Okeechobee

[Old Caster]

Starting Sunday the 10th of February 4 weeks at Okeechobee for bass and crappie and whatever and then 1 week in Tampa area and then 1 week in the bays around Destin. All this in my Champion boat I have had since 1987. I have even had it on the ocean countless time plus all the way up to Canada and on lake Millacs several different years and on Lake Fork Texas trying for a bass over 10 pounds. I caught so many 9 and something out of the Miami canals but never a 10.

[Charlie Two Tracks]

Have fun Old Caster. I was just thinking of bass fishing when I found this thread. Ice is off the lakes around here but the roads to the lakes are pretty soft right now. It won't be long. I really enjoy bass fishing.

[tomme boy]

How low is the lake? I thoght I heard that it is very low and they were finding all kinds of Indian artifacts. That lake and the canals are on my bucket list. I want a Peacock bass.

[starmac]

I only went to okeechobee, just to see it as I had heard of the great bass fishing all my life. I didn't get to fish it, but was sort of disappointed in a way. It was just not what I was expecting, I guess.

[Old Caster]

Well, I got back from fishing Okechobee for a month and it was interesting. Bass fishing was fair but my boat partner that I went to see doesn't know how to use a bait casting reel and with the heavy weights necessary it is impossible to fish with spinning reels so I don't know how well that kind of fishing would have worked.
We took to open water casting in the deeper canals and the bait to use was a watermellon fluke with a 1/4 to 5/16 tapered sinker on the front. Some people pegged them about a foot in front of the bait, some tied a swivel about a foot in front with the weight against the swivel and still others left the weight against the fluke. Since the eye of the hook winds up inside the fluke, it will get beat up rather fast with the weight smacking it constantly which is probably why people used the other methods.
The biggest bass I saw caught including the several tournaments was 7 pound something but the winning 5 fish aggragate was always at least 25 pounds but few did that well.
I didn't think the crappie fishing was that good. People would sit for hours with 6-8 poles per person with minnows and you would hear hollering when someone got one. I would think I was there too late for them and should have been there in January but really don't know because no one would say one way or another. I never saw a Crappie over 12 inches long and that is a far cry from what I remember when I was a young guy in about 1960 when I watched a crowd of people fishing out of one of the canals coming out of Okechobee, all with cane poles, catching and putting in gunny sacks, fish after fish that were 14 to 16 inches long with no number limit. The size limit is 10 inches and I saw a fair amount of people keeping crappie that were smaller.
I did hear that there are no peacock bass in Okeechobee and if you want some of them, they are in Miami canals. I caught a tilapia about 2 1/2 pounds when throwing my cast net for bait and was told that last year most of them died because of weather that got too cold. I only caught the one and I casted a lot. I set up poles with stink bait for catfish in the canal behind the camper I was staying in and caught very nice catfish but so few it wasn't worth doing it other than just letting the pole sit and checking it every few hours. Maybe two fish a day and possibly one over night but not every night. When casting a crappie jig I caught some blue gills larger than I thought existed and then changed to live crickets which gave more fish but typically smaller. All in all, I wasn't impressed with any kind of fishing I did there except the bluegills were OK. It was a lot of work to catch any amount of anything. I did notice that just about everyone there ate the bass they caught and I think the size limit was 15 inches and some I saw kept were smaller than that. I didn't pay any attention to the size limit because I never keep bass. The water was at normal level while I was there but was told that the canal behind the camper,(which is part of the lake) was completely dry 3 years ago and I would guess that would amount to about 5 feet and would make a lot of the south part of the lake to disappear because I was constantly running in water around that depth.

