Location: Lake Okeechobee, Florida
Fishing
Time: 11:00 am to 2:30
pm
Weather: Partly Cloudy, T-80s, slightly breezy
Moon Phase: 81% Moon
Water Temps: 80 degrees
Best Bait: Live shiner on a drop shot rig
Who Went: Guide Kyle, Devin, Dayton, Dunc
I got the
chance to fish one of the most famous largemouth bass lakes in the world, Lake
Okeechobee with my two boys and it was epic!
The day didn’t start epic though as we came into Florida on a red eye
and I didn’t wake up to my alarm the next morning and we were 3 hours late! I’ve
never been so mad at myself, but the day still ended up great.
We met our
guide Kyle at the bait shop in the town of Okeechobee where we picked up 4
dozen shiners before following his 21-ft Skeeter bass boat to the launch ramp nearby. Immediately we started to see gators
everywhere as we made our way out to our first spot. Okeechobee is the most gator infested water
in Florida and it didn’t disappoint.
Dayton said we must have seen over 50 of them and I believe he is
probably right. It’s crazy.
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Unfortunately, we
missed our opportunity in the morning to fish artificial baits and went straight
to shiner fishing. No one to blame, but
myself, sigh. It didn’t take long for us
to start getting bites and the boys began putting some 1–2-pound bass in the
boat. This was their first time fishing
with live bait, so it was a learning curve.
You can’t use live bait in Utah.
After landing
quite a few bass and one mud fish, I made a comment to our guide that I would
take one 5 plus pound bass over all these small bass we were catching. He told me that isn’t usually what clients
want as they prefer quantity over quality.
I told him we were the exact opposite, and he told us to reel in our lines, and we
went on a boat ride to a new spot.
Upon arrival he
got very excited as he saw a good group of fish on his live scope that he
claimed were all giants. Dayton made the
first few casts and got bites but was having trouble hooking up. Dev took a turn and immediately hooked up
with the big fish of the trip at 6.6 pounds!
After the 6-pounder the
group of bass dispersed, but we still managed to put another 4 fish in the boat
from the same spot that were all 4-5 pounds! Lake Okeechobee truly is an
incredible body of water with an abundance of big largemouth bass. Devin now
holds the PB bass in our family beating my 6-pound Texas bass. Someday I will get my hands on a double-digit
bass!
