No, I’m not a scientist/paleontologist, but I do have a hypothesis – dinosaurs still exist, right in the good old US of A. They exist in Florida. I know what your first thought is, Alligators do give off that dinosaur vibe. Although the Sunshine State is full of those prehistoric looking reptiles, I’m referring to one of the finned variety, the Florida bass.
Florida bass are a largemouth bass (prevalent in all the lower 48 states) however, they are different from much of the bass occurring natively in the northern climates. The Florida bass is its own animal all together. They have adapted to handle the tropicalish climate that Florida presents, and grow at an extremely fast rate and large size compared to their northern cousins. Due to this, they are often stocked or interbred with their northern cousins and stocked in areas like Texas and California, in order to produce trophy caliber specimens.
I’ve tangled with their kind for about ten years now, and each time I learn something new. I spent four winter/springs living and guiding in Florida at a place that provides a look into what old Florida was truly like, the St. John’s River. The St. John’s has been home to some of the biggest bass ever caught in the state of Florida and I found that out quickly, as the first day ever fishing that body of water, I caught my personal best bass, weighing nearly 10 pounds!
The one big thing I have come to realize coming from an area where largemouths that are 7-8 pounds are considered unicorns, is that once a fish is bigger than 6 pounds, you are dealing with a totally different animal. They look different. They fight different. They are just different.
Guiding there and getting to fish tournaments around the St. John’s and other major fisheries in Florida for those four years, allowed me to tangle with a lot of fish over six pounds. A common denominator in actually landing them, was often doing so with heavy line and one hook. Florida is full of thick vegetation, trees and cypress knees, and barnacles (at the St. John’s). Throw in an extremely big and strong fish and you are in for quite a fight. When Tyler Woak and I headed to the Harris Chain for the Bassmaster Team Championship, I made sure to beat home the point that we were going to a jungle to fish with goat rope and meat hooks to bring these dinosaurs in.
We stayed at a nice AirBnB in the Mount Dora area for our event. The reason being, it offered quick access to each lake on the chain with very easy access to the three lakes I have fished the most: Dora, Eustis, and Harris. Going into practice, our game plan was to poke around Dora for the first day and allow that to drive our decisions for the next two and half days of official practice. Our first day ended up being our best day as we had multiple bites over four pounds and caught a fair amount of 1.5-2.5 pounders as well. About midday we decided to do some more idling and look for offshore sweet spots that would hold up to the predicted weather conditions, come tournament time.
Early in practice the weather was really warm and comfortable (a big change from the 10” of snow I had to dig my boat out of to leave), but a big cold front was coming right as the tournament was going to begin – often the kiss of death when fishing for finicky Florida bass. I started to see distinct shadows off the sides on my Lowrance side imaging and thought they looked to be set up like bass. I quickly spun the boat around and used my Active Target to look around. I saw big bulbs (as I call them because big fish shine and look like a big light bulb) close to or on the bottom about everywhere around me. My heartbeat quickly changed and my focus honed in as I began to believe that original thought was about to be true.
Our first casts, we both had fish knock our baits, but not hook up. A good sign, but could they be crappie or “specks” as they commonly refer to them in Florida. The next cast I lined up on a big concentration of them and slung my Carolina rig and junebug worm off past them. As I drug slowly closer and closer, I felt a more distinct knock on my line. I waited and bowed the rod towards the water before feeling that pressure, then, whack! I set the hook on what I knew was a solid fish. It fought hard at the boat, before I saw the distinct light color and body shape of a deep water Florida bass. I flipped the bass in the boat on the 16 lb Gamma Edge line, Owner hook, and 7’6” Heavy rod with relative ease, however. Our first clue.
