September 17, 2026
Hardee Lakes, Bowling Green: The Lake That Stayed Closed Until the Fish Grew
Lake 3 at Hardee Lakes Park was stocked with sunshine bass in 2001 and then kept shut to anglers while they grew, and when it finally opened one Saturday morning in October 2005 all eight spots were already taken
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission stocked sunshine bass into Lake 3 at Hardee Lakes Park in 2001, the year IMC deeded the property to Hardee County. The park near Bowling Green opened for fishing in April 2004, and Lake 3 stayed closed. It opened for the first time on a Saturday morning in October 2005, and by then the sunshines had grown to about three to four pounds.
The eight spots available for that first Saturday and Sunday were reserved before the weekend came, most of them taken by anglers who already fished the park regularly, many from Polk County. "Nobody's been in there fishing, so they're just anxious to get in," Danny Weeks, Hardee County's director of facilities, told Del Milligan of The Ledger. "They've been hollering for months."
A sunshine bass is the cross of a female white bass and a male striped bass, a hybrid that does not occur naturally. Every one in Florida is produced in a state hatchery and stocked. They are sterile, and they hold in open water over ledges. Whatever went into Lake 3 in 2001 was all there would ever be, and the daily limit, once the lake opened, was six per person.
In April 2004 The Ledger reported that some of the sunshines stocked in 2001 had reached 17 inches, about two and a half to three pounds, and that Lake 3 was scheduled to open in a couple of months. When it finally opened, the commission expected the fish to average 18 to 19 inches. Tom Champeau, the FWC project leader for Hardee Lakes Park, had sampled the lake with hook and line at a rate of 20 fish an hour, and described bars and drop-offs falling to about 18 feet off a five-foot shelf, with the fish hanging right on that shelf through the winter.
Champeau put the bass catch rate in Lake 1 and Lake 2 at 1.5 fish per hour, against a statewide average of .30 to .50 bass per hour on public lakes, and said a good percentage of the Lake 1 fish shocked up at 20 inches or above. All bass at Hardee Lakes were under catch-and-release rules. Lake 4 was overrun with non-gamefish when the county took the property over in 2001, and it had to be killed out and restocked with bass, bream and speckled perch, and it opened the same October weekend as Lake 3.
Getting a boat on the water took a phone call. The park was open Saturdays and Sundays, and anglers called after 6 p.m. on Monday for a Saturday spot and after 6 p.m. on Tuesday for a Sunday one — first come, first served, 8 to 10 anglers a day depending on the lake. Reservations ran to 10 boats on Lake 1 and eight on Lake 2, boats were held to idle speed, and the fee was $2 per vehicle. At the check-in hut at the entrance on Ollie Roberts Road, fishermen left their state fishing licenses with the county attendant.
The numbered lakes carry names now: Lake Hardee, Deer Lake, Lake Firefly and Gator Lake. FWC has planted spike rush and bullrush in them to improve habitat and has put fish attractors in three of the four, marked with buoys — the ones in Hardee and Deer reachable from the fishing piers, the ones in Gator by boat. Lake Hardee and Gator Lake are still stocked with sunshine bass, which arrive by truck.
Under the state's fish management area regulations for Hardee County Park, the sunshine bass bag limit is six, and any lake in the park may be closed to public access by Hardee County for management purposes by posting notice at the park's main entrance.
Sources
Every factual claim in this story was checked against the page it came from before the story was saved. These are those pages. Our standards are on the masthead.
- Sunshine Bass Stir Interest at Hardee Lakes — The Ledger, Oct. 6, 2005
- Hardee Fishing: The Secret's Out — The Ledger, April 15, 2004
- Sunshine Bass — Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission species profile
- The Florida Freshwater Angler, Issue 38 (October–December 2024) — FWC
- Hardee County Lakes Park — FWC Sites & Forecasts, Southwest Region
- Florida Fishing — Southwest Region, Fish Management Area regulations (eRegulations)
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