5/13/17 Lake Ida Area Report

It was impossible to sleep Friday night, just the thought of chasing them peacocks made I think all of us toss and turn all night plus wife watched tv till who knows when.
Headed to meet some guys at 5:00 AM at the gas station in Sebring, there was 5 of us two in one boat and three in my boat, headed towards lake ida My fishing partner and his friend wanted the tackle store so we went to sandy hook tackle store as recommended to me in a reply to a previous post. The guy at the tackle shop was cool and answered Any questions we had, my boat bought some shiners, prices were average on bait but personally think the tackle was spendy but man needs to make a living.
We launched little after 8:00 at lake ida dog park not sure where the other boat went but we went, we ran down to a main intersection of canals and busted east to the first canal east of 95 that heads to the north, at this time I was throwing a live target glass minnow jerk bait gold and chartreuse incolor, another guy in the boat was throwing a top water plug didn't pay attention to the color tho, and my partner was throwing a white fluke paddle tail.
The wind was to our back at this point and pushing us down the canal and we were throwing to the banks.
At approx 10:45 we came to a bank in the canal that was rock bank flowing into the water, I threw the live target up to the bank where the riff raft was and bam hooked into a fish, the fish was fighting good and kept coming out of the water, we could see it was a peacock but it was going crazy running back and forth and jumping outta the water over and over, once the fish got next to the boat poof disappear it goes,
Told the guys that's cool it early and the bite turn on in the afternoon.
At this time we heard some people yelling they were in a boat about 30' from a bridge towards the end of the canal, as we trolled up we asked what were they all excited about and the states they just caught a knife fish.
We fished thru and went under the bridge and entered a little lake area I began to think that my bait may be to large so I also rigged up another rod with a gold and silver jointed #7 rapalia I started throwing this as well I casted to a small area where the shore made a point and I hooked into a Mayan got him in and was able to release it safe and sound.
At this time about 11 the other boat texted a picture of a peacock that they caught but he wouldn't tell us where he caught it or what it was caught on... due to the wind we used the big motor to bring us back up the canal we stopped where the knife fish was caught and where the peacock got away but this resulted in nothing,
We fished the mouth of the canal and the main canal just past the 95 bridge. We had a couple bites but nothing would commit.
We ran back up to where the canals intercept and let the wind blow us the way we came from orginally down the canal that leads to ida,
I was throwing with the shore just outside of a weed line, we were seeing fish everywhere and fish was hitting my tackle but I couldn't hook them. I ended up catching a large mouth just a small one about 8" on the gold jointed # 7 I broke the bill off my live target on the 95 bridge.
I did take a picture of this fish the wind was blowing and trying to keep the boat on course I just released the fish, this was around 1:00, I hooked a couple large mouths in this area.
I kept getting hits and could see the fish follow my tackle up to the boat but couldn't hook.
We fished other canals with no luck just the same hits but couldn't produce.
We then fished the north end of ida but the wave runners were crazy they were all over and at one point the splash from a wave runner was getting us wet they were coming so close to us as we fished the shore line.
Ended up running to canals north of the lake and nothing was very productive. The friends I was with weren't able to catch any fish the other boat caught three peacocks and two large mouths but that's all the detail we had on them.
The fish I caught were small and I'm not showing them off to impress I'm showing pictures simply because that's is what they ask on this app
Sorry for the long dragged out report but details are important.

 

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