Florida officials have agreed to new terms for a land deal with the largest U.S. producer of cane sugar to increase the availability of water storage and flow to the vast Everglades wetland. The new agreement, subject to approval by the South Florida Water Management District, includes the purchase of more than 180,000 acres from U.S. Sugar Corp. at a price of $1.34 billion. The agreement is a step down from terms announced in June, which included transfer to public ownership of 187,000 acres and all the sugar company’s assets, including 200 miles of railroad, a state-of-the-art sugar mill, sugar refinery and citrus processing plant for $1.75 billion.

…The new terms include a lease-back of the land for $50 per acre, for a period covering seven crop cycles. The sugar mill, refinery and citrus processing facilities, railroads, office buildings, equipment and the Gilchrist County citrus nursery will remain the property of U.S. Sugar.

…The 180,000 acres, one of the largest environmental land acquisitions in U.S. history, are needed by the South Florida Water Management District to protect Florida’s coastal estuaries and better revive, restore and preserve the Everglades. The land will be used to reestablish a part of the historic connection between Lake Okeechobee and the Everglades through a managed system of storage and treatment areas. This is expected to reduce the potential for harmful discharges from Lake Okeechobee to Florida’s coastal rivers and estuaries when lake levels are high.

  Recreational stakeholders and Environmentalists were pleased with the outcome of negotiations. … “This is just the shot in the arm we need to improve the health of one of America’s most treasured, but troubled ecosystems. Floridians on both coasts will be able to say goodbye to damaging freshwater releases that foul up the St. Lucie and Caloosahatchee estuaries, and the continuous abuse of Lake Okeechobee. Which has sat idled in the middle of all of this with a silent voice taking all of the abuse.

Till next time tight lines and good fishing….

From Staff and Wire Reports

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 Southwest Florida, at first glance, doesn’t sound like a fresh water angler’s paradise. The region only has a handful of natural lakes and only one, Lake Trafford in the farming community of Immokalee is accessible to the public. There are many other lakes in the region but, they are all made-made rock pits or water retention areas for the numerous housing and golf course developments. Most of them are stocked and offer excellent largemouth bass, catfish and panfish fishing. But, some of these are located on private property, fishing can be restricted to residents and their guests. If in doubt, assume the lake is private and ask for permission before wetting your line.

Don’t construe the shortage of natural lakes and the restricted use man-made lakes with a lack of places to fresh water fish. Southwest Florida has hundreds of miles of drainage canals containing tons of fish. There region has three major canal systems: Lehigh Acres, Cape Coral and Golden Gate. Certain parts of each system are locally famous for good bass and panfish fishing. Each system has a few boat ramps, some bridges to fish from and plenty of areas where you can fish from the banks.

Driving around the region you will also notice that there are drainage canals along many of the major roads. Don’t overlook these as possible fishing spots. If there is a safe place to pull off the road, stop and give it a try. You will see people doing this every day and they usually are catching fish.

This part of the state has year-round largemouth bass and panfish fishing. Most of the bigger bass are caught during the cooler months when the fish are more actively feeding and at their peak bedding time. Panfish, including bluegills and redear sunfish will almost always bite a worm, cricket or small minnow.

Black crappie, preferring colder waters, aren’t as prevalent in this part of the state. Lake Trafford has the best crappie fishing in the region with the winter month being best. Oscars, exotic fish that are working their way into southwest Florida from the Miami area, can be very abundant in the freshwater canals, particularly along the US 41 canal in eastern Collier County. Catfish, mudfish and several species of gar are also common freshwater residents.

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  Today we had the pleasure of taking out Mel Taylor from Weston, FL which is with the Channel 10 news team. He contacted our service at www.bassonline.com  to setup up a fishing trip, he was especially interested to see if we could teach him how to use artificial lures.  He seems to fish often, but with live bait.

 We only had a short 4 hour day, so I had to work fast to bring Mel up to speed. We touch on several techniques, but caught most of our fish on a shaky head rig with an awesome new bait from JDC Bait company. Because of our policy, NO FISH-NO PAY, Mel knew we had a few fish with his name on it, which left him to fishing worry free. By the end of the trip Mel caught at least 5 fish on artificial baits and he learned a great deal.

Mel, is hooked and is looking at his schedule to come back this month!

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…

Capt Brett
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 The bass fishing in the Florida Everglades is probably one of the most consistent fisheries in the state, even though the Fish and Wildlife Commission has given it the #1 fishery stats when it comes to catch per hour you still need to fish to believe it. Like most fisheries, knowing how and when to fish the Everglades is key.

The key for us is being the largest and busiest, although we would like to think we are the most productive guide service in Florida. Which we always say, comes from knowing where the fish are going to bite before the fish even know it! We use cycles, trends, moon phases, water levels and simply our years of experience still continue to separate us from all of the others and today was just another example as we had out long time return customer Wade Weadows  and his friends for a day of fishing in the Everglades.

