Bank and Pier Freshwater Fishing in the Leon area
Posted: May 14th, 2013, 10:41 pm
Hello,
As the username suggests, I am from the Panama City area, having moved to Tallahassee to attend graduate school last August. With the spring semester recently completed, and the summer workload much lighter, I have had a good bit of time lately to begin exploring the fishing in Leon County. Right now I have been taking what I consider a "tour" of the locations listed on the FWCC's Tallahassee, Leon Country Freshwater Fishing Sites. While I am exploring the entire list (and beginning to look into Apalachicola National Forest sites and other sites not listed), my focus is on sites that either have piers or provide for relatively accessible bank fishing, as I do not currently own a boat.
So far I've fished a couple of the landings at Lake Talquin, the dam at Lake Munson, and threw in at a couple spots on the Ochlockonee River. I've also visited a number of other sites and crossed them off my personal feasibility list, including most of public areas around Lake Jackson, some pure boat ramps on the Ochlokonee, and Lake Hall at the gardens.
Where I have fished I haven't had a great deal of luck, though Lake Munson was probably the most fun and idyllic setting thus far. It is my understanding that you don't want to eat fish out of Lake Munson due to environmental concerns - is that still true?
My lack of success doesn't come as a great surprise. Growing up in Panama City, I focused almost entirely on saltwater fishing (usually the mundane kind - fishing for sheepshead, speck, mackerel, etc. off of jetties, piers, the Bailey Bridge, the Deerpoint Dam, etc.). I did attend college many hours away from the Gulf, so it was during that period that I got my first real taste of bass fishing, but that was mostly in stocked ponds where it was pretty easy to pull them in all day on just about any bait you wanted.
The last couple of weeks I've been trying various things, but mostly relying on Texas-rigged pumpkin chartreuse Zoom worms. I've also tried a variety of other artificial worms and grubs, as well as some floating and shallow-diving crankbaits. I have to admit that my Texas-rig needs a little work. I've been watching youtube videos but haven't quite got the hang of getting the worm to be arrow straight between eye and point of the hook the way the videos and pictures show.
In any case, I imagine a goodly number of my fishing technique questions have been answered in the past and a bit more searching through the forums will be helpful to me. My principal reason for posting here was for more of an introduction to y'all and also to ask what bank/pier spots you would recommend in Leon County, and also if venturing into the national forest to some the ponds there is worth it.
EDIT
I notice jslorenz seems to be on a similar quest - just read the Lake Carr thread, which is a fishing hole I am thinking of checking out very soon, but maybe not quite as soon as I'd planned.
As the username suggests, I am from the Panama City area, having moved to Tallahassee to attend graduate school last August. With the spring semester recently completed, and the summer workload much lighter, I have had a good bit of time lately to begin exploring the fishing in Leon County. Right now I have been taking what I consider a "tour" of the locations listed on the FWCC's Tallahassee, Leon Country Freshwater Fishing Sites. While I am exploring the entire list (and beginning to look into Apalachicola National Forest sites and other sites not listed), my focus is on sites that either have piers or provide for relatively accessible bank fishing, as I do not currently own a boat.
So far I've fished a couple of the landings at Lake Talquin, the dam at Lake Munson, and threw in at a couple spots on the Ochlockonee River. I've also visited a number of other sites and crossed them off my personal feasibility list, including most of public areas around Lake Jackson, some pure boat ramps on the Ochlokonee, and Lake Hall at the gardens.
Where I have fished I haven't had a great deal of luck, though Lake Munson was probably the most fun and idyllic setting thus far. It is my understanding that you don't want to eat fish out of Lake Munson due to environmental concerns - is that still true?
My lack of success doesn't come as a great surprise. Growing up in Panama City, I focused almost entirely on saltwater fishing (usually the mundane kind - fishing for sheepshead, speck, mackerel, etc. off of jetties, piers, the Bailey Bridge, the Deerpoint Dam, etc.). I did attend college many hours away from the Gulf, so it was during that period that I got my first real taste of bass fishing, but that was mostly in stocked ponds where it was pretty easy to pull them in all day on just about any bait you wanted.
The last couple of weeks I've been trying various things, but mostly relying on Texas-rigged pumpkin chartreuse Zoom worms. I've also tried a variety of other artificial worms and grubs, as well as some floating and shallow-diving crankbaits. I have to admit that my Texas-rig needs a little work. I've been watching youtube videos but haven't quite got the hang of getting the worm to be arrow straight between eye and point of the hook the way the videos and pictures show.
In any case, I imagine a goodly number of my fishing technique questions have been answered in the past and a bit more searching through the forums will be helpful to me. My principal reason for posting here was for more of an introduction to y'all and also to ask what bank/pier spots you would recommend in Leon County, and also if venturing into the national forest to some the ponds there is worth it.
EDIT
I notice jslorenz seems to be on a similar quest - just read the Lake Carr thread, which is a fishing hole I am thinking of checking out very soon, but maybe not quite as soon as I'd planned.