Next I went to Tampa and fished the saltwater canals and caught so many different kinds of great fish that I don't have the time to mention them all. Next was the Destin area and saltwater fishing was great in Warrens Bayou but the freshwater fishing in deer point lake was poor. As we were leaving the lake after a day of fishing and were slowly going by someone in a tight spot, he questioned whether we were crappie fishing and when we said yes, he replied that no one has caught any in several years and it wasn't worth trying. So much for paying attention to what it says on the internet. All in all, I would have to say salt water was great and freshwater was poor. If I wanted to catch bass that time of the year, I would much rather go to lake Fork Texas or Norfork in Arkansas or Sardis Mississippi and Weiss in Alabama for crappie. The water is still too cold to fish for crappie in Missouri but about the next week or so should be great. -- Bill --

[giericd]

FYI guys, I live an hour from Okeechobee,it's not what it used to be back in the '80's. Lots of folks from up north want to come down and fish the famous lake with high hopes of catching large size and numbers of fish. What people don't realize is a 30 min episode ob Bill Dance out doors took over a month of fishing to get the action and quality fish for that 30 min show. Don't be expexting to be yelling "well son!" every 5 min on lake "O". Not that you cant catch saom big fish there but it is almost in my back yard and I don't waste my time going there. Take it from a local if you want Pecock bass fish the canal system in miami, due to them being very sencitive to cold they dont spread north, you won't get a Pecock in lake "O" and if you do call the local news paper! We have some but its rare here in Naples Fl in the canals that go along I-75 that connect to the glades. If you want a lot of bass an BIG bass the best places are golfcouse lakes. Any body of fresh water in south florida has bass in it if it has been there long enough to grow mosquietos, some times the best places are the ones you would never expect. I have landed dozens of 10+lb bass some were on fly rod. I just started my boy bass fishing 2 weeks ago. He is 5 1/2 and has been fishing since 2 but I just tought him how to cast,reel, cast all by himself (don't be any where near him when he casts....lol) in the center of town there is a major intersection with shopping centers on all 4 corners, right infront of Taco Bell there is a pond that is about 5' deep and 75 feet across. I tied on a good 'ole Rapala minnow and handed him his little push button reel and followed him around that lake 3 times. 30 min=11 bass and 1 bluegill and one of the bass was about 4lb. Fish where you wouldn't expect people to fish down here for fast action and let me tell you every one of these gated comunities/ golf courses has more 10-15lb bass than you could dream about. (Vines Country club {Estero Fl} I saw 2 wakes side by side comming down the shore line. 1 cast with fly rod and a bumble bee popper resulted in a 9lb 7oz bass, while unhooking it i could see the other wake circleing in that area still. 2nd cast and 3 pops-12lb 4oz bass) Big water like lake "O" the fish are too spread out you can spend days trying to find a good pocket of fish, fish small water to catch fish.These tips should help, other than to teach my boy I quit bass fishing years ago I can't justify going fishing all day with the hope of catching a 12lb bass when i have used 12lb baits in saltwater

[Old Caster]

I lived in Miami from 1959 to 63 where the Tamiami canal goes across ninety third avenue and hooks into a canal that goes back to a subdivision lake. Now there are two bridges instead of one so the fishing on that spot may have changed but in those days, I caught bass up to 10 pounds and snook up to about 7-8 and hooked but never brought in a lot of tarpon. I only had homemade cane poles and broke several with big fish.

My bait to go was a fresh water shrimp that I caught out of the canals by using an automobile battery walking with a spotlight that was aimed in the waters edge. You could see their eyes glaring and if you put the net which was on a long pole behind the shrimp and wiggled it, they would back in and you needed to lift the net very slowly because they were quick. I liked to have a shrimp that was around 5 inches (body only) and hooked it through the tail like you would a crayfish.

It was necessary to fish right before daylight to early morning and never show your body on the bridge where they could see you because all the fish would scatter if they did. As soon as any daylight shown on the water the game fish would leave and the gar would show up. It was so difficult to get enough shrimp that I wouldn't dare to fish long enough to lose one of them and as soon as I caught on, I would stop before any daylight shined on the water.

