Living the Dream: Lake Okeechobee, Part 5
Dave Andrews offers look at second day of Lake Okeechobee competition
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Editor’s note: This is the fourth piece in a series of journal entries from Dave Andrews, winner of the 2007 TBF National Championship, which will be published at FLWOutdoors.com throughout the course of the 2008 FLW Series Eastern season. As winner of the “Living the Dream” package offered by FLW Outdoors through The Bass Federation, Andrews had his entry fees paid to test his club skills on the pro tour with the use of a fully wrapped boat and tow package. Andrews will chronicle his adventure in pro bass fishing during the season, beginning with his experience at Florida’s Lake Okeechobee. After Andrews has submitted his journal following each FLW Series event, segments will be posted every few days or so. (Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4)
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Wal-Mart FLW Series BP Eastern Division
Stop No. 1: Lake Okeechobee
Jan. 23-26, 2008
Tournament, day two (Thursday, Jan. 24)
I was boat No. 17 in the first flight and due in at 3 p.m. This was not good news. Today was a day that featured perfect fishing conditions, and my only chance was to get to my main-lake fish and stay there as long as I could. I caught some giant fish out there in the main lake in practice, and I would need a big bag to catch up today.
Dense fog again greeted the competitors on the second day. The anglers all drove up on the bank and commenced to tell fishing stories to wait out the delay. I parked next to Captain Brady Nelson of Palmetto, Fla. I had met Brady on my prepractice trip, and we had become friendly. Brady owns Bass and Bay Charters and is a top redfish guide and redfish tournament angler. He had taken the month of January off from his painting business and his guiding to come down to Okeechobee and fish the FLW Series event. Matt Herron was in the next boat over and entertained the nearby anglers with fishing and hunting stories.
The fog was much thicker than the previous day, and everyone was soaked from the moisture that clung to everything. Finally the skies brightened a bit and word went out that they planned to launch us at 9 a.m. I had lost over two hours of my already-short day, but nothing could be done about that. I opted to start in the rim canal again, looking for a couple of quick bites. The fog on the main lake was still very thick, and it would need to lift before I ventured out. I picked a stretch of rim canal that had rock on it and was in a no-wake zone. I wanted to avoid getting run over and hoped that this hunk of bank would be more fishable without the boat wakes pounding on it.
I tried the Sammy, then switched to the Long A as the boats streamed past me and pulled up alongside me. It was a circus atmosphere again with so many boats fishing on top of one another. In the middle of it all, a fish bombed my topwater, and I set the hook and called for the net. Several boats watched me fight the fish, but again my excitement turned to disgust as a 30-inch pickerel came up alongside the boat. This was the first pickerel I had caught in 11 days down here.
Before I knew it, it was 10:30 a.m., and despite seeing some bass being caught in the canal, I was itching to leave the crowd behind. Just before pulling the plug on the canal, a giant fish attacked my jerkbait. Again I set the hook on the fish, and my partner scrambled for the net. The fish jumped and then dove deep, pulling drag as it went. When she came up alongside the boat, my partner quickly netted him, but again disgust was all I felt. This time a giant bowfin was attached to my line. It took quite a while to subdue him and get him out of the boat. When I retied my lure and straightened out the boat, I had had enough. I told my partner to get ready for the ride to the big lake. I needed a change of scenery.
The long ride out was a little nerve-wracking as I still hadn’t gotten used to feeling comfortable running it 2 feet of water with rock piles hidden everywhere. Eventually we pulled up to my first number, and I starting winging my chartreuse Rat-L-Trap as far as I could. I used a 7-foot Fenwick Techna AV medium-heavy casting rod and a Quantum Burner reel spooled with 14-pound Gamma co-polymer line. The long rod and high gear ratio reel were critical to keeping the Rat-L-Trap moving fast and covering a lot of water. There was small shrimp grass mixed in with sand and shell beds in this area. When I encountered the short but tough grass, I would pop the rod to clear the hook off. It was liberating to be 
out here, virtually by myself on the main lake. I finally felt like I was fishing the tournament with some confidence.
Just 10 minutes after I shut down, a jolting strike bent my rod double. The fish stayed down in the muddy water and surged under the boat. I loosened my drag a bit and let her pull line freely off the reel. She came up and jumped along the side of the boat, and my partner gasped. The hooks held, and soon I’d have my first keeper of the day safely in the livewell. This fish would weigh close to 5 pounds.
I worked along for a while without a bite as the sun burned off the morning cloud cover. With time already running short, I idled out into deep enough water to get the boat on plane and ran back up to where I started. Almost immediately I had another hit and quickly boated a small keeper.
I picked a path slightly deeper then my first track, thinking the bigger fish were holding a little farther out. I switched to the white-colored Lucky Craft LVR-10 and soon had another fierce strike, which doubled over the rod. This fish fought much like the first one, pulling line and staying down. Eventually she tired and wallowed on the surface near the boat. My partner slid the net under her, and she was a virtual clone of the first fish.
With two very solid fish in the box, my prospects of getting back into this tournament looked considerably brighter. I looked at my watch and saw that it was almost 2 p.m. I had a long run still ahead of me and would need to start back soon. I switched back to the chartreuse Rat-L-Trap, put my trolling motor on high and began to fish my way out into deeper water. Along the way, I picked up another small keeper, which gave me four fish on the day.
At 2:10 p.m. I pulled the plug and strapped the rods down for the long run back to Clewiston. I made it with four minutes to spare and was one of the first to weigh in. My four-bass creel weighed a respectable 11 pounds, 8 ounces, and this would move me up about 50 places in the standings by the end of the day.
Following weigh-in, I pulled my boat out and gassed up in town, then covered the boat at the motel. The weigh-in was only about half-over, so I walked over to watch a little of it. I happened to catch Mike Iaconelli on the stage. He wasn’t having a great tournament, but told the crowd that he had been away from FLW tournaments for a couple of years and was happy to be back fishing an FLW event and even complimented the organization for the fine job that they do. Considering that he makes his career on the Elite Series, I thought it was a very classy thing for him to say. Later that evening, when we had finished our customary meal at the Beef O’Bradys, we left the restaurant to find the flags straight out and the temperature had dropped about 15 degrees. Big changes were coming.
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Editor’s note: Stay tuned for Part 6 of Andrews’ adventure on Lake Okeechobee, in which he’ll write about the third day of Wal-Mart FLW Series BP Eastern competition on the Big O.
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