Forum | Lake Okeechobee 4/21 & 4/22/10

Well, Moe and I made it safely down here about 4:00 yesterday afternoon.  It's a little more of a drive than I thought it would be, but all in all, a lot better drive than the last time I made the trek.  That was from Rhinelander and it took me the better part of 23 hours non-stop driving!  We did it in about 14 hours this time.

After checking into the hotel, we hit one of the rim canals for a couple hours of fishing.  Pulling up to the first spot, Moe pitched an unweighted Trick Worm up next to the bullrushes and pulled a bass on his first cast!  It was the first of many, although the size wasn't quite up to the usual Big O standards.  The largest from the first day was just a shade over four pounds.

Today after a good breakfast, we headed south to fish one of the large shoal areas of the lake where we'd heard some good catches have been had recently.  One of the local guides was out two days ago and caught one that was 11.8 lbs and lost another that probably weighed into the "teens".

It turned out to be a pretty fair day today as well.  We both caught well over twenty fish apiece, but again the bigguns eluded us.  I lost probably the largest fish of the day, easily a five pounder on a fluke.  It ate, I set the hook, the fish jumped out of the water and the fluke went flying!  I don't know if I never got a good hookset or if I got too good of one and tore a large hole in the fish's jaw.  Either way, it got off.

The ride back to the landing was somewhat eventful too.  The wind picked up out of the southeast and it was whitecap city and even though I tried to time the waves, there was just enough "bigguns" that I launched the boat completely out of the water probably half a dozen times.  Finally we got behind the huge weedbeds and the water settled down enough that I could run comfortably.

A great dinner of fried gator and back to the motel for some much needed rest!