Now, Tyler was starting to get excited as well. I said to Tyler, we are going to stay here for a little bit longer because I want to see at least one more to verify what kind of size we’re dealing with. It didn’t take too long until Tyler was bowed up on his football jig and getting dogged around the boat by another chunky Florida bass. We got the five pounder in the boat, looked around and were happy to see no one within shouting distance. That was enough for me. I picked up the trolling motor as I saw hordes of fish and just as importantly, baitfish schools all around. As we idled away and continued our search, we discussed the potential of that spot. I looked at Tyler and said, “This is a potential winning area. We can win the tournament, right here.” Now, you may think, why do two decent fish tell you that? I’ve fished in Florida a good bit now. I’ve had bad tournaments and I’ve had good ones. Most tournaments I have fished there have been in the winter time, and I have learned when you find multiple quality type fish in an area, there is a good reason and usually plenty more.
As the week progressed, we kept getting more clarity on what we needed to do. I also began to get more clarity on what was going on at that spot. I told Tyler, when the cold comes, it will not affect it. If anything, it will bring more fish to it. Essentially, it’s a wintering hole and the bait is also there for a reason. From fishing around home here on Lake Erie as well as the Allegheny River, I understand the progression of things and what to look for. Florida has different cover and timing, but overall, where they migrate is based on the same principles. Florida and the Harris Chain specifically, offer another major element to the equation of finding and catching fish in a tournament though. That’s 365 days of fishing pressure and a never ending schedule of big tournaments. I’ve said fish aren’t smart before, but these fish definitely know how to survive better than most, due to getting caught and moved around every day of the year.
We sampled all of the main lakes on the Chain: Harris, Eustis, Griffin, Dora, Beauclair, and Apopka. We found fish in each one, but after our days launching in Dora, we also found good fish in both Griffin and Apopka as well. We spent half a day in each and saw the potential for 15+ pound bags in each. Thankfully, Tyler and I agreed that our best chance to win (no other reason to be there) was to hope and pray we could get on our magic shell bed/winter hole, and fish the whole event there. Essentially, we were going to save Griffin or Apopka for if we felt like we were running out of fish and made it to the two day fish off for the Classic spot. Griffin is always a popular lake and I try to avoid it like the plague, especially in a big tournament situation. Each lake also involves a big commitment as you must lock into each. This takes about an hour to an hour and half each way, depending on which you goto. I don’t like to lock and always want to find fish that I don’t have to lock to, if at all possible.
Tyler’s biggest bass ever was caught in Ohio and weighed in at about 6.5 pounds. His goal was to break his PB (personal best) that week and I promised him, he would have at least one chance to tangle with one bigger. We left areas quickly during practice, but still got to see a handful of 3.5-5.5 pound fish which was encouraging. Those big ones are smart and usually, you must slow down and coax a bite over time. I was optimistic that there would be 6-10 pounders swimming around our boat during the event. We just had to figure out how to catch them.
At the meeting, we found out that there were about 250 boats competing that week, offering some great competition from the best local teams from across the country, Canada and even South Africa (we met some new friends from there, too). Finding fish to yourself would be extremely hard, but even more crucial with that amount of boats fishing the event. We met up with some of our new Canadian friends at the meeting, Joey D and Joey T. Yes, the Joey’s. They both live right across the Lake Erie Pond and fish a lot of smallmouth events and kill it up in their region. We’ve had a mutual respect and knew each other for some time just through the fishing world, but it was great to hang out in person with them and talk Lake Erie and big water smallmouth with the Joey’s. We were hopeful for an early boat to ensure getting to our spot, but that hope was dashed when leaving there, as our texts read, boat 201 for day one. Would anyone else find those fish?
The next morning was the coldest yet, and we both dressed as if we were chasing late fall smallmouth, with winter hats and the like. The wind was cranking early and based on the direction, we knew it would get choppy on parts of our drive there and back. When boat 201 was called, the once bass boat packed cove was nearly empty. We shot out across Lake Harris hoping to see no one on our spot in about a half hour when we would finally arrive.
