Some background: My sponsor (AKA the Wife) signed me up for some drum lessons for a Christmas present one year – I had been playing drum parts with friends on the game Rock Band and had expressed an interest in ‘getting back into’ the drums. Well, I showed up for the lessons, and Dave was my instructor. Dave is a great guy, awesome drummer and loves to fish! Anyhow, Dave just got back from working as a musician on European cruise ships. He spent 7 months doing that. When he told me he was coming back soon, I said that we needed to get out and fish when he got home. This is that trip!
I had gotten a new-to-me boat since Dave had left. The last boat I had was a little 2-man plastic boat (Pelican) – which was a great inexpensive fishing platform! Dave had gone out with me a few times on it, and is the person that introduced me to Zoom Brush-hogs, which he out-fished me with (5-1) on our first outing several years ago! Since then, I’ve contributed substantially to keeping Zoom in business… When Dave showed up on the morning of our trip, he was a little bit shocked to find that the little plastic boat had been replaced by a much larger fiberglass job – I thought I had told him previously about my ‘upgrade’, but it turns out that I had not. So, we loaded up and headed out for Camp Mack on Lake Kissimmee.
We arrived, launched and headed to a few usual spots. It was pretty windy out already, and obviously a front was coming in – which I would have known about had I checked the weather forecast beforehand… I usually do this, but hadn’t in this case because, “hey, we’re ‘fun fishing'” – I.e. not pre-fishing or tournament fishing.
My strategy for the day was to introduce Dave to swim-bait fishing a la Reaction Innovations Skinny Dippers and Bitter’s Baits Naked Swimmers. I gave him a crash course on fishing with bait casters, and set him up with a 7’6″ rod, 60# braid, Shimano 201e7 Curado rigged with a #6 Owner swimbait hook. I figured that we’d at least catch a few quality fish with swim-baits given the conditions (Overcast with gusting winds).
We started off in this area, fishing the grass-lines and pads, but we only had a few small nibbles. So we set off for another area that I’ve caught quality fish in before: Grass Island area. We start working into the area and start getting a few small fish hitting the tail. I change colors to the ‘Dirty Sanchez’ (Reaction Innovations) and immediately start getting more bites. I was fishing the ‘Bluegill’ (Bitter’s) color prior to this – which works well in almost all conditions. I throw Dave some baits of the same color to put on. Minutes later I hook up with what feels like a decent 5 pound class fish. It wraps me up around a clump of lily pads. I bring the boat over and finally get it unwrapped, and then she swims up to the side of the boat… She’s huge! Way bigger than five. She had a gut that just hung off of her, like a pot-bellied pig!
Dave and I caught a few more during the day, but this one definitely made the trip to Kissimmee worth it. Foul weather aside, it was a good excuse to catch up with Dave, and a great outing!
P.S. I’ve got a few more pictures and some video of this fish. I need to edit the video before posting, so ‘stay tuned’ for more content regarding this big fish.
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were is Kissimmee lake and nice bass
Lake Kissimmee is located in central Florida. Google maps will show you exactly where it is at. We usually launch the boat out of Camp Mack.
wow man I got to come fish down there you going to catch all the fish