February 19,2014

Weather, clear, light ESE winds

Fished 7:00-10.45 AM

Location: Lake George, Volusia County Florida

Catch: (9) Specks, (1) Bluegill Bream, (2) Warmouth

I know, I know….the first thing your going to say is, where’s the kayak but I was not leading the expedition into the dark stained water this morning. My good friend Rick Edwards called me late yesterday to see if I could miss a few hours of work this morning so we could pursue some of the monster Specks that Lake George is known for. It didn’t take a lot to talk me into agreeing to go. We met up at his place well before daylight and headed out.

There was a little fog and a few stray clouds but that all gave way pretty quickly to a super nice day with very light wind.

Our plan for today  was to gig fish the small lilies that grow up from the bottom and float at the surface. Most all the other vegetation has been killed by the State and their aggressive spraying program. We typically use a fly rod for this with a small lead headed jig and today would be no different. I had put together a new fly rod last year for flats fishing that I had never gotten to test out and though it’s a pretty serious rod I figured it could due double duty and also serve to catch a speck.

The lake was full of life this morning. Coots were everywhere, splashing and calling, doing what coots do. Mullet were leaping, other fish would occasionally strike the surface and all manor of bird were about. We saw a good number of ducks flying over head also. We even heard some hen turkeys cutting from the hardwood swamp that bounds the large bay we were fishing. I just happened to have my calls with me but could not raise a gobble.

It was a little slow going but what we lacked in quantity, we made up for in quality. The specks probably averaged over 1.5 lbs. and the largest was 2.2 lbs! That’s pretty impressive. We ended up with 8 quality fish and one tiny one that we pitched back. All of the fish were females and their bellies were so swollen with eggs it looked like they were about to pop at any time. We also picked up one good bream and a couple warmouth.

We both fished the same color gig, a black and green tube body with a green head. Probably should have tried some other colors but it’s always seemed to produce pretty well.

We called off the hunt about 11:00 AM and headed for the launch, satisfied that we had caught some really great fish on one of the prettiestt days we’ve had in a while……..and got out of a half a day of work!

Here’s some photo’s from the trip:

Larry S.