I fished Saturday’s BFL Gator Division tourney as a co-angler. Got exactly 3 bites. Put ’em all in the boat. They weighed 6 pounds-even. My partner and I weren’t on them.

Congrats to Mark Detweiler, proprietor of Big Toho Marina. He was on ’em. 21 pounds, 14 ounces was good enough for the win on the boaters’ side of the tourney. Exactly 1 pound back was Charles Bass – apropriately named.

Interestingly, Detweiler’s bag was not the biggest of the day. That distinction belongs to Todd Mowery who caught 23 pounds, 7 ounces from the back of the boat! Mowery caught his fish on the Skinny Dipper and some topwater lures. “We locked down south,” said Mowery.

From what I gathered, many of the better sacks are coming from Lake Cypress and Lake Hatcineha. Lake Kissimmee has been muddied due to dredging being done in the river above. Strong east winds for a few days in a row had parts of Toho looking dirty. Shad were piled up in the wind-blown areas, though, and bass chased them to the point that they flipped on top of matted bullrush to escape. Of course, as the small, silver and blue fish tried to flop back into the water, birds would descend and dine on the easy pickings.

For fishing among the shad buffet, try a chrome/sexy shad Red Eye Shad in the half-ounce size. I couldn’t get the three-quarter-ounce to work. My partner and I quickly caught 5 fish between the two of us on the smaller lures. For better quality in the same area, try a spinnerbait – anything shad-like in appearance, with small silver blades should do the trick.