Rodman Reservoir, FL Fishing Report

Happy Mother's Day to all our lady angler fishing buddies!!!!! Well people are always asking me what is the best time of year to catch GIANT bass and my answer is always generally this: ANYTIME here in Florida!! Had some perfect examples of that this week!! On Tuesday I had Bill Edwards and friend in for a super half day and they boated 25 GORGEOUS fish topped by an 11 pound HAWG!!!! Then on Friday I had dynamic duo Emory and Royce in for another super half day, and what do ya know?!?! Royce boated a beautiful 8 lber, and then not to be outdone Emory soon followed with this 11.5 pound BEHEMOTH!!!!! Just goes to show that next cast can be the fish of a lifetime and it can come ANYTIME here and ANY season if you know where to look and when to look there!!!! What an unbelievable BIG fish year we've been blessed to have this year!!!!

Well guys, the GREAT fishing continues!!!! Trips in the last week have generally produced 30-50 fish per trip with a bunch of real giant fish coming over the side!! Take for instance today, I had Mark Barausky and his son Peter from Tampa and their good friend Chris Smith in from St. Augustine in for a super half day, well folks young Peter outdueled the grown ups!!! On his first shiner trip he nailed a 7lb 2oz, and two 8 pounders!!!! The warm weather has got the post-spawn fish really going and the trips are just an absolute blast right now!!!

Hi Everyone!!!! I know it has been so long since I've done a fishing report!! The season has just been crazy busy but I figured I needed to get off my rear and return to getting some fishing reports out to all my fishin' buddies!! Well guys it has been nothing short of an absolutely amazing fishing season with maybe more coming over the side of the boat weighing over 11 lbs than any season I have ever had!! You'll see in the photos in the coming weeks all the GIANT fish we are catching here right now!!! The weather has finally started to stabilize and MAN has that translated into some FANTASTIC Spring fishing!!!! Trips this week have averaged 30-50 fish per day with some real gorgeous fish being taken!! Now that I'm going to get caught up on the fishing reports and photos, I might as well start off with the tale of the biggest fish we caught this season!! On February 18th (as many of you already know) I had return customer Bob Williams from Alloway, NJ out for a morning's fishing. It was the coldest morning of the year at 23 degrees and man did he boat a BEAST!!!! At 8:30 that FOGGY morning Mr. Williams boated a 14lb 1oz bass!!!! We called the FWC and entered her in their TrophyCatch Program. She was the FIRST giant fish that was actually certified by the FWC in the "Hall of Fame" category (13+ lbs) in the entire state of Florida since the program's inception last October!!!!!!! The game commission certified her at 13.88 lbs. (13 lbs 14.08 ozs.) after sitting in my tank for a half day!!! She weighed 14 lbs. 1 oz. on my Boga Grip immediately after we pulled her out of the water, so that's the weight I'm going with!!!! LOL The fish was immediately worth over $1000 in prizes and goods and as of the day of this fishing report is still the biggest one certified in the state this year and if we can make it another 11 days will capture the largest certified fish in the state in The TrophyCatch program contest and could win Mr. Williams quite a bit more significant prizes!!!! I am including in photo section a pic some of you have already seen of her and a few NOBODY has seen until now!!!! of myself holding her!!!! You can also go to these links: http://bit.ly/YT-HOF1 and also http://bit.ly/TC-video-update to actually see some cool and live action of us and the fish!!!! As well as read an article our local paper did on her here at: www.ocala.com/article/20130228/SPORTS/130229688/1026 I Think you guys will get quite a kick out of it!!!! Also the fishing is nothing short of awesome right now and for anyone looking to get in on this historic season I have April 25th, 26th and 30th as well as several days in early May open!!!! So let me know if you want to come and try your hand at one of these behemoths and then I can also fill you in on a TRULY GIANT fish I saw that I think may have literally eclipsed every Largemouth Bass record and I mean EVERY ONE!!!! Thanks guys and let me know!!!!

Fishing is fair. Catching fish from little yearlings to 10 lbs. I am using nothing but wild shiners. The water is clear and in the high 60's.

Fishing is very poor right now. There has been a number of tournaments putting a lot of preasure on the water. The water is very murky with a high number of boat traffic. Waiting for things to calm down and get back to fishing.

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The Bite is ok. Use shinners around the spawning areas for best chance of a bite. Also try your luck in the morning the fish have been most active during this time.

Water Clarity is good.

Bass bite is fair

Use shinners around the spawning areas for best chance of a bite. Also try your luck in the morning the fish have been most active during this time.

Man I love this time of year! The water has finally started to drop and clear and the fish seem to really be responding! There is a great deal of vegetation floating around the reservoir and while it can be hazardous and make navigation tough at times, the fish are loving all the cover! They have started to turn on in the last couple weeks and trips have been averaging 25-40 fish depending on the length of trip! Wild Shiners are really doing the trick.

