to thank them for there years of loyality with a specail guided fishing trip by myself.
I know this couple from talking with them on the phone for years, but the experince of getting to know them would only begin to start while we were on the water together. Dave & June wanted to catch a few peacock bass and see the depth of the Everglades at the same time.
I picked them up early, as we headed to the Miami area in search of the hard fighting peacock bass. The ride and traffic while going there provided us with ample time to catch up of all kinds of things. Once we arrived it only took a few hours and we had all of the peacock bass they wanted to catch. By 11:30am we were on our way to the heart of the Everglades where I was hoping to educate them on the thing that were going on out here and catch a few bass. As the “fishing gods” could only provide, we rode though all kinds of wildlife to get to our fishing spot. As we stopped, I picked up a fishing rod to make a cast. Only wanting to provide an example of where to cast and how to retrive, I caught the first fish. That cast would set the example for the rest of our day, as both of them caught fish until we decided to say, that’s enough!
I really enjoyed the time with the Thurber family, not only did we catch fish, have a lot of fun, but I feel like I made frinedship for a lifetime.
The honor was truely mine, I hope to get out with you on your next trip to Florida!
If you are visiting South Florida for work or vacation and want to experience the best fishing that there is to offer then please give us a call. We can be reached @ (888) 629-BASS or by email.
The area in and around Orlando in the state of Florida is one of the most popular areas in the United States of America. Orlando has a population of almost 2 million people if the metropolitan area of Orlando. It is Florida’s sixth largest city, surprisingly but is the largest inland city in the state. Orlando is probably most known for Disney World, Sea World, Universal and it’s resorts. Also popular is one of the city’s oldest activities, a little thing called “Bass Fishing”.
Bass Fishing in Orlando is big business!
Bass fishing in Orlando is incredibly thrilling and sometimes life changing. Many anglers that have fished with BassOnline from all over world in search of that trophy bass almost always end up coming to Orlando because of the weather, the great amounts of trophy bass, and the wondrous scenery and great places to drop off the kids while hitting the lake looking for that bass to tip the scales.
Peak season for bass fishing in Orlando is around the start of the calendar year. Fishing reports of catching bass that weigh over 10 pounds in some of these incredible Orlando lakes like, Lake Toho is common! It is also a great season for catching large amounts of largemouth bass. The spawning for the bass in Orlando will also happen as this season kicks off which makes fishing a whole lot of fun!
A lot of people decide to use “bass fishing guides” when fishing in hope that they will be put on the best bass of there lives and be directed on techniquies while fishing lakes in Orlando. Bass Online Outfotters generally help people catch more fish than they would alone; sometimes up to two or three times as many fish are caught with other bass guides! Most of our bass fishing guides are somewhat legendary for how much they assist the customers in discovering huge bodies of bass filled waters and people hire these legends of the lakes all year long.
Most customer traveling to Orlando that go bass fishing, say it is one of the best things they have ever done. It changed there entire outlook on bass fishing, bringing home there largest bass ever caught in Orlando remains a dream no longer. Of course, that could be a dream or reality for some, but one thing is for certain: Orlando serves up some of the best fishing in Florida and the United States.
Thanks to Capt Todd Kersey for contributing this article to our Florida bass fishing blog:
Deer and coyote leave their tracks in the soft sand of what passes in Florida for hilly terrain.
Florida panthers have been known to do the same.
Thanks to a recent $38 million purchase of an interest in this mosaic of native Florida habitats and human-altered pastures, ditches and roads known as Hatchineha Ranch by The Nature Conservancy, panthers and other wide-ranging wildlife will continue to enjoy a nearly unbroken corridor between the Everglades and Central Florida and perhaps beyond.
The sale, announced just before Thanksgiving, stops plans to turn this 5,134-acre ranch at Polk County’s distant eastern boundary into a city-sized housing development.
That project, called Hatchineha Lakes, was headed for a public hearing in February before the County Commission.
That hearing won’t be necessary now, though county planners are still waiting for a letter formally asking that the project be withdrawn.
Keith Fountain, director of protection for the Florida Chapter of The Nature Conservancy, said the preservation of Hatchineha Ranch has been a high priority because of its location in the regional landscape.
“This is one of the last high biodiversity landscapes in Central Florida,” he said.
But to understand the importance of the deal, you have to zoom out far enough to see how this piece fits in the regional landscape.
a piece of the puzzle
The purchase not only completes a nearly continuous corridor of conservation lands around 6,665-acre Lake Hatchineha along the Polk-Osceola line, but it fills a gap in a wildlife corridor that reaches from the outskirts of Kissimmee to Lake Okeechobee and into the Everglades.
Think of a regional wildlife corridor as something akin to an interstate highway for everything from Florida panthers and black bears to migrating warblers and waterfowl.
Think of any barrier, such a new network of roads and fences that accompany new development, as something like having the road closed between two interchanges with no easy way to re-enter.
The importance of the corridor was described in a 2002 report prepared for the Florida Department of Environmental Protection.
The report said this area was an important link between the Avon Park Air Force Range and the Green Swamp, which was depicted as part of a more comprehensive statewide corridor system stretching all the way to the Florida Panhandle.
“Habitat within this linkage might also help support panther re-establishment in South-Central Florida in the future,” the report concluded.
years in the making
The Nature Conservancy’s success caps years of preservation efforts.
Once called Imagination Farms, the property topped the list of tracts Polk County sought to protect when the county’s environmentally sensitive lands referendum passed in 1994.
The Polk County’s Environmental Lands Program and the South Florida Water Management District unsuccessfully pursued its acquisition for years.
Fountain said the recently announced deal came as a result of a number of opportune circumstances.
For one thing, the state’s Florida Forever fund is temporarily tapped out because of the state budget crisis, so very little land is being purchased by state officials.
That means landowners interested in selling large tracts for conservation are turning to private groups such as the conservancy.
“There are more opportunities than we’ve ever seen before, but we’re only taking the cream of the crop,” he said.
There was another aspect that aided this deal, which is the cooperation of the owners, Hatchineha Ranch LLC of West Palm Beach.
“I can’t underestimate that this would not have been possible without the landowner’s cooperation,” he said.
Ernie Cox, one of the representatives for Hatchineha Ranch involved in the concept, agreed it was “a pretty creative deal.”
The deal worked this way: Hatchineha Ranch donated 1,130 acres to The Nature Conservancy, and the conservancy purchased a partial interest in the remaining 4,004 acres.
“I’m very excited to have been a part of it,” Cox sad.
rare habitat
He said the restoration of the site’s diverse habitat that includes scrub, flat woods, oak hammocks and extensive – 2,160 acres – wetlands.
Hatchineha Ranch contains an unusual habitat called cutthroat seeps that will be part of the master plan.
Cutthroat seeps are areas where groundwater seeps to the surface, characterized by the presence of cutthroat grass, a type of grass found only in a few scattered locations in Central and South Florida.
“This has the most immense area of cutthroat I’ve ever seen,” the conservancy’s Fountain said.
In fact, in some sections of the property, the cutthroat grass covers the ground everywhere you look.
At this point, there’s no timetable for the restoration, but work of this type typically takes years to plan and implement.
While the restoration is under way, the land will remain in private ownership.
Fountain said someday it is likely to be purchased by the government and become either an addition to the adjacent 8,250-acre Allen David Broussard Catfish Creek State Park or to land managed by the South Florida Water Management District.
[ Tom Palmer can be reached at tom.palmer@theledger.com or 863-802-7535. Read more views on the environment at environment.theledger.com.]
