Heavy downpours over the past 10 days have revived topwater action for bass, cooling water temperatures and anglers as well as extending the spring
season that normally starts tapering off by the end of May. With almost 10 inches of rain in the Lakeland-Bartow area, and 5 inches on the Kissimmee Chain, bass up to 7 pounds are much more active no matter what technique you employ. But surface lures can produce explosive strikes around open-water hydrilla, as Bobby Wooten of Valrico has proven on Lake Toho while winning two recent tournaments on the Kissimmee Chain with Bagley’s Super Stinger, a prop bait. “I’ve used that plug for 14 years. It looks like a shad and it’s got a spinner on the back,” said Wooten, who works at the Publix warehouse in Lakeland. Wooten said the lures are hard to come by. “I bought three of them off Ebay,” he said. “They don’t make the colors I like to use anymore. Now you can’t find anything but the holographic colors.” Wooten, 35, won the Florida Stratos Boat Owners Tournament and the Children’s Miracle Network Charity Tournament on back-to-back weekends, with several bites 4-6 pounds on topwater during the middle of the day.
With creeks and canals flowing on the Kissimmee Chain with the much-appreciated abundance of rainfall, topwater plugs will also be a good bet around running water first thing in the mornings, possibly for the Memorial Day weekend.