Okeechobee: Tourny Day 1

We had originally planned on launching at 7:00am, but everyone thought 6:30,
or first light would be great. We grabbed a quick breakfast at the restraunt
once again, headed to the Marathon station to fill our tanks, pick up more
baits, then headed for the marina. A 6:30 blast-off wasn't going to happen.

Once again Moe agreed to let me follow him over to the east side of the lake
where we had fished the day before, and once again, he left Pat and I in a
cloud of two-stroke motor oil and unleaded gasoline. That was ok though,
because I just zoomed out on the GPS to see where my trails had begun from
the day before. The were just about three miles ahead of me and I was
running in about 8' of water. Jerry and Sean Barton, along with Drew, had
left the marina before us, but Pat and I were catching up quickly in the
Nitro. There was still this faint buzzing behind me to the right, but I
wasn't paying too much attention, yet. I just headed for the little dots on
the GPS.

We passed Jerry's boat well to his right. I didn't want my wake to bother
him too bad. However, the little buzzing sound to my right was growing
louder by the second. It was Steve Huber in his rocket-powered barge. He
passed me like I was sitting still and managed to throw a wake behind him
large enough to swallow me and my passenger. I don't think I can really
classify this as a boat wake... because I really don't think there was any
of his boat that was actually in the water. This was more like the wake from
a low-flying jet plane that was pulling water up behind itself. We braced
ourselves for the ride were were about to experience and just hammered on
through the waves. When the water finally settled, I made sure Pat was still
with me, dried off my goggles, and said a silent prayer. A half hour later,
we reached the fishing area. I remembered the submergant grass this time and
decided to go through with the big motor this time and save the trolling
motor. Ahh... piece of cake. Once safely in the area, we dropped the
trolling motor and began our day.

My lucky spinning rod that I was using the previous day was still back at
the motel. I hadn't actually broken the tip off, but rather pulled it off. I
meant to give it to Steve for a quick repair, but had forgotten to do that
the night before. This left me with a few choices. I could pitch
texas-rigged baits all day, skip flukes, or use my new Steve Huber
"Signature Series" spinning rod, and 8lb mono line. Well, I had not done
anything productive with pitching, nor had I done much with the Flukes, so I
pulled out the Huber rod and rigged up a wacky-worm.

This rod was NOT designed for this style of fishing. It's a Medium-Light St.
Croix, 7' spinning rod that I had made for drop-shotting. I don't really
know if this really makes a difference or not, but to me... it did. There
was just something that just didn't feel right about fishing thick grass
with a medium-light rod and 8lb mono. What hurt me the most was the line
size. No, I wasn't breaking off fish, but rather developing some severe line
twist that was end up with me having to keep cutting out the knots and
losing alot of line. Pat didn't seem to mind though, as every time this
would happen to me, he'd catch a fish! On one of these bad line moments, I
felt him set the hook on something and start reeling. I turned to look at
Pat and saw that his rod was bent near the breaking point! He had a BIG fish
here...

Pat had cast across a weedbed and was working a weightless craw over the top
of the grass when this monster hit. When I snapped out the of daze I was in,
I told him to just hold pressure on this fish and we'll go get him. There
was NO way that he was going to pull this one over the top of these weeds.
We trolled over to where the fish was looking for it. I had lost track of
where it was exactly so I made a loop around his line with my forefinger and
thumb and followed it down to the water level. I still couldn't see the fish
at first, probably because I was looking for a full-bodied fish. With the
net in my left hand, and still holding onto the line with my right, I
finally caught sight of Pat's fish. All I could see was two huge eyes
looking back at me, not the whole body that I was expecting. Finally, I
scooped it up with the net and handed the whole thing to Pat, who was
shaking as hard as I was. A quick picture later, she was in the livewell.

I had managed to catch some fish in between line twists, but none of them
touched the 12" mark on my board. So, around noon, I decided that we would
probably do well by heading to the rim canal where we had enough fish the
day before to fill a quick limit. Guess what? That wasn't going to happen
for either of us. As we passed through the lock, the lock-keeper told us
that they were running water from the lake into the canal and that fish had
been feasting there on the bait fish that was being chopped to death by the
turbines. He recommended Rattle-Traps and spinnerbaits, and as luck would
have it... I had plenty of them. Even so, I only managed one good strike
there, and nothing else. It was time to move on down to the Round House.

I'll keep this simple. We fished this area hard and only managed to catch a
few more short fish. 2:00pm came upon us very quickly and I knew we had a
long run back to the weigh-in. We were getting ready to leave when we
spotted a gator, about 7' long, sitting in the water right at the edge. I
figured that he was awaiting a nice meal, so we tossed our baits over to
him. I think gators like craws, because once Pat's bait got close enough,
the gator lunged after it. "CHOMP"! Pat set the hook and the gator just sat
there. I grabbed the video camera to see if I could get some good action
shots of Pat and the gator, but ended up having to spook him to get him to
move. There was really nothing that Pat could do but to hold on. The gator
swam along like nothing was happening, then suddenly opened his mouth and
released the bait. We got a good laugh, then locked everything down for our
long ride back home.

I was the only one that did not have a fish to weigh in. It didn't bother me
in the least, because I was happy for everyone else. It was a great day for
some and had probably broken any of the past ROFB events in this one day!
Everyone was having a good time and that was all that really mattered. We
finally loaded up the boat and headed back for a quick shower and dinner,
followed by the drawing of partners for the next day.

When we assembled again, Moe and Doc had lots of gifts to distribute and Joe
passed out new Secret Weapon Lures hats and stickers for everyone that
wanted on. Driftwood Lures was also nice enough to send a care package for
us with some great soft-plastics. I quickly grabbed a bad of Black and Red
Flake lizards, because I figured that they'd do nicely on this lake, as well
as back home. When the names were being drawn for partners, the hat came
around to me to draw my partner for Saturday. I pulled out a ball and called
out Joe's name. You should have seen the look on his face as he looked at me
and quickly said, "No!". I was joking of course because I actually had drawn
Rob Storms name. Rob was very polite and didn't put up much of a fuss
neither. I also took on a third in my boat for Saturday, and pulled out
Drew's name. Once again... not TOO much protest.

To be continued: Tourny Day 2. (It aint over til the fat lady sings)

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