As we neared our sweet spot, our eyes widened hoping to see open water. The first step of the journey was a success. We fist bumped and celebrated that fact before killing the engine and making our first casts. Not long after stopping, I felt that distinct tick in the line again, waited and reared back on some solid weight. We got our day started with a solid four pound fish in the well and the rest of the day to fill it up with his friends. The bites were very light in the cold water conditions, but they came fairly quickly. The problem at first was, many were smallish. We put a limit in the boat fairly quickly on the Carolina rig and we rotated through some baits to try and elicit strikes. I hopped a chatterbait and trap. Tyler threw a football jig and big ribbontail. I picked up a deep diving crankbait that I had gotten bit on in practice and tried to get a reaction strike. Nothing else seemed to work well, so I went back to dragging the Carolina rig and waiting them out.
A few hours into the day, we hit another bite window. We gave our main area a rest and zipped over to a hard shell spot (our secondary area) about 400-500 yds away. Nothing was going on there, so we came back. That’s when the bigger fish began to bite. Tyler switched to a drop shot and not long after, hooked up with the first dinosaur. He said it was big, and I quickly readied myself with the net, trying to help coach him through. Tyler has caught a ton of 5-6+ pound smallmouth. We tangle with ones like that about every day we fish Erie together, but what was on the end of the line, was a different animal. It came up from the depths, opened its huge mouth, jumped and took a surge that snapped Tyler’s line. Tyler dropped to the deck face first. That one hurts. He asked how big it was. I said around 7 pounds, but maybe 8 at my best take on an estimate from 20 feet away. We kept fishing and Tyler quickly bounced back catching one about 3 pounds on the drop shot, not long afterwards and culling a small one. We locked down and painstakingly slowly drug for what seemed like an hour on each cast.
I started veering out, using my Active Target to look around to potentially find some fish that were less wise to our shenanigans. Within about ten minutes, I panned over a wad of them. I told Tyler, this was it, and stayed a lost cast away. My first cast pulled a smaller keeper off the little sweet spot with the Carolina rig, before I changed to a different junebug soft plastic. Tick, pull, and set! This one was definitely bigger. How much bigger, I didn’t know at first, but after the first surge at the boat almost ripped the rod out of my hands, I knew it was pretty big. Then another surge that nearly short lined me as the thumb bar on the reel would not release. Thankfully, she had tired herself out that last bit of surging and when the line stopped, so did she. I fought her up to the net, never getting a good look until I saw Tyler scoop her and start freaking out, before I quickly joined in. It was a trophy catch (Florida is noted as anything over 8 pounds) sized bass, taking up what seemed to be the whole net. We set it on the bottom of the boat, still in unbelief. I haven’t seen a 9-10 pounder in sometime and Tyler said, that has to be a 10! With how big of body she had, and how thick she was, I thought, who knows.
We fished a bit more and left early to make the run back on the windy day, in case anything happened. I’m glad Tyler suggested it, as when we were running full bore across Lake Dora, we felt a big thunk around the engine and the wheel began to vibrate violently. I immediately knew, we threw an ear on our prop. I’d say it happens to me every 2-3 years, as putting that much torque on these high performance props, with it skimming barely under the water, will expose any imperfection eventually. When this happens all you can do is limp slowly over to the shore and change your prop. Moral of the story, that’s why I always carry a spare.
Thankfully, we saw a couple boats off in the distance and Tyler was able to wave down one with my obnoxiously orange reflective vests that I always have on hand for guiding purposes. Hunter Sales came over and was nice enough to say he’d take Tyler and our fish in. We transported them with the net over to their boat and they quickly sped away. It took me at least another 10 minutes to limp the rest of the way to a boat ramp, turn the boat around and jump in the shallower (alligator infested haha) waters to swap my prop. It took a bit to get the pin out, but other than that, it’s a quick fix. Always carry a board, a prop wrench, and good pliers for that job. It doesn’t hurt to have a spare pin or two in case you drop one in the water, too.
