BASS Southern Open – Okeechobee Tour Journal

Welcome back to my tour journal. This year’s entries will be familiar in that I intend to chronicle my tournament efforts, but it’ll also be a little bit different. The difference will be about my attitude. I’ve had some success in my career, qualifying for multiple Bassmaster Classics and an FLW Championship, even a Stren points championship, but frankly I’m a little bit disappointed – I figured by this time I’d have some tour-level wins and either a championship victory or an Angler of the Year title. So I headed into 2010 with a renewed focus on taking some chances to pick up my first major win.

Okeechobee was a good place to test out the new approach. Historically I’ve done well in Florida. The drive down there gave me a lot of time to think and I knew the type of fishing I’d have to do to win. The important thing was to commit to those winning ways. Then it’s a matter of finding the right area of the lake. The fact that a huge cold front was moving through didn’t bother me at all. It would take so many guys out of the running it wouldn’t even be funny. They’d be lost during practice and remain lost until it was time to head home.

I arrived at the lake Thursday evening and hired a plane to fly the lake Friday. I hadn’t been there in three years and those Florida bass are so particular about clear water, I knew that would be the quickest way to break things down, and as it turned out when I was up in the air I identified the general area that I ended up concentrating on. I went out for a few hours that afternoon just to confirm what I saw from the air.

Saturday I didn’t even launch the boat. It was really nasty and I knew that I time on the water would be damaging more than helpful. The time away also built up anticipation, so even though Sunday wasn’t much nicer, I did go out and ride around for a few hours. I never took out a rod – again, that’s about the commitment to win. On a big lake like Okeechobee it’s possible to waste hours and hours on the wrong stuff.

Monday I started fishing a bit, keying on my past history. I knew that flipping the decaying mats that generate heat is one definite way to win and I tried to find areas where they’d move to and from the beds. I only had about three bites, which was fine. Things were changing so fast that any more than that and I might’ve gotten locked into something that was declining rather than improving. I did that for two more days, burning a lot of gas. I’d look around a lot and fish a little.

On Wednesday afternoon I went offshore for a while, fishing some eelgrass beds. That’s different than I’ve ever fished Okeechobee before, and even though I got a few bites, they were small and my heart wasn’t in it. I honestly think I could’ve caught a few fish that way, but they wouldn’t be first place caliber bites. There were a lot of other boats in there, too, so we would’ve been splitting them up.

When the tournament started the water temperature was 45 degrees. In Florida, those atypical temperatures require that you fish S-L-O-W. Sometimes I was leaving my bait in a spot for up to a minute before making the next pitch, and that next pitch would only be a foot or two feet away. Not a good way to cover water, but an absolute necessity. I’ve never been as patient as I’ve needed to be in that respect, but again, my attitude was changing and I was going to force myself to do whatever it took to win, or at least go down swinging.

I had a little area in Eagle Bay with six or eight key spots, right in front of a spawning bay. I was the first one there, but Kyle Fox pulled in ahead of me and on his third flip he caught a ten-plus. Bobby Lane, who finished second overall to his brother Chris, started to the right of me and had about 12 ½ pounds. Their catches convinced me I was doing the right thing, but the fish in their livewells didn’t help me a bit. I stayed with it until around 11 o’clock and then ran down to an area adjacent to the Monkey Box. In about 10 minutes, I had one about 5 pounds and one about 7. I knew that if I could get one or two more like that, I’d be in great shape. I stayed there all day, grinding it out, but I never had another bite.

Those two fish had me in eighth place after the first day, well within striking distance, and I had a huge area to fish, so on the second day I stayed in there all day. I had two or three little fish that I wrestled to the top of the mat and they came off. I wanted to expand my area a bit, but the bite was so painfully slow that I really had to gut it out. I caught one a little over two pounds and then it was time to leave. Those three fish over two days had me in something like 19^th place, well inside the cut. Better yet, I knew that there was a 30 pound bag in there somewhere and with the field reduced there’d be a lot of boats out of the way.

I started Saturday in my big fish area and spent two or three hours there, but I ended up with nothing to show for it. I’d had one 14-incher that I got to the top of the mat before it got off, but that was it. The water clarity had changed in there and it was warming up. With the water into the 50s, those fish really wanted to move up, and I wasn’t going to die out there without exploring everything that I knew of. I hit all sorts of isolated stuff but it just wasn’t happening. Right before I came in I went back into my starting area, but instead of hitting the mats I went in where they’d spawn and started throwing a Senko and a Skinny Dipper. I caught bunches of short fish, and even saw some on the beds, but all I managed were three small keepers.

In the end, I have no regrets at all. The window of opportunity on that flipping bite was so short that you had to commit to it if you were going to have a chance and that’s what I did. Get the right few bites and you’d take home the big trophy. Also, it’s nice to get the first tournament jitters out of the way. Most importantly, however, I got the chance to practice something I’m not good at – exercising a lot of patience. Next up is the FLW Tour opener on the Red River and I’m going to take some of what I forced myself to do in Florida (slow down!) and use it there. Historically, I haven’t gotten along very well with river systems, but we learned a lot about how the river will fish as a result of last year’s Bassmaster Classic. I have faith in where I am right now, and because it’s early in the season, I’m ready to gamble a bit and go for broke.