Lake Griffin, Lake Rousseau, Orange Lake this weekend

[RangerAndBass]

I had a friend come for 3 days of fishing with me so we tried one new lake and two I had been to once.
Griffin is part of the Harris Chain. We looked for grass but man it was hard to find. Water was 67F, light breeze, partly cloudy and low 60s air temp. 1st place we went to was a community hole. A large flat that had a number of boats. We tried top water, chatterbaits, worms, spinnerbaits, etc. with no success. We didn't seen anyone else catch them either.
We tried shallow and tried deeper out front of creek and canal mouths but nothing. Finally we found a back bay with some hydrilla in 5 fow and sure enough we caught a few smaller bass on Rattletraps.
Orange lake, same as last time, looks amazing for the amount of topped out hydrilla in 4 to 10 fow, but couldn't find them. Caught one on a chatterbait in a creek mouth in 3.5fow. We are wondering if there are specific areas with hard bottom under the hydrilla that hold fish and we would have to stumble on to them?
Lake Rousseau.  Water was 65F. 60F to 74F air temp mid day. Light breeze.
Tried river channel and pads and reeds near them without success.
We watched one guide just hauling fish out front of the pad beds using shiners. It was amazing.
Then we went and fished the flats near the channel that was flood timber. It did have areas with hydrilla growing in it as well. We were in 3 to 4.5fow throwing chatterbaits. My buddy had caught 5 between 1 and 3 lbs before I caught my 1st. It was 8lbs, so I was happy to wait. When it hit the chatterbait it stopped it like a stump would but then pulled it down and away from me, so I knew it had shoulders!
Nice fight and a great net job by my partner and she was in the boat.
After that we caught some more nice bass and decides to try other areas. We couldn't reproduce the hydrilla/stump pattern and only caught 1 more fish.
Seeing stumps in 8 fow is amazing.
Next weekend I will try somewhere else nearby... at least one of the 2 days

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[Capt. BassinLou]

Appreciate the report Bryn. I'm  sure we'll being seeing a lot more catches like these once you get better idea of your new home waters.

[big g]

You are hitting spots where the big girls hang out.  Thanks for sharing, many of us have dreamed of fishing many of those waters.  Keep it up, living the dream!

[RangerAndBass]

Thank you G. It is so nice that these are all less than an hour away. Previously I had Lake Okeechobee or Lake Okeechobee. Which is fabulous but...

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[FishaHallic]

 Definitely nice to have lake options.