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Trophy Bass Time Has Arrived

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: February 4, 2008

GO FISHING is a daily look at the area fishing scene through the eyes of local charter boat captains and fishing guides. Today: Mark Cook.

With the recent stabilization of fairly warm weather, this week could see the year's first run on 10-plus-pound largemouth bass. Water temperatures have been hovering between 60 and 65 degrees and as it approaches 70 degrees, the big females will move up to spawn.

Also, this is an excellent time to catch large numbers of fish, as the smaller males that protect the beds are in an aggressive mode. Virtually any bait thrown near a spawning area may produce a strike from the daddy bass. Getting the females to bite requires a little more patience and skill but it can be done.

One of the fun ways to find the females is by sight fishing. Approaching a known spawning area slowly and quietly is the key.

A couple years ago I fished with the Watts brothers on Eagle Lake near Bartow on a custom pontoon boat they built with a tower. The brothers had mentally marked bedding areas and checked them frequently waiting for the females to "lock on" the bed.

They took turns tossing jigs over the beds and letting them sit fairly still, occasionally twitching the bait. In some cases they would fish a single bed for 30 minutes before enticing the big female to bite. When she finally did it was like dynamite exploding under water. Seeing it from 10 feet in the air was an amazing scene.
Lake Kissimmee hasn't seen many double-digit bass show up yet, but it has a proven history and no doubt will produce its share of wall hangers. Crooked Lake, Walk-in-Water and even Toho also are well-known monster bass homes. Public and private phosphate pits along with the Tampa By-Pass Canal also are excellent places to hunt for bragging-rights bass.

For charter trip information, contact Mark Cook at (813) 846-9277 or send an e-mail

to tribfishing@aol.com.

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