“The water is back up on Lake Okeechobee and there is a lot of vegetation. As a result, the lake looks completely different,” says Steve Daniel, winner of the 2000 Wal-Mart FLW Tour stop at Okeechobee and a longtime guide on the fabled Florida fishery.
Lake Okeechobee has been the EverStart Series opener since the tour’s inception in 1998. In 1999 and 2000, clear water areas needed to harbor bass were scarce. Most of the lake, which measures a massive 448,000 acres, was turbid from a lack of aquatic vegetation, and Okeechobee’s North Shore and South Bay were hot spots because they offered clean water.
In 2001, the lake was at record low levels and there was hardly a stem of green vegetation in the water. Successful anglers focused on hard structure in Okeechobee’s rim canal.
Daniel says the lake looks completely different this year and consequently will fish differently. “The lake will fish much larger than it ever has,” Daniel says. “There is a bunch of alligator grass growing all over the lake and it has cleared the water in places that have not had clean water for years.”
This is the first year where the EverStart tournament takeoff and weigh-in will take place on the north end of the lake, at the city of Okeechobee, as opposed to Clewiston at the southern end. For anglers who like to fish the popular North Shore, it will make their runs much shorter and fishing time longer. It will also provide access to the Kissimmee River, which is a killer run from Clewiston.
One concern might be the arrival of recent cold fronts in the Southeast. While the storms that dumped snow on Georgia could also impact the Florida bass bite in Okeechobee, the forecast calls for a return to more normal temperatures with highs in the upper 60s once the tournament begins Jan. 9.
Staff writer Jeff Schroeder contributed to this story.