JANUARY 2025
It was a month of forced alternatives on Kit Lake, my home water in central Florida’s largemouth bass country. Our jobs moved, so we moved. Keys were broken off in locks, so we moved. And our fish were pushed by sustained below average temperatures. So, we moved to find the alternatives.
Bluegill were available in the first half of the month. Caruso quit the casino, then caught bunches close to plant life at Bluegill City, the Golf Course, and the shore-end of the Peninsula. Caruso’s 3 weight, throwing a beadhead prince nymph, handled these slow-moving fish easily. Bass were found coming up to the shallows, too. Targeting them in holes in the vegetation, he switched to an 8 weight with an OB’s Grassy Whistler. His reward for one well-I’m-here-so-I-might-as-well-cast was a short and fun Kit Lake Sleigh Ride.
Then the polar vortex dipped into central Florida and the unfamiliar conditions put us in mind of mountain trout. Bluegill went away and conserved warmth. But bass were found by bundled up 100-foot anglers. Paddle craft and boats drifted the drop-offs about 100 feet from shore. Fish were located about 6 feet deep, over slopes from 4 feet to about fifteen.
Some Kit Lake anglers went to other lakes with less deep water and more structure. And others explored the alternative of heated coffee shop!
We found rewards by hard work and hustling alternatives in January. But Disaster-Recovery-Trucks have rolled north out of town, and the spawning season shows promise too. So maybe rewards will come a little easier, next month. We will go to the water with hope and new flies.
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