I called Tyler as I idled back through the Dora Canal to make sure they got in and sped my way back to the launch, just in time to weigh our bag. Unfortunately, we big eyed the 9-10 pounder slightly, but it weighed in at 8-7, missing the lunker for the day by a few ounces. Overall, we checked in with 17-15 and kicked off the event in 6th place. After a quick trip to the service trailers (Yamaha, Phoenix, Minn Kota, Power-Pole and the rest have all been a Godsend throughout the time I’ve done this and deserve a ton of credit for keeping everyone in the game), we headed home to get a few hours of sleep before attacking the Chain again.
We awoke to an even colder morning on day two, but thankfully with much less wind. We knew what potential we had at our spot and due to being a late boat day one, we’d almost assuredly get back onto our primary area with our earlier boat draw. Once again, we ripped across Harris with the confidence of knowing giant bass awaited us.
When we arrived, our morning started just about how it was the day prior. I fired the Carolina rig out and quickly hooked up with one, this time around three pounds. The bass came up to jump and threw my bait unfortunately. Dang. No big deal though, as we had plenty of time and knew bigger fish opportunities were going to come. Tyler and I caught a couple small keepers, then it slowed down…way down. The wind slacked off completely and the sun shined bright with the dreaded postfrontal bluebird skies.
We meandered around more and switched up baits a bit, with not much luck. There were some short strikes and something was off. About that time Tyler and I coincidentally thought about throwing a reaction bait. As fate would have it, we finally had some other competitors get somewhat close to us, but never infringing on where we were fishing. I noticed they also had that idea as both were throwing crankbaits. After a while I noticed them netting a solid fish, and the light bulb fully went off. I picked up my DT16, and fired it around our area. Within a few minutes, I figured out the cadence that they seemed to want and the rod loaded up with a solid fish. I brought the four pounder to the net with the crankbait completely down the fish’s throat. Good start and boost for our morale. Right after, we watched them catch one in the distance. Then I boated another keeper and Tyler hooked up and caught one around 4.5 pounds. The window was opening and the bite had changed.
We continued to meander back to our primary “juice” and after firing a bomb cast, my rod loaded up again. This time, with some serious weight behind it. The fish started pulling so hard in bursts, I initially thought it may have been foul hooked or even a gar. When the big white blob emerged sideways, Tyler with the net said, “dang it’s a gar.” I double-took and yelled, “it’s a bass dude!” He quickly scooped the 5.5 pounder that had my crankbait along the outside of its face. We had a limit. A solid limit around 16 pounds in the blink of an eye. After cleaning up from the chaos, I fired back over to the same spot. Within a handful of cranks, my rod loaded up again. This time, it pulled even harder and had even more weight behind it. Oftentimes, when deep cranking, you hit a sweet spot cast where you can catch multiple fish off the same angle. This was one of those times. I fought this giant fish as it pulled and I had to thumb the spool at times to keep it from breaking the line. As it got halfway back to the boat and was rising to jump, I lost all tension. It came off. Dang it! That was one we definitely needed, but we kept on firing and dredging our crankbaits all through our areas.
Eventually, we noticed off in the distance, the other guys (Aaron and Rodney Yavorsky, the eventual winners) boated a couple more big fish including one that took up the whole net. Based on that, I assumed it was at least a 9 pounder. At that time, I knew they had a killer bag. At least upper 20 pounds, if not 30.
We continued to meander, now to that sweet spot where I had caught my 8-7 the day prior. We drug and dredged all over it until, bam! That cranking rod loaded up with the biggest fish I think I hooked all week. It pulled so hard, I could not do anything but hold on and try to keep tension without pulling too hard and ripping the hooks out. I fought it in, getting it closer until once again, I lost all tension. Gone. After the last one came off, I checked the stock hooks on the DT and one was dull/bent over. That was my fault as I had just picked up the first thing I saw and started firing when they were biting. After that, I had changed my hooks out to some sticky new ones. It didn’t even matter. The fish was so big, that it essentially straightened one of the bends out and came off. I switched to the Owner st-38s with zo-wire, knowing that would not happen with those meat gaffs. We kept fishing around and the bite waned. We were considering running some other spots to at least catch a 2-3 pounder to cull one of our two small 1-1.5 pound fish in hopes of at least making the Classic fish off. Tyler suggested we hit that shell sweet spot around the other side of the Yavorsky’s, and we zipped over there in hopes of getting at least one more good cull as time was running out with the shorter day.
