LAKE WALES, Fla. (Jan. 26, 2009) – Boater Jeremy Smith of Plant City, Fla., won the Walmart Bass Fishing League Gator Division tournament on the Kissimmee River Saturday with a five-bass catch weighing 28 pounds, 12 ounces. The victory earned Smith $4,271 and placed him one step closer to qualifying for the Clarks Hill Lake Regional Championship in Martinez, Ga., Oct 15-17, where he could ultimately win a new Ranger boat and a Chevy truck.
“Watching the Weather Channel I knew it had been cold all week. I just had a thought in my mind that the fish would pull out in deeper water,” said Smith. “When I practiced, I stuck with that idea that fish were going to be deeper and discovered that Friday before the tournament.”
Smith caught a total of eight fish between takeoff hours and lunchtime and kept the best five, culling only once. Smith said he knew that Saturday was forecast to be a nice day, and by mid-morning the weather had improved.
“I didn’t have to fish anymore, so I put my pole down and tried to help my co-angler catch his limit,” Smith said. The winning fish were caught on a Rat-L-Trap and a Yo-Zuri lipless crankbait.
“I normally don’t catch that much weight the day of takeoff. But I ran up to Lake Toho and fished in a new place. An angler before me caught a 9-pound, 2-ounce bass, and I thought he had caught the big one. But I fished it for a while longer and caught a bigger one,” Smith said.
Rounding out the top five boaters are Kyle Walters of Palm Bay, Fla. (five bass, 26-13, $2,136); John Stahl of Wesley Chapel, Fla. (four bass, 20-08, $1,424); Micah Silverman of Orlando, Fla. (five bass, 14-09, $997) and Miles Burghoff of Saint Cloud, Fla. (five bass, 14-06, $854).
Smith took home the Boater Division Big Bass award, earning $4,271 for a 9-pound, 11-ounce bass he caught.
Scott Kerslake of Henderson, N.C., earned $2,136 as the co-angler winner Saturday thanks to five bass weighing 15 pounds, 12 ounces.
Rounding out the top five co-anglers are Johnny Dease of Orlando, Fla. (five bass, 12-04, $1,068); Chris Youngblood of Dunedin, Fla. (five bass, 10-13, $712); Douglas Conklin of Harmony, Fla. (five bass, 8-13, $498) and David Lepsic of Haines City, Fla. (five bass, 8-07, $427).
Kerslake earned $2,136 as the co-angler Big Bass winner after catching a 15-pound, 12-ounce bass.
The next Gator Division event will be held on the Harris Chain of Lakes in Tavarez, Fla., Feb 14.
The top 40 boaters and 40 co-anglers in each of the BFL’s 28 divisions at the end of the season advance to a no-entry-fee Regional Championship where boaters fish for a new Ranger boat and a Chevy truck and co-anglers fish for a new Ranger boat. Seven regional championships will each send six boaters and six co-anglers to the no-entry-fee Walmart BFL All-American presented by Chevy, which features a $1 million purse and a top award of $140,000 in the Boater Division and $70,000 in the Co-angler Division. Anglers who compete in all five regular-season events within a division but do not advance to a Regional Championship are eligible to compete in the Chevy Wild Card, which will also send six boaters and six co-anglers to the All-American for a total of 48 boaters and 48 co-anglers advancing through BFL competition.
In BFL competition, boaters supply the boat and compete from the front deck against other boaters. Co-anglers compete from the back deck against other co-anglers.
As the nation’s leading provider of affordable, close-to-home weekend tournaments, the BFL is widely credited with opening competitive bass fishing to the masses. It also serves as a steppingstone for anglers who wish to advance to the Stren Series and ultimately the FLW Tour – bass fishing’s most lucrative tournament circuit.
Total awards are based on a full field of 200 boats in every tournament.
Till next time tight lines and good fishing….
From Staff Writer Capt Todd Kersey (todd@bassonline.com)
BassOnline.com / 888-829-BASS
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The fishing in Central Florida is improving each day as anglers are catching nice bass in the 4- to 8-pound class and bluegills are still hitting.
Anglers are continuing to fishing at night around the full moon and are catching some nice speckled perch on minnows and large mouth bass on top water.
The Winter Haven Chain is giving up 10 to 20 speckled perch per angler who are using minnows for bait.
