All of our fishing reports, current and archived are written by Gary Simpson.
Already a serious angler, Gary was hired at The Tackle Box in January of 1976. At the time, he expected the job to be a short term one at the area's hub of fishing activity. But a funny thing happened. He fell in love with the place.
The diverse and colorful clientele, the co-workers, and the exchange of information that kept friends and acquaintances connected with the top fishing spots, baits, and trends. This proved to be more than a young man with fish juice in his veins could leave. Now, thirty-odd years later, Gary remains content in the role of helping people to catch fish.
In 1986, he began recording a weekly call-in fishing report. A year later, his reports could be heard on an area radio station. In 1996, the reports began appearing in the Gainesville Sun, and they became a regular weekly feature in 1997.
Every week he talks to anglers, guides, camps, and marinas to compile an accurate, up-to-date picture of what's happening in the North Florida fishing world.
Below is our current report and we encourage you to checkout the archived reports as well.
03-02-10
Last week, as the moon grew towards its ‘full’ phase, speckled perch fishers did take nice numbers of both male and female fish in shallow spawning cover. But on the weekend anglers expected to bring the peak shallow speck-catching of all, yet another dip in water temperature apparently postponed the ritual once again. Speck fishing stories from several different area waters agreed that hours before the moon reached its full stage and started to wane, the speck action likewise declined. A handful of fishers did locate the specks; and their catches following the apparent shoreline exodus suggest the females once again pulled out of the shallows before depositing eggs. Fishing crappie jigs with minnows added on Little Orange Lake Saturday, Jes and Alvin Shireman caught 15 hefty, roe laden female specks up to 1-pound, 15-ounces. But the big specks were not in shallow spawning territory. The Shiremans caught every fish (plus 3 keeper-size bass and a 5-pound catfish) way out in water 10-feet deep.
And, here’s one more telling statistic regarding this season’s oft-thwarted crappie spawn: A total of 122 anglers have signed up to fish in The Tackle Box Spring Speck a thon. Out of all of those, we have weighed in a total of two big specks over twelve inches long.
This has already been a mighty strange year weather-wise, and the peculiar conditions have had dramatic effects on fish.
Bass
bedding seems to have been similarly scrubbed in still-cold area lakes.
What also figured to be a prime weekend to find spawning bass arrived to
water temperatures still in the low-to-mid fifties.
Even so, there were some fine catches made during Sunday’s Reel Time
Tournament qualifier on Rodman Sunday. Wayne
Lindsey of
The
re-opening of speckled trout season was hit-or-miss…with more misses than
hits. A few good reports came from
the Steinhatchee area, topped in size by a 4.4-pound trout was weighed on
opening day at the Sea Hag Marina. The
But trout are not so easy to find out of every gulf port.
Moving
southward along the
And that’s this week’s report.
Good fishin’ from The Tackle Box.
How to reach us:
5902 SE Hawthorne Road
Gainesville, FL 32641
352-372-1791
24-Hour Fishing Report 352-375-FISH (3474)
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