ESPN Freshwater

Can an area with one of the country's hottest real-estate markets also be an area with one of the country's best bass fisheries?

It can if the locale is central Florida and the bass fishery is in the chain of lakes that make up the Kissimmee River south of Orlando.

I'm not suggesting that the excellent bass fishing and the booming central Florida human population are necessarily linked. But the fact that there's some good angling virtually year-round here — where daily high temperatures average from 72 to 92 — certainly can't hurt when someone is eyeing the region as a place to move.

Hard-core anglers eyeing a move, of course, want to be as close to the lakes as they can, which means being in Osceola County and not far from the city of Kissimmee. (The city derives its name from the river of the same name and is said to have meant "long water" in the language of the Ais Caloosas Indians.)

Kissimmee had grass streets in the early 1900s, and was nicknamed Cow Town because cows were allowed by local authorities to graze in the streets. Electricity arrived in 1901, the same year Walt Disney was born, and Kissimmee's first automobile tourists arrived in 1916 along the new Dixie Highway; free-roaming cows were the major road hazard at the time.

There are no cows on the streets these days, but downtown Kissimmee is at the north end of where all the fishing starts, since it borders 18,810-acre Lake Tohopekaliga. (Tohopekaliga meant "fort site" in the Seminole Indian language and was so named because the lake's many islands provided refuge from the U. S. Army in the 1800s.)

Today the biggest refuge on the lake is all of the vegetation that exists to provide cover for ambushing largemouth bass.

Commonly called Toho, this lake has twice been the kickoff site of the CITGO Bassmaster Classic, most recently in February, when records for that event were set in total weight of catch, largest bass and largest single-day weight.

Four bass at more than 9 pounds were landed in the February Bassmaster Classic, the largest being an 11-pound, 10-ouncer that was caught at the north end of Toho.

The Kissimmee chain, starting with Toho, is the headwaters for the Everglades. and its seven lakes run through Osceola County from north to south, most of them interconnected through a canal system. Boaters access lower lakes by locking through one or more canals, and if you had the time and money to spend on gas, you could navigate all the way to Lake Okeechobee.

There's no need to do that for fishing, however. If Toho isn't big enough to fish, or you have enough time to go beyond its borders, there's 34,948-acre Lake Kissimmee; 11,968-acre East Lake Tohopekaliga (known as East Toho); 4,097-acre Lake Cypress; 6,655-acre Lake Hatchineha; 1,500-acre Lake Jackson; and 5,739-acre Lake Marian, not to mention portions of the Kissimmee River connecting them and below Lake Kissimmee.

You can drive overland to each of these for access if you like, and the diversity often means that there are good alternatives; when one lake is off, there are others to go to.

What is especially important to note about the fishing here is that despite the plethora of construction in the area, the chain of lakes has lately held its own and even prospered.

If you're going —

For more information, contact the Kissimmee Convention and Visitors Bureau at 800-333-kiss or visit its Web site. In particular, ask for the "Guide to the Kissimmee Waterway," which highlights the various lakes and their camps, marinas and access points. Osceola County has 45,000 rooms, so there is a great number and range of accommodations possibilities, plus dining options and attractions. Walt Disney World accounts for a large number of those rooms, and its many parks are indicative of what also can be enjoyed just 30 minutes from downtown Kissimmee. A good place to start your fishing forays is at Big Toho Marina on the north end of Lake Toho next to Lakefront Park, which has a free public launch. Guides can be arranged at the marina. For out-of-state visitors, the only place to get a non-resident freshwater fishing license locally is at the motor vehicle office or at Wal-Mart (but the computer was down when I was there). The local tackle shops and marinas don't carry them, as they are in a tiff with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission. To be safe, you might buy a license online or call 888-347-4356, although extra charges apply for these services.

For many years these shallow lakes were filled with hydrilla, which choked out the lake bottom, and had pollution problems. Prior to the hydrilla, the lakes were infested with water hyacinths and water lettuce.

In 2003 the state drew the water level down and used front-end loaders to remove vast areas of problematic aquatic growth, which thinned the vegetation out and significantly improved things. According to local fishing pro Terry Segraves, municipalities also have taken water-pollution control measures to maintain healthy lakes, knowing that these are critical filters.

Bass fishing has picked up, with more fish caught overall recently and good-size largemouths more prominent. Although in their pre-boom heyday, the Kissimmee Chain lakes regularly produced 10-pound bass, they now routinely yield 7- and 8-pounders, with a few 10-pounders caught each month, especially in spring.

Large, live shiners, a favored Florida attraction for big bass, still account for most of the giants; but plastic worms and the occasional big spinnerbait or surface plug will land a lunker.

In addition to bass, the Kissimmee chain supplies good fishing for crappie, bluegills (called bream here) and shellcrackers. It also is popular for wildlife watching, with eagles, ospreys, cranes, egrets, and alligators being the main attractions.

Those who fished this chain in the late 1970s and in the 1980s will tell you that the lakes are much better now.

It seems to me that if they are managed properly going forward, there's a good chance that fishing will draw even more people to the Kissimmee area than it already does.

For more information on angling, see Ken Schultz's Fishing Encyclopedia, available through www.kenschultz.com.