Par for this course: Great bass fishing
Ritz-Carlton hooks anglers with good hauls
“It’s unique in the industry to have something like this. A few more places are catching on.” Capt. Mark Benson, Ritz-Carlton Golf Club Orlando Grande Lakes
As the director of fly fishing at the Ritz-Carlton Golf Club Orlando Grande Lakes, Capt. Mark Benson knows better than anyone that golf courses are among the very best places in Florida to catch bass.
And that’s not just because he’s helped so many anglers land everything from their first fish to their biggest bass on the resort’s 18-hole golf course.
The Orlando resident grew up searching for the best places to fish in the area.
“All my life I tried to sneak onto golf courses to go fishing,” Benson said. “Now I get paid to take people fishing at the Ritz-Carlton.”
A former fisheries biologist who is a certified master naturalist through the University of Florida, as well as an International Federation of Fly Fishers-certified casting instructor, Benson does everything from teaching people to cast a fly rod to guiding them to bass on fly and spinning tackle from shore and from boats in the golf course’s 11 lakes.
Resorts like PGA National, which plays host to the Honda Classic, don’t offer fishing on the Champion course’s water holes, which no doubt have lots of big bass.
“It’s unique in the industry to have something like this,” Benson said. “A few more places are catching on. There are 40 million anglers in the U.S., more than golf and tennis combined.”
The course and the resort are adjacent to Shingle Creek, which is the headwaters of the Everglades, and includes hundreds of undeveloped acres suitable for a range of outdoors activities.
When the golf course was built, lakes were created, with the fill used in the construction of the course’s holes. Those lakes were stocked with bass and their populations are closely monitored to make sure the fish are healthy and plentiful. Benson re- cently caught an 81⁄ 2- pounder.
There are no homes lining the fairways. There’s just water and woods and the creatures that inhabit them, including bluegills, alligators, wading birds, white-tailed deer and wild turkeys. In addition to being a challenging layout that is the home of the PNC Father/Son Challenge, the course is also a Certified Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary.
Resort guests and members of the public can fish with Benson and his guides for one or more hours. Benson will split up longer trips, fishing a few hours in the morning and in the afternoon.
Anglers can fish from shore or go out in drift boats on the course’s biggest lake, which has some productive shoreline that is not accessible from land. The guides row the boat while two anglers fish with fly rods or spinning rods. Only artificial lures are allowed and all fish are released.
Benson, who fished in Shingle Creek as a boy, also can take people fishing along eight miles of the creek in a johnboat, a canoe or kayaks. The resort also offers kayaking ecotours in Shingle Creek.
“The fishing in here for sheer numbers is really good,” said Benson of the creek. “What’s funny is I used to fish here with my dad and this was the boondocks.”
Rates for fishing in a boat are $60 per hour per person. The rate from land is $40 an hour per person. Benson said he’s had as many as 30 people fishing at a time for team-building during corporate conferences.
When I fished with Benson, we went out in his motorized golf cart/buggy and cast DOA Lures plastic worms from shore, which produced a small bass for me. Soon after, Benson caught and released a much bigger bass on a worm.
In between those chats, he’d tell me to cast near a lake’s fish attractor or work the worm along a particular stretch of shoreline and invariably I’d get a bite.
Benson got the best bite, landing a chunky largemouth on a slow-rolled silver spinnerbait. But I had a good catch of my own using my spinning rod to fish out a fairly new golf ball that had been sliced into the lake earlier that day.