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I figured it was about time to say hi to everybody since it had been a while!!!! Well the fishing on the Oklawaha and had Rodman has been admittedly tough! Things were just starting to really take off early in the summer and then we got hit with that first tropical storm! It dumped around 2 feet of rain in a short period of time and really brought the water way over her banks and turned her red! Then we luckily have had continued steady rain which has kept the river in that state!! This makes for very, very tough conditions for fishing there. The fish tend to spread out into the flooded swamp areas and abandon their normal summertime river patterns. Until the rain starts to back down a little and the water clears I don't see much of a change happening at Rodman. We're probably still at least a few weeks out from that happening. That being said, there is a REALLY, REALLY great silver lining to this!! The lakes around this area that SO desperately needed rain are finally getting some! So the same rain that is making the fishing tough on the river is making the fishing REALLY good in some of the forest lakes!!!! So a few weeks back I turned my attention to these lakes and it has paid off big time!!!! The fishing in these lakes is sometimes amazing and it is in a truly beautiful and serene setting, often times not seeing another boat the entire day and is very relaxing and fun fishing!! The fish in some of these lakes can also be TITANIC!!!! The amount of bait required to fish these lakes is also considerably less than our BELOVED Rodman. People are mostly opting for early morning or late evening half day trips to avoid the heat. These trips are generally producing 12-20 fish per outing with lots of fish in the 6-9 lb range in the last couple of weeks. Probably the trip that has stood out the most in the last few weeks, is the trip of lifetime friends Joey Bechard and Bob, Skip and Chris Glockson!!! We had a couple of really fun days topped by Bob outdueling the other guys with SEVERAL large fish topped by a GORGEOUS 9 lber!! We had LOTS of other 6 lb plus fish and lost another REALLY good fish at the boat as she threw the hook and seemed to smile at us!! LOL For anyone wanting to do a very fun trip, right now would be the time to come and have some GREAT fun!!!!

-       All the rain has brought the water up and made the fishing tougher.

-       Wild shiners are the way to go.

-       Once the rain calms, things will then pick up.

-       3-15 ft.

-       Fishing has slowed some, still catching 15-25 per day.

-       All the rain we have had should make fish tougher for a little bit.

-       All the fish are biting on wild shiners.

-       Best in the morning and late afternoon. 

-       Clarity is fair because of the rain.

Well as luck has turned out the fishing has continued to be wonderful right through the rising water!! While Rodman is still not at full pool, most of the normal boat ramps are easily accessible now. The weather is beautiful here with temperatures in the upper 80's mostly and the fish are in post spawn mode and eating it up!! The last few weeks have seen trips produce 25-50 bass per day depending on length of trip!! The best trip in that span was probably Doug Gossman and Cabby Boone from Lexington, KY. I had them in for a Super Half Day and they boated 45 bass with a 7 lb, 7 lb 2 oz, 7 lb 4 oz, 8 lb and 10 lber!!!! Most trips are producing a really great 4-6 lb average fish and we generally get a larger 7-10 lb fish nearly every day!!!! For anyone interested May would be a GREAT time to come!!!!

Been catching about 25-40 bass a day using wild shiners. The water is in the mid 70s, clarity is poor and best time to fish is in the morning.

Been going out in the morning and reeling in about 25-35 bass a day while using wild shiners. The conditions have been fair, with the water temperature around 73 degree, and the water clarity has been fair at best. So as soon as the water warms up and the water becomes more clear, things will only get better.

Well the really fantastic news is that the fishing continues to be awesome right thru the rising water!!!! We have had some great trips in the last few weeks!! The trip today probably trumped the others slightly due to one REALLY beautiful fish. The last few weeks have seen totals of 30-50 fish caught per day depending on length of trip. Today I had return customers Dennis, Nate & Nick Worek in for the last of a two day trip with me and boy did it turn out great! We caught 49 today on a super half day!! For a grand total of 95 bass in two days!!! Topped off today by Dennis' 7.75 lber and Nick's gorgeous 10lb 10ozer!!!! I'm really excited about the water level returning to normal and getting back to our beloved normal spring and summer patterns soon!!!!!

Well if you've been wondering where I've been hiding or where the fishing reports were, well I'm still here!!!! and the truth of the matter is that I've been quiet for good reason!!!! I knew with the decreased area to fish that there would be a lot of anglers in close quarters and realized early on that this would be a special season, so I did my best to keep how good the fishing was here under wraps!....LOL! With the temporary ramps on Rodman finally being overtaken by the rising water, I'm officially counting the 2012 Rodman drawdown as coming to a close and guys when I tell you it was great I mean it was probably the best consistent fishing I have EVER seen!!! I thought I might provide some numbers to back this up! In the calendar year of 2011 my customers and I boated 4,307 bass with 155 bass topping the 7 lb mark, 82 over 8 lbs, 49 over 9 lbs, and 21 over 10 lbs!! I thought that was an unbelievable year! Well get a load of these numbers!!!!! From January 1, 2012 to March 2nd 2012 (when the water started to really rise) which is roughly 2 months we caught 3,350!!!! We had 151 over 7 lbs, 95 bass over 8 lbs, 40 bass over 9 lbs, and 19 ALREADY OVER 10 LBS!!!!! The worst day we had we had 17 bass (March 2nd) the best day we had we caught 97!!!! We averaged 57 bass per day in this two month period and the average would have been much higher had it not been for the numbers tapering down towards the very end of February!!!! It was easily probably the best, CONSISTENT fishing I have ever seen and bodes very well for the next couple of years on Rodman as the water slowly returns to normal levels!!!! The future sure looks bright!!!!! Thanks to everyone who made this season possible and I want to express to you how much I appreciate you all!!!!! Check the photo gallery for the updated pics :)