The dawn patrol launches on a cool and foggy morning.

The next few minutes would be etched in Jack Healan’s mind for eternity.

It all began when Healan’s 10-inch wild shiner reached the edge of a large section of floating cabbage weeds. The bait slipped under the weedbed, which turned out to be a costly mistake.

Seconds later, the shiner blasted from under the cover into the open bay, with a very large wake in pursuit. The chase ended in a boil and the small balloon float disappeared into the tannin-stained water.

Healan waited patiently for the bass to swim all of the slack out of the line, while the fish swam straight back under the floating weeds.

“Set the hook hard now, Jack!” guide Jim Allen instructed.

Rod held low, Healan set the hook firmly. Surprisingly, the bass swam out from the weeds, making several jumps at boatside before Allen slipped the landing net under it. Allen reached into the net with a lip-grip device. Healan’s bass tipped the scales at just over 10 pounds and was quickly released.

Jack announced that his personal bass record had just been broken. For Allen, however, this 10-pounder was just one of many trophies he’d seen during recent days. When the bite is on at Rodman, it’s not unusual to boat a half-dozen or more fish nearing or exceeding the magic double-digit mark. In 2000, a 17-pounder was landed on the lake—very close to the Florida record of 17 pounds, 4 ounces. Rodman routinely shows up on the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission’s list of top bass lakes, which it did again for 2004.

That morning we had joined a long line of bass boats whose owners waited their turn to launch at Kenwood Landing on Rodman Reservoir. The parking lot was almost full, a sign that fishing was good on the 9,600-acre Putnam County lake.

After loading our boat and ensuring the five dozen wild shiners were still alive in the well, the four of us motored through the narrow boat channel into the main lake.

Jim Allen took a right turn, navigating up the old river channel only a mile or so to a shallow bay on the north bank of the reservoir. He then idled slowly through flooded trees and stumps to the very backside of the bay, where a section of floating weeds shut off all navigation to a fairly large feeder creek.

“A few weeks ago, this cove was chuck full of cabbage weeds, hydrilla and grass,” Allen said. “Cold weather killed most of the weeds and sent them down to the bottom. What you see now are small concentrations of floating cabbage weeds and this is where the bass are holding. Just yesterday I had a client here hook a bass that looked to weigh upwards of 15 pounds.”

Allen killed his outboard and began navigating the remaining hundred yards with the electric motor. Within casting distance of the weed-filled creekmouth, we anchored and barbed large, wild shiners on 25-pound casting tackle.

Here's a prime spring bass taken with a live shiner on stout tackle.

It was a perfect morning for spring bass fishing, mild and with little wind. After 30 minutes of running shiners close to the floating weeds, we had landed three nice largemouth bass to five pounds.

When the bass stopped biting in the shallow bay, Allen motored to the deep, tree-filled waters in the dam section of the reservoir. Here we began slow-trolling our wild shiners, some 40 to 60 feet behind the boat. All were once again floated under small balloons from one to two feet deep. Allen explained our strategy.

“Here I simply fish the edges of the old river channel right up to the dam, while using the electric motor and my fishfinder.”

While slow-trolling livies, we cast plastic worms, black with blue tails, and gold crankbaits to the many stumps and weed beds. With only one missed strike, we relocated to a shallow hump northeast of the mouth of the old Cross-Florida Barge Canal. Here we worked floating weeds and cypress stumps, finishing the day with respectable 3- and 7-pound bass.