The best lakes for these panfish are Cannon, Jessie, Mirror and Hartridge. Bass are biting in Winterset, Summit and Lulu.
Plastic worms and/or live shiners are still producing the best results. Plenty of bluegill are still being caught on crickets out of Howard, Eloise, Jessie and Idyllwild.
Most are being caught in the evening just after dark while fishing on the bottom. Speckled perch also are being caught at night on minnows while drifting with minnows.
A few bass in the 2- to 5-pound class were caught during the week on plastic worms.
A few guides who fish on Lake Ashton, said speckled perch are hitting good at night on minnows. Bass are hitting spinner baits in the late afternoon when the wind blows. Bluegills are still being caught while fishing with crickets.
Anglers trying their luck at night for speckled perch in Lake Silver are averaging about 10 per boat while fishing with live minnows. There is plenty of bluegill action in this lake. Bass are hitting crank baits while slow trolling.
Guides reported last week bass were hitting shiners good at night on Lake Mariana. They caught five bass in less than an hour, with the largest tipping the scales at 11 pounds.
Try your luck this week in Lake Elbert with minnows as the speckled perch are beginning to hit in this lake while drifting at night. A few bass in the 3- to 8-pound range were caught on spinner baits in late afternoon. Bluegills are still hitting crickets.
Both air and water temperatures are still in the high 80′s, the largemouth bass bite has been good to excellent from Lake Toho all the way down to the Kissimmee River. Because of moving water, the key as guides has been setting up on the outflow of the canals that connect the lakes.
Great numbers of bass are being caught over last week, although the size has dropped a bit in Kissimmee. We recommend setting up on the outflow points of the canals and working spinnerbaits, senkos or even crankbaits along the moving water.
When we find running water near any vegetation, you should find bait and bass. The flowing water is also creating bait schools, which in turn brings schooling bass to the surface early in the morning or later in the day.
While it is too early to really concentrate on crappie, the tasty panfish can be caught at the crack of dawn and will readily take a jig tipped minnow working around lily pads or submerged grass.
While this season is already setting up to be a good one, the additional water will help all of the Florida fishing!
Lake Okeechobee‘s water level is at 12.52 feet above sea level on Friday. That is over one foot higher than it was before Tropical Storm Fay crossed the lake.
The South Florida Water Management District said at least 6 inches fell on the lake. And it will continue to rise as stormwater run-off from the Kissimmee River flows into the lake.
The SFWMD Web site, www.sfwmd.gov, indicated Okeechobee could rise to 12.80 feet in the next two weeks. That would be a total of about 1.76 feet as a result of Fay.
The lake was 2 1/2 feet below normal even after the 6 inches of rain fell, but a really good level for the lake.
Enjoying a last day off before school starts, kids used dip nets to scoop up catfish that swam into roadside drainage ditches during the storm, said Phillip Black of the Pioneer Estates neighborhood, off County Road 15A. Not far off, Bobby Hays, 11, Dakota Bond, 11, and Danny Hays, 7, rode skim boards in puddles left by Fay. Lake Okeechobee’s water level has risen half a foot, to 11.8 feet above sea level, and is expected to rise as water flows into the lake from the north.“We all are pretty excited,” about the lake level and the forecast for this winters fishing on Lake Okeechobee, said Lake Okeechobee fishing guide Mark Shepard of Clewiston, Florida. “We’ve had not seen the lake look this good in a couple of seasons. We need this, it is exciting.”
Around Lake Okeechobee, residents cleaned up some fallen tree limbs, fired up generators and patched roofs, after Fay walloped the north and west sides of the big lake as it crossed Florida. Among the highest damage estimates around the lake was on the east side, in Pahokee, where roof damage to city hall and sewer system damage clocked in at $1.5 million.
Flooding forced the closing of State Road 29 between Palmdale and LaBelle. A detour routed motorists around flooded lanes Wednesday along a short section of U.S. 27 south of Palmdale.
Even though water has been flowing hard through the Kissimmee River, weirs and other water-control structures in the river were not damaged by Fay, said Randy Smith, spokesman for the South Florida Water Management District.
No problems with the Herbert Hoover Dike, with flood-control structures around the lake or with lake navigation were found following inspections Wednesday, said Steve Dunham, chief of the South Florida office for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Clewiston.
