By MARK COOK

With shorter days and cooler nights, area speckled perch fishermen are gearing up for what looks like an excellent season. While crappie, or what most locals call specks, are caught year-round, cool weather brings the fish into tighter schools. The fish will feed heavily through the fall and winter in preparation for the coming spawn.

The Hillsborough River, Medard Park, By-Pass Canal and Lake Tarpon are local waterways where specks can be caught. This time of year work the deeper holes drifting minnows or jigs. Some days they will prefer live bait while other times they will only hit a jig or beetle-spin.

At Medard Reservoir, no limits have been reported, although catches of 15-25 have been caught — particularly at night. I prefer working the deepwater flats on the south side of the reservoir while trolling toward the rock piles on the west shore. The fish may be suspended or hanging right off the bottom, so set your baits at different depths until you catch a fish. One problem you may encounter at Medard when speck fishing with minnows is the hybrid sunshine bass. Many times they will get to the bait before the specks do, as they are more aggressive feeders.

Polk County speck anglers are catching good numbers, mainly at night. Lake Kissimmee hasn’t broken loose yet, but fish are being caught around grass lines off of Grassy Island and Lemon Point.

For more information, contact Mark Cook at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).