And So It Begins …
2015 season kicks off at Okeechobee
It’s here, finally. This weekend marks the kickoff to the 2015 FLW season with the first Walmart Bass Fishing League Gator Division event on Lake Okeechobee on Jan. 3, followed shortly by a Rayovac FLW Series event Jan. 22-24, also on Okeechobee.
The 2015 FLW season is sure to be a wild ride. Though the Forrest Wood Cup at Lake Ouachita will be hard-pressed to live up to the drama of Anthony Gagliardi’s win at Lake Murray in 2014, it is a great location, and history suggests that we could be crowning the first two-time champ come August. The rest of the Walmart FLW Tour schedule also offers a lot to look forward to, though it is but a fraction of the 240 tournaments that FLW will run in 2015.
In fact, up to $20.5 million in awards are potentially on the table in 2015, and 2,321 trophies, from the Forrest Wood Cup to a BFL co-angler trophy, will be handed out at 104 unique bodies of water from Virginia to California.
Getting Started
As usual, south Florida and Lake Okeechobee will host FLW’s season kickoff. Most are familiar with the highlights from FLW Tour events on the Big O, but three of the last four kickoff BFLs on Okeechobee have produced winning weights of more than 28 pounds, and two of the last three Okeechobee Rayovac events held in January have included at least one bag in excess of 30 pounds. Perhaps more importantly, the first Rayovac of the year will provide snowbound Northerners with the precious chance to see sunburnt anglers tote 6-pounders across the stage via the FLW Live video feed – providing the slightest clue that spring might be on the way.
Floridian Mike Keyso Jr., who won the season-opening BFL in 2014, is downright enthusiastic about the current situation on Okeechobee.
“The mat bite is still there, and it’s pretty good, but the casting bite is as good or better,” Keyso explains. “Typically, you don’t get spots to yourself on Okeechobee, but this year the fish are biting all over the lake. I caught a 10-pounder last week, and I know two other guys did too. Okeechobee has a lot of 6- to 8-pound fish, but 10-pounders are rare. Right now, the fish are really fat, and they are prespawn.”
According to Keyso, the main wave of spawners is close, but hasn’t come in yet. He speculates that there is a chance they could come in for the first BFL, but he thinks that the big fish will almost certainly be pushing shallow by the time the Rayovac FLW Series event rolls around.
“These next few events could be anyone’s game to win. Even if you aren’t catching them now, the spawners could move, and you could put together a magical day,” Keyso adds.
Randy Haynes stands on the other side of the spectrum from Keyso. He’s about as non-local as it gets. He’s been putting in about 10 hours per day, six days a week on Okeechobee. This marks the third and last time Haynes will be wintering in Florida – his kids are almost school age, and next winter his movements will be constrained by the academic calendar instead of the fishing calendar.
“I’m still learning down here; shallow fishing is something I have a problem with,” says Haynes, a summertime ledge-fishing expert. “Every day is like turning the page in a new book, but I’m almost to where I like fishing here better than Pickwick.”
For Haynes, his biggest takeaway from his time on the water has been confidence in what he’s looking for. Instead of picking areas at random (some of them good), he is able to look for specific things and have confidence that he is on the right program, instead of wondering.
Regardless of the newness, Haynes banked a third-place finish in last year’s Rayovac, and he says he was on the fish to do well in the Tour event (he finished 104th). This year, things have been a little less consistent for him.
“I’ve caught four over 7 pounds in the last two weeks, and I’ve had some 100-fish days, but I’ve also had days where I caught about three fish,” Haynes says. “It’s a battle between casting and flipping, just like it always is. Last year flipping took three of the top four spots in the Rayovac, but casting dominated the Tour event. The water is about a foot higher this year, and some areas are better and some are worse than they were last year, so anything could happen.”
Okeechobee Predictions
Keyso predicts that the winning weight for the upcoming BFL will be between 25 and 28 pounds.
Though Haynes isn’t fishing the BFL, he figured 28 to 29 pounds would get the job done, and that a lot of good bags would come across the stage.
Jody White and Kyle Wood made predictions for the first BFL on the most recent episode of the FLW Podcast.
Dates to remember in 2015:
FLW College Fishing Open – March 20-21, Kentucky Lake
FLW College Fishing National Championship – April 17-19, Lake Murray
BFL All-American – June 18-20, Kentucky Lake
Forrest Wood Cup – August 20-23, Lake Ouachita
Rayovac FLW Series Championship – October 29-31, Ohio River
Related Links
BFL Season Kicks Off on the Big O