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Okeechobee, Florida
FLW Tour
January 23-26, 2002
01/30/2002 - I hadn't been to Okeechbee in 10 years, and with the lake full and with zillions of acres of flooded cover available, it was a whole new lake to me. I began my practice on the south end of the lake, and I determined the bass in South Bay were largely post spawn. I saw hundreds of empty nests, and many schools of bass fry. The females I caught were away from the bedding areas in thick reeds.
I wanted to find some spawning bass so I traveled to the North end of the lake, and looked at some mainlake bedding areas, figuring these would be some of the last fish to spawn. I found the bass to be in a different stage on the North end of Okeechobee. I saw plenty of fish on beds, even a few paired up, and I saw few, if any, bass fry. I like looking at them in tournaments, so I chose to fish this area of the lake during the tournament. It is very common for bass on different ends of large lakes to be in different stages of the spawn. Mainlake fish are exposed to lots of wind and cooler water so they are some of the last bass to spawn on every lake.
The bass that were locked on beds were all picked off the first day. There were five other boats fishing this area. The rest of the week, it was a matter of finding new fish that were moving onto the beds to spawn. Berkley Power Tubes and 6" Power lizards were what fooled the fish. The real keys for me this week were 30# Fireline and my Lowrance X15 GPS. The cover was so thick, I needed the Fireline to horse them out on my Team Daiwa Flipping stick. I never lost a bass with this equipment the whole tournament. The Lowrance X15 GPS not only allowed me to navigate to the North end of Okeechobee everyday, it helped me relocate spawning beds I could have never found again.
I ended up 3rd.
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