As we fished our way up to the sweet spot, I got us lined up and Tyler bombed a long cast past it, bringing it right through “the juice.” From behind me, Tyler said, I got a giant dude, as I quickly turned to see his rod bend in half. As he came towards the boat, Tyler started coming towards the front, ultimately losing tension as the fish swam so quickly before rising to jump. All I saw as I had the net ready was a gigantic mouth open, shaking its head and watching a big crankbait fly off. Ouch. Just as time was running out we grinding that area with every bit of energy we had left, before pulling the trolling motor and making the venture back to weigh in. It felt like getting punched in the gut. I knew we had a chance to have a very special day and tournament overall, and for whatever reason, it just didn’t work out.
Tyler and I had talked beforehand a lot about the fact that when it’s your time, it’s your time. When it isn’t, it just isn’t. Every fish comes to the boat no matter the improbability when it’s your time. When it’s not meant to be that time, you can’t keep them hooked to save your life. I knew whoever was fishing next to us (would later find out the Yavorsky’s after talking to them at weigh in), it was their time. They executed, fished clean, and blew the tournament away in the end. Not only in the Team portion, but also in the fish off, nobody was even close.
We came back and took the hot seat as leaders of the tournament for much of the weigh in, after weighing in 16-4, but we both knew our goal of winning was not going to be fulfilled that week – ultimately finishing 4th (11 oz out of the fish off). It didn’t feel right, but ultimately, I accepted that fact and was happy for the Yavorsky’s. It was their time and specifically, Aaron’s time, as he made the Classic, at only 17 years old. That’s special. To do it with your dad, on your home lake, in front of friends and family, that’s even more special. We all respected each other’s boundaries within this 400-500 yd area that only they and us fished. Everything was perfect as far as sportsmanship and we have continued to talk since. Aaron even texted me a picture of Tyler’s fish that broke off his drop shot on day one, that he ended up catching the first day of the fish off, weighing over 30 pounds once again. That fish ended up being 6.95 pounds. If someone was going to catch that fish after the fact, I’m glad it helped him get his Classic berth.
I have no complaints about our week at the Harris Chain for the Bassmaster Team Championship. From the get go, it just felt right. Practice was fluid and we made the right decisions that lead to us having a really good event and having the chance to win. Tyler and I fish well together and it’s hard to find a team partner to click with. We met when I was taking the Mahoning Valley Scrappers (local minor league team) fishing for my job with DuraEdge Products. We hit it off and now, Tyler came over and has worked on our Homefield installation crew for about four years now. Tyler is a young tournament fisherman, but a very good one with a lot of passion and potential. This being his first big event, did nothing but fan the fire for not only him, but also for me to get back to fish the Team Championship at Lake Hartwell next season. Hartwell is a place I really love in South Carolina and it’s full of big “green” smallmouth (spotted bass).
Being our last event of the season, I want to thank our partners for 2023 who made it possible: DuraEdge Products, Rabid Baits, X2 Power, CentiMark, Turwitt Team Realty, Lowrance, Angler Tungsten, Owner Hooks, Fish Sense Lures, Buck N’ Bass, G2 Gemini Jerseys, Phoenix Boats, Power-Pole, Bob’s Machine Shop, FC Marine, and Gamma Fishing Line. Stay tuned as we’ll be announcing our plans for next season soon. Tightlines everyone and Merry Christmas!
