CaptainSolo
Senior Member
The Kissimmee Chain used to be my "home lake" when i was going to school at UCF, but moving back to California several years ago meant that I havent been back there since, but my recent move back to Florida has reunited me with some of the lakes I used to love to fish, including Kissimmee during the recent RAM Open Series event out there. I couldn't pass up a tournament on my old stomping grounds, so when I heard of the event, I entered, and it turned out to be a pretty good event. Figured i'd share my experience at the event.
I only had a single day to practice, and though I know the chain well, success is highly dependent on how the grass looks, and with little time I couldnt just drive around the entire chain looking for the best grass, so I decided to spend my time in Cypress, which is a round, and somewhat straightforward lake that I figured I could figure out quickly.
Since we had a pretty major cold front passing through, and it hadnt been all that warm for a few days, I figured that the shallow bite would be a bit slow, and the offshore bite would be dominant. I focused on finding hydrilla, though Eel grass was also very prevalent. I ended up finding three areas that had good hydrilla, and some potential for different things. One area was a spot that I felt I could catch a limit on, another I felt strongly that a 20+lb bag could be possible there, and then there was a third area that I had caught a fish off of, but I considered it a wildcard.
The day of the tournament, after a couple hours- first fishing my big fish spot, and then trying to rebound on my limit area- I realized that the bite was considerably slower that I expected, and I was doing very poorly on the two areas I thought were my better spots, so i ended up giving my wildcard a shot. The wildcard area was a solitary patch of hydrilla about half the size of a football field. What was special about it was 1) it wasnt near any other hydrilla, 2) it was sparse and 3) there was a little eel grass mixed into it. After fishing it with a chatterbait for a bit, and not getting a bite, I almost left, but decided to pick up a lipless crank. A few casts later, I set the hook on a quality fish around 4lbs, that is when I knew I needed to give it some time and figure it out. There certainly seemed to be a sweet spot in the grass flat- where the grass just started to thin out and you could easily slow roll the lipless. I followed up the first fish with another fish in the 5lb range and caught my limit. I did end up losing a giant and another about 3lbs, but with my limit I was able to finish with a top-10, which is never bad.
This event taught me that sometimes it's your Plan C, D, E or Z that really is what will take you to the top, so you need to stay open minded. It was a fun time on a lake that I hope to get to fish quite often again.
I only had a single day to practice, and though I know the chain well, success is highly dependent on how the grass looks, and with little time I couldnt just drive around the entire chain looking for the best grass, so I decided to spend my time in Cypress, which is a round, and somewhat straightforward lake that I figured I could figure out quickly.
Since we had a pretty major cold front passing through, and it hadnt been all that warm for a few days, I figured that the shallow bite would be a bit slow, and the offshore bite would be dominant. I focused on finding hydrilla, though Eel grass was also very prevalent. I ended up finding three areas that had good hydrilla, and some potential for different things. One area was a spot that I felt I could catch a limit on, another I felt strongly that a 20+lb bag could be possible there, and then there was a third area that I had caught a fish off of, but I considered it a wildcard.
The day of the tournament, after a couple hours- first fishing my big fish spot, and then trying to rebound on my limit area- I realized that the bite was considerably slower that I expected, and I was doing very poorly on the two areas I thought were my better spots, so i ended up giving my wildcard a shot. The wildcard area was a solitary patch of hydrilla about half the size of a football field. What was special about it was 1) it wasnt near any other hydrilla, 2) it was sparse and 3) there was a little eel grass mixed into it. After fishing it with a chatterbait for a bit, and not getting a bite, I almost left, but decided to pick up a lipless crank. A few casts later, I set the hook on a quality fish around 4lbs, that is when I knew I needed to give it some time and figure it out. There certainly seemed to be a sweet spot in the grass flat- where the grass just started to thin out and you could easily slow roll the lipless. I followed up the first fish with another fish in the 5lb range and caught my limit. I did end up losing a giant and another about 3lbs, but with my limit I was able to finish with a top-10, which is never bad.
This event taught me that sometimes it's your Plan C, D, E or Z that really is what will take you to the top, so you need to stay open minded. It was a fun time on a lake that I hope to get to fish quite often again.
