At Lake Marion near Haines City, cooler weather has made for a better bass bite on wild shiners but slowed down results with artificials. Ray Chase at Bannon's Camp reports bass up to 7 pounds on shiners, with good numbers of fish 2-5 pounds. Plastic worms, crankbaits and spinnerbaits have been effective where there is running water, but an ultra slow presentation is required under cold front conditions. Speckled perch were good at night over the weekend with the full moon, but fishermen are getting a lot of small specks along the way. At Lake Pierce, shiner fishermen are starting to produce some quality bass, with an 8-pounder reported over the weekend.
Specks are fair but improving.
At Lake Hatchineha, fleets of speck fishermen will begin showing up with cooler, more pleasant weather conditions. Specks were decent over the weekend at Gator Cove and in open water off the port. Bass are showing slight improvement, still holding around running water outlets like the creek mouths or the mouth of Cypress Canal. There's also been a good catfish bite in Cypress Canal, with fishermen finding blue and speckled catfish up to 13 pounds along the grass lines. At Lake Toho, bass will be changing habits in the coming weeks as running water slows down and fish move to pockets of hydrilla.