The day went well with lots of fish being caught on artificial lures as well as live bait, several in the 4 to 5 pound class. Always great to have these guides fishing with us, look forward to having you back in March.

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 us fishing@bassonline.com

 Tight lines,

Capt Todd
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  Law enforcement officers with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) cited a Sawgrass Recreation Park airboat captain, Charles W. Riley, D.O.B 10-28-47, of Tamarac, Florida with failing to report a boating accident, a misdemeanor, and careless operation, an infraction.
The FWC filed the charges after the airboat Riley was driving, a 28-foot Diamondback, took on water and sank in an Everglades marsh Oct. 4. The incident was not reported to the FWC until Oct. 7.

 FWC investigators determined the airboat’s capacity is 23 people. There were 37 people (cruise ship passengers) on board the vessel when water came over the bow. The boat sank in 6-8 feet of alligator-infested water 100 yards north of Sawgrass Recreation Parkin western Broward County.

Other airboat captains in the area rescued the tourists, among them young children. Some suffered minor injuries. Approximately $5,000 in personal items was destroyed, including cameras and cellular phones.

FWC investigators concluded the airboat was overloaded with people, which caused the boat to sink.

Media Contact
Gabriella Ferraro (772) 215-9459

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 Today I took out Hale White and his wife from Thompson, Tenn., what a great young couple. The day started off with a monster explosion that got away, I would say it was 8 to 9 pounds by the look of it. After that loss, it took a bit to re-group and start fishing again.

Every spot we hit produced a couple of good fish. We only spent 4 hours on the water, we boated around 15 fish total with a 5 pound kicker bass.

It was a very exiting morning to say the least, even when I was loading up the boat Hale caught a 3 pounder at the boat ramp. Great job guys, hope to see you again real soon!

Tight Lines,
Capt Tony (954) 205-2535
tonym@bassonline.com

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.
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 Well this is my 4th day with Phillip and its going to be a good day on Lake Okeechobee. Yesterday we discussed all of the options for other locations to fish and explained that there was a tournament on the lake and asked he would be intersted in fishing it with me. He got really excited and almost yelled, yes I would love to!

My game plane was to fish down South where I’ve been catching some good fish first thing in the morning. We missed a few good fish, then Phillip new what to do with another bait of his own, he then caught the next fish it was about 3 pounds… good job Phillip, his first Okeechobee bass. After the bite slowed down we moved to a flipping area that I have but the fish did not bite so we moved to another spot, caught a few more fish to get our limit of just under 14 pounds. First place had 20lbs, Second was 14.8 and third was 14.4 and we came in fourth place that was good for 20 plus boat field.

Phillip was so happy about fishing his first tournament he decided to fish next Sunday tournament also.

 He will be back next week for another 4 day sunrise to sunset trips.

 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…

 Capt Brett
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  Today I had a little break on the sunrise to sunset trips and changed out with Capt Tony another one of our guides.  I took out Casey and Allison from St Paul, MN  which were down on there honeymoon…Congratulations!

So we went out in the Everglades to catch a big Florida largemouth bass, with the bass being a little sluggish on the back side of the summer moon we had to work a little harder at fishing but we managed to catch a Florida trophy bass a little over 5 pounds for the honeymooners.

Hope they enjoyed it as much as I did…thanks guys!

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…

Capt Brett
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 Well all I can say for this day Phillip and I went out to search for new water and had another excellent day of fishing for large mouth bass on this day. I managed to get Phillip his largest bass ever, it weighed in at 6 pounds on this day as we caught more largemouth then he had ever caught.

  Most of the areas were good fishing, but water management has recently sprayed some areas so we had to move around to other locations. We found everything had to do with water conditions and the fish could be caught!

 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…

Capt Brett
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  Hello everybody its been awhile, I have been on the road a lot and it sure is good to fish at home. The lake “Okeechobee” that is, is looking great and I am going out on the limb by saying this could be one of the best winters in the last 10 years.

 There is more cover(vegetation) to fish than I have ever remember. The cover is a little different than the past years, there is going to be a lot of adventures this year as we try to follow and locate these big bass…the up side is we should have plenty of water to ourselves.

 Just getting back from New York fishing Lake Champlain on the FLW tour, a beautiful lake good fishing but it’s nice to see Florida largemouth again, there giants here compared to Champlain. Today, I fished with Harry Swauger and his father both are very good fishermen with baitcasters and/or spinning reels, today they were on top of there game. We fished the glades and caught good size fish most of the day. The biggest fish of the day was 9lb largemouth, it sure is good to see how healthy Florida bass are.

 Well, I hate to run, but I have to go to Clarks Hill for the last FLW series tournament of the year. I will be back in about two weeks, I hope to bring some of the cooler weather with me. If we get some cool weather while I am gone that will be the thing to fire these fish up!

Until then good fishing…If you are visiting South or Central Florida for work or vacation and want to experience the best fishing that there is to offer then please give me a call. We can be reached @ (888) 629-BASS or email me below.

Good fishing,

Capt Mark Shepard
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