More from Okeechobee...

Man, has it been a week already?

Thursday morning we got up and ate breakfast at the restraunt across the
street again. I ordered the special of the day which was eggs and what was
suppose to be sausage, but looked and tasted more like a fried hotdog. I ate
it anyway because there was no telling when we'd stoop for lunch. If in fact
we would stop for lunch.

Joe, Pat, and I met Moe in the rim canal behind the motel and followed him
through the locks, and across the lake to where he thought we'd find fish.
Passing through a lock was new to me, and I wasn't sure what to expect. I
just eased in and did what everyone else was doing. The gates closed behind
us, then the ones in front began to open slowly. Here in Nashville, there is
a lock on Old Hickory lake that will let you out in the river below. I guess
it's about 60' or more difference. Well... Okeechobee was no where near
that, and I think we raised up about 4 inches to get to the lake level. That
was fine by me.

Following Moe across the lake in my little boat was tough. He didn't realize
that his 200hp was ALOT faster than my 90hp, but we managed to keep an eye
on him, trying to follow his trail as we did. I'm going to reiterate the
fact that around here... you do NOT run across water very fast if you a

A: Unfamiliar with the lake
B: Able to see sticks, weeds, or anything else sticking out of the water.
C: Seeing 5.0' or less on the depth finder.

I had seen the path that Moe had made as he pulled toward the grass, but
there was no way I was going to do that on plane. I shut down the motor,
trimmed it up and got up front to make my way through it with the trolling
motor. BAD MISTAKE. The submergent weeds there played hell on my trolling
motor, making it a pain in the butt to get back to the fish. "Next time", I
told myself..."I'll know better". Finally in the fishing area, we followed
behind Moe, keeping a respectable distance.

We tossed weightless wacky worms into the grass (It's all the same to me...
I can't tell you the difference between one grass and the next) and let the
bait sink ever-so-slowly as Moe had told us to do. It wasn't long before we
were catching fish. I think it was Moe that caught the first one, and his
only one of the day. All I had seen was him reaching down and pulling out
this HUGE bass and telling me that this is what a bass really looks like.
Not long after that, Drew pulls out another bass almost the same size. This
made me worry. I wasn't worried about not winning a tournament, nor was I
worried about not catching any fish. What worried me was that I was throwing
my trick worms on a spinning rod, and with 10lb mono. I continued on...

We were having a great day catching fish ranging from 1lb to 4lbs. Moe
hollered back to us saying that he had to leave, but since we had our trail
marked on the GPS, we continued to fish. He pointed out where the rim canal
was that we had fished the previous day, if we decided to head back there.
Joe thought it was a good idea, so we anchored everything down and headed
that way. I was just going to take a nice little slow cruise down the boat
trail, but Joe twisted my arm enough to get me to run it on plane. Once
again, we were running in 3' of water at a little over 40mph. I just quit
looking at the depth finder, it was too much.

Through the lock, and back in the safe (20') rim canal, we headed to a
little bar that served hotdogs and drinks. They also had boiled peanuts that
were just not my thing. We ate, talked, cooled down, then headed back out
for a little more fishing.

The rim canal gave up some more fish, and it was comforting to think that
we'd all have alot of fish for tournament. We pressed on, catching fish on
just about anything we threw at them and having the time of our life.
Finally, it was time to get back to the marina and load the boat. Moe was
having his meeting and told us that we had better not be late. Plus, there
was food to be had. I was hungry again and blistered from the sun.

We drew names at the meeting and my partner for Friday turned out to be Pat
again. He knew we were on fish, so he didn't complain too badly when I
called his name.

More later! (Day One: Tourny Day)

--
www.secretweaponlures.com
www.outdoorfrontiers.com

Charles...great report! Thanks for sharing.
JK

Keep the reports coming as they make great reading. A worm rigged wacky style
is that through the middle with a small worm hook? I have to try that here for
smallmouth.