On the surface, day one of the Toyota Series presented by A.R.E. on Lake Toho looked like the picture-perfect fishing day with sunny skies, warming temperatures and light winds. But underneath the surface, the water on the entire Kissimmee Chain of Lakes had been pummeled to a turbid brown color by hard northwest winds for three days previous. This morning, water temperatures started in the 55- to 58-degree range; that’s cold water for Central Florida.
That made things hard for anglers in the first Southern Division event, which is presented by Googan Baits. So, everyone bringing in the 20-pound plus limits to fill the top five positions, including day-one leader Bobby Bakewell, found stable water in offshore areas that were protected by hydrilla.
Here is a look at how the top pros got it done on day one.
2. Eric Conant – Lakeland, Fla. – 26-7 (5)
Eric Conant not only had the second biggest limit of the day at Lake Toho, but he also won the unofficial “guide of the day” award for leading his co-angler, Jeffery Baffa, to the top of the co-angler stack with a massive 24-pound, 11-ounce limit.
That’s an impressive 51 pounds of bass from one boat. Obviously, Conant, a well-known local, knows a thing or two about the Kissimmee Chain. This week he has tapped a group of staging fish that have been kept from “the hill” by cold water.
“I found this place three or four weeks ago on SideVu,” Conant says. “It’s a classic staging set up; the big spawning wave has not happened yet. These fish are so plump, they are ready to pop. They are trying to go to the hill to spawn, but the water temperature has kept them out there at bay.”
To get bites, Conant is using a reaction technique to trigger bites.
“I’m casting and winding,” he says. “Today at about noon it really turned on. The water temperature came up a few degrees, but more than anything, we got a just little wind to put a perfect ripple on the water – that seemed to be enough to get them firing on our baits.”
With south wind in the forecast tomorrow, Conant thinks his pattern will hold up.
“Some of the better days I’ve had on this spot, it’s been blowing 20 miles an hour,” he adds. “So bring on some wind. I’m ready for it.”
3. Bryan Schmitt – Deale, Md. – 25-9 (5)
Bryan Schmitt spent most of his practice time in Toho, graphing offshore grass. But today he had to go into full scramble mode.
“I found one place that looked right on my electronics in practice,” Schmitt says. “It’s a spot with several super isolated grass clumps on it. But the water was so muddied up in practice, I couldn’t get a bite off it. All that Toho stuff was just so dirty that this morning, I ran down to Kissimmee cold and in scramble mode.”
While “scrambling” in Kissimmee, Schmitt ran across his friend, pro Billy Shelton.
“Billy [Shelton] told me to come on in his area and get five,” Schmitt says. “As soon as I got my fifth, I left and locked back into Toho to see if I could find something else.”
After an hour of fruitless idling and fishing, Schmitt decided to go back and check the isolated clumps that looked “so right” in practice.
“When I got there, I noticed the water had cleared up just a little bit,” he says. “I got lined up on the clumps and suddenly it was on. I mean, they were biting. I caught three big ones and culled several times. My co-angler caught two that weighed 13 pounds. It was crazy how they suddenly started biting on that one spot. I mean, it took an exact cast to get them to bite, but they were all good ones.”
4. Samuel Whitmire – Babson Park, Fla. – 24-1 (5)
Samuel Whitmire weighed in 24 pounds, 1 ounce on day one, and almost half that weight came from one bass, which weighed 11 pounds, 11 ounces. The Florida giant easily won the big bass honors for day one.
“Normally I use fluorocarbon with the technique I was doing, but today I was using braid,” Whitmire recalls about the behemoth. “Well, I was using a little lighter wire hook than I should have been using with braid. When I stuck her, I was too close and had a little too much power with that braid.
“Long story short, when I got her in the boat, the hook fell out of her mouth because it was all bent up and destroyed,” he continues. “Fish of that size are just in a different class. When I first saw her, my adrenaline was pumping and I thought she was a 13 pounder. But once she got in the livewell and I went back and checked on her all day, she shrank a little bit. But hey, she still beat my personal best by 4 ounces, so she is welcome in my boat at any time.”
5. Zak Fadden – Plymouth, Mich. – 20-9 (5)
Rounding out the top five on day one is Zak Fadden, who has found something a little different from the norm on Toho.
“I have spent a lot of time fishing the, deepest, most stable water in the system recently and I’ve found a unique schooling deal that’s pretty cool,” Fadden says. “The only problem is it’s an early morning deal and it ends fast. I caught my sixth fish at 8 o’clock this morning and culled with it and those are the five I weighed in. I actually need it to stay cold to keep these fish on this program.”