Johns Lake and Clermont Chain

[Florida Bassin]

The last two weeks has seen a mix of trips, some bass fishing and a few crappie fishing trips. With all trips being done on Johns Lakes, with one day on Clermont Chain. Johns Lake had been a mixed bag of tricks, one day you were just slamming bass, and the next you had to work for them. Limited top water action and a lot of slow worming and flipping on the slower bite days. We did spot a bunch of beds scattered around on Johns Lake so it won’t be very long now before the big gals are caught, and released of course. Early morning action has come from Horseshoe cut and Deer Island cut, with some good schooling action going on. Once the schooling action stops, we spent a lot of time flipping grass beds with craws and Gitem K.O’s. The crappie bite has been doing good, with several crappie coming in at a pound and a half, and with a very brief cold front coming in this weekend the 19th and 20th, we fully expect the crappie bite to be good.
Clermont Chain we found water levels very low, especially in the canals, with our bass coming out of Emeralds Lakes Estate and Lake Susan, all flipping a Possum Craw made by Riverbottom Lures. Again we saw plenty of bass beds, but not even a buck in sight, with some stable temperatures next week we fully expect to see the action to really pick up out there. Water temperatures at Johns Lake and Clermont were both in the mid 60’s to start the day, with temperatures warming to near 70 by days end. In previous years I was not doing the crappie trips, but have decided to do trips this year, it was normally something I did on my own as a day of rest, but I am sure plenty of people will have a blast catching these slabs like we have the past 2 weeks. Till my next report, tight lines and great fishing!
Capt Tim Fey
Bassfishingfl.com