OKEECHOBEE, Fla. — You’d think that 110 anglers wouldn’t have any problem finding an unoccupied area on the seventh largest freshwater lake in the U.S. But Lake Okeechobee’s 734 square miles currently are dominated by muddy water.
When the four-day A.R.E. Truck Caps Bassmaster Elite at Lake Okeechobee begins Thursday, the pros will be scattered more like they are at another Florida fishery this time of year – Lake George on the St. Johns River. That’s “scattered” as in “not at all.”
“You’ll have two areas that will have loads of boats in them,” said Chris Lane, who finished second the last time the Elite Series was here in 2012. “This lake is fishing very small. I haven’t seen it this dirty in so many places.”
Don’t expect it to take the triple-digit four-day total that Ish Monroe won with here five years ago. But the Big O always produces some bass fishing fireworks.
“It is Okeechobee,” said Lane, who was second with 95-9 in 2012. “We are here during the spawn. It is Florida. If you get dialed in on the right deal, you can catch 20 pounds really, really quickly.”
And that’s been the norm here as of late – just over 20 pounds a day is a good day on Okeechobee. Averaging that over four days is what most of the Elite Series anglers are predicting it will take to win this tournament.
“I predicted 86-15,” said Monroe, who won with 108-5 in 2012. “It’s been taking about 21, 22 pounds a day to win. We’ve not seen those (2012) weights here since then. And it won’t be like that again for another four or five years.”
There’s been a controlled effort to eliminate some of the aquatic vegetation in the lake, according to Monroe. That’s part of the reason why recent high winds and rains have muddied so much of the lake.
“It’s going to be good again, after it settles down,” Monroe said. “I understand what they’re doing. It’s going to start coming back, and places that had become inaccessible to anglers will be accessible again. But right now those places have dirty water, and Florida fish don’t like dirty water.”
So they key to success this week is twofold: 1) Finding some clear water that you have to yourself, and/or, 2) figuring out how to catch bass in the dingy water.
“You fish wherever you can,” Monroe said. “You fish in the clear spots. You fish in a couple of places that hopefully not a lot of guys have found.”
Both Monroe and Lane think they’ve found some of those places that a bunch of others haven’t found. But you never know that for sure until the tournament begins.
“There are some really big fish to be caught in areas that might not have so many boats in them,” Lane said.
Yes, this is a four-day tournament. But Day 1 might be a bigger indicator than usual as to who will claim the trophy on Day 4. The leaders may well be those guys who’ve found clear water, spawning bass and no boats. But that’s apparently like finding a needle in a haystack at Lake Okeechobee now.