Fish Orlando Fishing Forecast

Current Forecasts:

Starke Lake:  Largemouth bass should be done spawning and will have moved into deeper water.  Try the fish attractors (marked with a yellow FWC buoy) with Texas-rigged plastic worms or shaky-head jig/worm combo. The fish attractors are listed on a topographical map, which can be obtained by emailing or calling the Fish Orlando office (see contact information above).  Also look for schooling activity first thing in the morning as the bass in the open water chase shad.  Soft jerk baits such as flukes will work, as will small jigs with shad bodies.  If water temperatures remain below 80 degrees try fishing some of the submerged eelgrass and peppergrass growing in 5–10 feet of water. Lipless crankbaits, soft jerk baits (fished slowly), Carolina rigs, and wacky-rigged trick worms are good baits to try.  An area where the submerged vegetation connects up to deep water is usually best.

Turkey Lake:  As in Starke Lake, largemouth bass here should be done with spawning. Work the deeper pads, grassy bottlenecks and main lake points with lipless crankbaits, Carolina-rigged plastics (French fries, seinkos, etc.), and soft jerk baits (flukes).  Also try casting a Zara Spook or Devil’s Horse on the fish attractors (marked with a yellow FWC buoy). The fish attractors are listed on a topographical map, which can be obtained by emailing or calling the Fish Orlando office (see contact information above).  If water levels are up and water temperatures are still at or below 80 degrees, look for the fish to stay inside the emergent grass and be susceptible to soft jerk baits and top-waters.  Due to deed restrictions there is no public boat access on Turkey Lake, but the FWC, the City of Orlando, and Bass Pro Shops have teamed together to provide a Boat Loaner Program where four Bass Tracker Boats can be rented for only $23 a morning (7 a.m. – 11:00 a.m., Fri-Sun).   Call the City of Orlando’s Bill Frederick Park at 407-299-5581 to reserve a boat Friday–Sunday or a guided fishing trip on Thursdays for $125 (maximum of 2 people).

Lake Underhill:  Bass fishing should be good this quarter. Working the edges of the hydrilla and peppergrass with a weightless Senko, fluke, or pegged 4-incher should produce a bass or two greater than 4 pounds.  Topwaters that walk-the-dog (i.e. Zara Spook, Sammy, etc.) can be productive along these edges first thing in the morning or right before dark.

Ivanhoe:  Try fishing for bass on the numerous drop-offs around the lake with wacky-rigged plastics or Fluke Juniors pegged with a small weight (1/32 or 1/64 ounce) approximately 2 feet above the worm.  In the first part of the quarter most of the fish should still be relatively shallow (6-8 feet) with a movement deeper (8-12 feet) as the weather turns warmer in May and June.  Schooling activity is also a possibility, especially around the aerator diffusers. The diffusers are easily found by the bubbles coming up from the bottom. A Rat-L-Trap fished quickly or another shad-imitating crankbait or lure will usually catch the schoolers.

Clear Lake:  Hybrid striped bass fishing slows down this quarter and the channel catfish action picks up.  Liver fished on the bottom around the numerous dredge holes should provide good action for channel catfish up to 10 pounds.  The dredge areas are listed on a topographical map, which can be obtained by emailing or calling the Fish Orlando office (see contact information above).  If the dredge holes do not hold fish try fishing the mouths of the numerous canals associated with the lake.

Urban Ponds (Barnett Park Frog Pond, Bear Creek, Lake Island Park, and Santiago): Because the URBAN PONDS are put-and-take channel catfish fisheries and channel catfish are a warm water species, this quarter is usually very good. Try fishing chicken liver rigged on a #6 or # 8 hook around the “Baited Fishing Area” signs.  Night crawlers and wigglers are a good second choice for bait.  However, increases in the last decade of cormorant (a fish-eating bird) activity has required our project to try various stocking techniques to overcome this challenge.  Barnett is scheduled to be stocked with 4,500 channel catfish from our Richloam fish hatchery by the first week in April.  These fish should be approx. 0.5 pounds each and large enough to avoid the cormorants.  Lake Island Park and Bear Creek were stocked in fall 2011 at very high rates (3 times the usual amount) in the hopes that the large numbers would offset the bird predation.  This worked last year for Bear Creek but this is the first year we are evaluating this stocking rate for Lake Island Park. Santiago was not stocked last year and it would be best to focus on the bluegill in this pond until we can secure funds to stock it with the larger grow-out catfish. Although channel catfish are the management focus of these small ponds, some decent largemouth bass fishing can be had in Bear Creek using wacky rigged finesse plastics and top-water plugs thrown first thing in the morning.  Because of their abundant small bream, the URBAN PONDS are also a good place to take a kid to catch their first fish.  A small piece of worm or biscuit dough fished under a small float is usually all that’s needed.  Once again focus your efforts around the “Baited Fishing Area” signs.