Lake Santa Fe

Bluegill and redear can be found around docks and cypress trees scattered around the lake. Target those fish using crickets, earthworms, and grass shrimp. By this time, Black Crappie should be finished spawning.If you are looking for crappie offshore, troll or drift crappie jigs or minnows and try to cover as much water as possible. Experiment by fishing different water depths, lure depths, lure colors and boat speeds and use that information to duplicate your success in other areas of the lake.Santa Fe crappie anglers should try probing the deepest areas of the lake as well (20-30 foot depths). A good place to begin your deep-water fishing is on any one of the marked FWC fish attractors on the lake.Anglers should look for largemouth bass in near-shore maidencane beds, under docks, and around cypress trees as some fish wrap up their spawning. Soft plastics either flipped, pitched, or dragged near structure should draw strikes. Don’t be afraid to look away from the shoreline when targeting bass also.Anglers should try slow-trolling live golden shiners parallel to the outer grass edges, or targeting schooling bass offshore. Multiple trophy bass have been caught this year.

While the bulk of the bass spawning season may be behind us, opportunities for big fish still exist. Register online with FWC’s TrophyCatch program and enter your trophy bass for a chance to win prizes. You can also view Trophy Catch data to see when, where, and how trophy bass are being caught. Entering fish is as simple as submitting a photo of the fish on a scale to the website above. The photo must show the entire fish and clearly show the weight on the scale.