When I was at Okeechobee this last time, I looked at night to see if there were any shrimp and found none. I asked around and no one knew what I was talking about however I was told by my next door neighbor who is the one who showed me how to get shrimp to not tell anyone about them and no one in Miami talked about them either so I would guess they were known only by a few. I caught these shrimp up to about 2 feet long counting claws and had one get away that was about 3 feet long (cause my brother was a chicken and wouldn't jump in and grab it) and that was in the canal by the Palmetto expressway right by highway 41. I really miss that stuff but at least I got to do it.

I wonder if you have shrimp in the area you are in, or is it too cold there. We didn't even have specks in Miami but in Okeechobee or at least in the canals surrounding it had a lot in those days.

[Horton Urban Farm]

Old Caster I catch and use freshwater grass shrimp that only get a little over 1 inch long. These shrimp you are talking about being 2 feet long and one 3 feet long, were they around a nucular plant or what, never heard of one that size in salt water. Are you just pulling our leg ????

[Old Caster]

No, these shrimp were not salt water and really don't quite look the same as a salt water shrimp. They have pinchers on arms that are longer and thinner than what you might see on a crayfish and even when the shrimp is larger, they don't have the power to make you let go of them unless you are scared of them. We also had the grass shrimp and I caught them by just pulling weeds and moss on to shore and picking them out. These were skinny and at the most 2 inches long from tip to tip and that is counting from feeler tip to tail tip. I am quite sure they are not the same species and only look similar.

The canal I fished in and caught shrimp which was a brand new subdivision canal that was dug to make the houses on higher ground so there wouldn't be any standing water was connected to the Tamiami canal along 8th street in Miami. That canal originally went from Tampa to Miami and had bridges every so many miles to let water through south of the road called highway 41 that also went right along the canal which I suppose was dug to make the highway. Our canal went back to a lake of about 30 to 40 acres.

My next door neighbor Tom who was a great fisherman showed me how to catch the shrimp and didn't like me showing anyone else how to do it. It was a lot of work because I carried a car battery down the canal along with a bucket and a pole with a net on it about 10 feet long. This was done after dark and red ants were the main hassle you would encounter along the bank since it was dark and you might stand right on a nest and not know it until you were bit which usually meant a trip into the water and then difficulty getting back out because the banks were steep in most places.
If I stayed out 4 hours or so, I usually got 3 or 4 shrimp from 3 to 6 inch body length which was just enough to fish the next morning and sometimes get more than one fish on a shrimp if I was lucky.

I heard that you could buy shrimp but in those days, I bought nothing because I had no money so I never did even look to see how big they were or how much they cost. It was the greatest bait ever and was really the only live bait that could be used without buying any. I don't know if salt water shrimp would have worked or not. I used bluegills but there weren't very many and it was next to impossible to catch one about the right size. Most were 6 to 7 inches long so too big to use for bait and too small to care about. I usually used grass shrimp to catch them because it was impossible to dig for worms in Miami and I didn't know about crickets (If they would have worked there). They sure work at Okeechobee.

In all the times I went looking for bait which was at least once a week while I was in high school '59 to' 62 I saw just the one 3 footer (tail to claw tip), caught one 2 footer and ate him, caught several about 18 inches and had one that was by the bridge by my house that was around 2 feet long. He would stay by the sharp edge of the canal under the bridge that went straight down like a cliff and when the light went on him he disappeared into the depths quickly. It was in an awkward spot and I tried many times to get him but was never successful.

I wondered at that time what exactly they were and looked in an encyclopedia (same one I had in 2nd grade) since we had no internet at that time and it said up to 3 feet long and it was only mentioned that they were in Texas and said nothing about Florida. Now when I look on the net, I can't figure out exactly which shrimp it was that I was catching. I saw one that was similar but I don't remember it having the sharp edges on its nose like the one they have pictured but that was more than 50 years ago too. I know I took pictures of some of the big shrimp and will have to look and see if I still have them. It is about time to go through all those slides of years ago again anyway.