Join the 10-Pound Bass Club by Following These Tips

Florida bass are sort of like the ubiquitous “Florida man”, so legendary that they are now found everywhere. Florida’s unique strain of largemouths grows faster and gets larger than northern-strain largies, and so has been stocked across the nation by states wanting to boost the size of available catches.

But even in Florida, catching a really big largemouth, a double-digit fish, takes some doing. For one thing, they’re not all that abundant. A 10-pounder is likely to be 10 or more years old, so she has to have escaped harvest by anglers as well as otters, alligators and other predators for over a decade in order to just be there. Bass this big just are not common, anywhere in the state.

However, there are some locations where they’re more common. If you fish these waters with the right baits and lures and adequate tackle, you boost your odds significantly.

Florida’s Best Trophy Bass Waters

The majority of double-digit bass in Florida come roughly from Lake Kissimmee north to the St. Johns River at about Palatka. Farther south there are scads of 8’s, but not many 10’s. And ditto for extreme north Florida, where Florida strain fish merge with northern largemouths.

Maybe the single best lunker lake is Rodman Reservoir, an impoundment on the Ocklawaha River. The heavily timbered lake is periodically drawn down and allowed to dry out, which renews the ecosystem and brings on continuing year classes of big fish.

Also at or near the top are the headwater lakes of the St. Johns River, Lake Fellsmere and the recently opened Headwaters Lake, both manmade impoundments created by the FWC and the St. Johns River Water Management district. The lakes are designed to clean the runoff into the headwaters of Florida’s longest river, but are also managed for lunker bass production, and they turn out amazing numbers of big fish.

Rodman Reservoir has a similar ecology, and similarly produces lots of really big bass. Depending on the time since last drawdown, Rodman can be the hottest lake in the state for double-digit fish.

Lake Kissimmee, on the Kissimmee River, is another trophy bass factory, with thousands of acres of prime hydrilla, maidencane and lily pad cover. It’s carefully managed by the FWC, with shoreline renewal projects keeping production at a max.

Lake Orange southeast of Gainesville is another famed big-bass water, thanks to its tendency to periodically disappear down a sinkhole and then refill. The new reservoir phenomenon keeps producing giant bass, year after year.

Last but not least is Lake Istokpoga, due east of Sarasota in the center of the state. The lake is somewhat marred by huge muck islands stacked here and there, but that muck was scraped off the bottom years ago in a lake renewal process, creating hundreds of acres of good fish habitat where the bottom had deteriorated over the eons.

I won’t include Okeechobee in the list because, even though it produces 8 pounders by the dozens, it doesn’t often turn out a double-digit fish—the eternal summer of south Florida means faster growth but a shorter life, apparently.

Best Time to Look for a Lunker

While you might catch a trophy at any time of year, the fish are at their heaviest and are also easiest to find and catch from roughly mid-December through early April. This is the spawning period, so the big females are shallower and often fairly concentrated around prime spawning cover like firm sand bottom covered with eel grass or sprouting maidencane or bullrushes, with open pockets where the fish can nest.

Live Baits for Monster Bass

You might catch a lunker bass on a fly-rod popper or a quarter-ounce spinner, but don’t hold your breath. If you have a limited time to get your trophy and are not particular about how you do it, then there’s only one solution: Live shiners. Shiners from 6 to 10 inches are big-bass candy. They’ll catch 10 lunkers for every one caught on artificials in most cases. It takes some doing. While you can buy big shiners at bait shops near most of the big bass lakes, it’s essential to have an XL live well and some serious aeration to keep them lively.

The baits are fished hooked behind the dorsal fin, to guide them through thick cover, or through the lips when fished in open water. Most experts use 5/0 or larger Kahle-style circle hooks. A cork lets the angler keep track of his bait.

Best Lures for Lunkers

Artificial lures can be effective for big bass, particularly where anglers can see the fish on beds. The shallows of Lake George, among other areas, offer this exciting type of sight fishing.

A 12-inch soft plastic worm has probably accounted for more trophy Florida largemouths than all other lures together, and that’s still a prime offering much of the year. The worm can either be Texas-rigged with the smallest weight necessary for casting, or wacky-rigged, and is cast repeatedly into the beds until the fish bites. (FWC biologists have determined that catching and releasing bedding females has no impact on bass populations in Florida lakes, since a successful spawn by only a few bass is more than enough to repopulate an entire lake.)

Large glide baits, 6 inches or longer, are painful to throw and fishing them is agonizingly boring at times because you don’t often catch small bass on them, but they do attract large fish. When the bass are offshore and in fairly open water, as they are from late June through the end of September in most Florida lakes, heaving one of these giant minnow imitations and retrieving just fast enough to bring out the wobble can bring you the fish of a lifetime. They weigh two ounces and more, though so again, use a very stout action rod and cast get your shoulders into the casts. The Bucca Shad is one of the classics, and also good is the Spro KGB Chad Shad. The 8-inch Berkley Powerbait CullShad is a good new one.

Tackle Up for Trophy Fish

Guides who specialize in finding and catching double-digit Florida bass definitely don’t go bear hunting with a switch. Many use tackle that looks more suitable for whipping a tarpon. Rods to 8 feet long in heavy action, lines and leaders testing 80 to 100 pounds, 6/0 hooks in 3x strong Kahle style and strong baitcast reels are the typical weapons of those who fish live shiners.

The gear is not needed because the bass are so powerful, but because of the habitat where they’re found. It’s rare to stick a lunker more than a couple of yards from massed hydrilla, lily pad stems, blowdowns, cypress knees or other heavy cover, and the minute they feel the hook they try to bury themselves in that cover. The tackle has to be stout enough to stop their run, or failing that, to winch them out attached to maybe an extra 20 pounds of weeds or tree limbs.

For throwing artificials, standard bass tackle does the job—a 6-6 to 7-foot medium heavy rod, 5000-size baitcaster and 20-pound test braid with 20-pound test fluoro or mono leader is adequate.

Handling Trophy Fish

Fish of 10 pounds and more are true trophies, too valuable to be caught only once. Nearly all anglers now weigh, measure and release them, and order a fiberglass replica if they want a mount.

So, when you finally bring that fish of a lifetime to boatside, scoop her up—either with a rubberized net or via a thumb in the jaw and a hand under the tail—get your photos and video quickly, get the hooks out and get her back over the side. She may be there and waiting for you next year, a pound heavier and a year wiser.

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