Clewiston-----The fishing on Okeechobee is improving by the day not to say it is great yet but we are starting to catch more and bigger bass almost everyday. The nights are starting to cool off and the water temperatures are also dropping a few degrees and all of this have the bass starting to feed much better. We are starting to see baitfish moving into most of the areas that we fish including the East and West Walls, Coots Bay and along the shoal up to Cochran's Pass. We had a thirty five boat guide trip out of Roland and Marry Ann Martin's Resort on last Friday and at least six bass over eight pounds were caught on wild shiners with every guide reporting on having a good day. We had guides from Miami to Okeechobee give us a hand with this group and it was a pleasure to see everyone come together and do a great job, thanks to everyone who participated. The bass are starting to show up everywhere and will soon be into the fall patterns and will be feeding on baitfish getting ready for winter and the spawn. My guide trips over the weekend were a little tough with the wind not blowing at all, the lake was as smooth as glass, but with our first good cold front approaching on Monday night the fishing on Monday was great with the bass eating up spinnerbaits and frog type lures most of the morning. The lake water level is still continuing to drop with the level at 12.89 feet above sea level and the lake is still very clear in most areas from the East Wall to Tin House Cove. There seems to be a good concentration of bass on the outside grass lines that can be caught on spinnerbaits and Senkos early in the morning and as the sun gets up high in the sky these fish move farther back into the grass and can be caught on frog type baits. If you can find some water that has a little color to it and is not so clear this seems to be the best areas to fish and if the wind is blowing in on it even better.
Most of the tournaments that were fished on the lake the past couple weeks have had low weights with ten pounds getting you in the money, that means all you need to catch is one good bass and four smaller ones to go with it. But this will all change in the next couple weeks I think it will start to take fifteen to twenty pounds get you in the money. I would like to say congratulations to Val Osinski of Gambler Lures on his third place finish at the BFL regional in Demopolis Alabama, Val will now move on to the BFL All-American next year. Some of the local crappie fishermen are catching a few crappies every day most are being caught in the dynamite holes and in Harney Pond Canal.
Bass Wishes
Capt. Scott Martin / Capt. Mark King