Okeechobee: 5 things you might not know

A lot of anglers think of Lake Okeechobee as a weedy, grassy freshwater ocean where giant bass swim everywhere. It is that, but it’s so much more. Okeechobee’s a diverse fishery with often neglected opportunities and a makeup that’s unlike any other body of water I’ve ever fished.

Here are five things you may not know about this gem…

It’s a fantastic numbers lake

Despite its reputation for big bass the truth is it’s also a great numbers lake. Okeechobee is full of 1- to 3-pound bass and they’ll bite darn near anything. An angler visiting the lake — especially a recreational angler with limited experience — can catch three or four and maybe a dozen in just as many casts.

They might not be giants, but they pull back hard and because the water’s shallow they jump like crazy.

Experience Mother Nature

Go to the shoreline and fish the cattails and reeds. They grow really tall, 8 feet in places. You can get back in them and it’s like you’re in Africa. You can’t see a thing except for the alligators, snakes and birds.

I’ve done this many times, and it’s still a thrill. It’s easy to think of America with all her cities and suburbs, but this will definitely give you another perspective.

Okeechobee has a limestone bottom

You’d think it would be mud and muck on the bottom with all of the vegetation. It isn’t. It’s smooth, bare limestone in places and sand in others. It’s hard to appreciate what that’s like until you experience it firsthand.  

These places help a bunch when you just want to catch fish. Watch the water and your electronics. When you find a bare place like that fish it. You’ll be glad you did.

Watch the weather

Storms brew up fast on this lake. Don’t get caught out in the middle when the wind starts blowing. The waves get high real quick, and they can be seriously dangerous.

I can’t tell you how many props and lower units I’ve ruined when this happens. You start to get up on plane, the back of your motor drops but there’s no water underneath it. In just a second or two you hit the limestone. At that point it’s all over but the shouting.

It’s a year-round fishery

Okeechobee bass spawn from September and October until the next June. At any time you can be fishing for prespawn bass, bedding bass or postspawn bass. That’s a rare thing. Most lakes have a fairly well-defined spawn. Not on the Big O. Basically, you can target bass in any stage of their lifecycle.

All this makes for a great fishing destination if you can work it into your schedule. Stay at one of the local fish camps around the lake, and it won’t cost you an arm and a leg, either.

It’ll also make for a great tournament in a few weeks. There’s no doubt that there will be lots of big bass brought to the scales, but you’ll also see a lot of bags that weight between 12 and 15 pounds. I don’t know what it’ll take to win, but I will predict that there’ll be a different leader every day.