Clewiston-----The wind the past week has been relentless on th lake Okeechobee, with north and east winds blowing up to twenty five miles and hour the lake has become muddy on most of the south end of Okeechobee. The West Wall has remained fishable but it too has become dirty from the wind, We did ok on wild shiners in this area most of the week with the inside area being the most productive. The bass in this area are for the most part smaller with two to three pound fish being the average and five pounds being the biggest one we caught on the West Wall last week. Coots Bay was good the first part of the week before the wind moved dirty water into this area, most of the bass are still in the outside grass with spinnerbaits and frog type lures being the best bet. Try to target the grass on the outside and the boat trails, a Rat-L-Trap (chrome with blue back) also works good in these boat trails try to make long casts and reel the Rat-L-Trap as fast as you can I like to use a reel with a 7 to 1 gear ratio so that you don't have to reel so fast. Most reels have a 6.3 to 1 ratio or even slower but Shimano, Quantum , Abu Garcia and many other reel manufactures are now making a fast ratio reel and the work perfect to throw lipless crankbaits, they also work great in any situation that you need to pick up a lot of line in a hurry like worm fishing .
The East Wall still has some good bass in the area but with the water dirty they have been hard to catch this past week even on wild shiners. Some of the inside trails are not as muddy as the outside grass and trails so they will clean up the quickest as soon as this wind slows down some. The Football Field and on down to and around Ritta Island has also been dirty all week, I did catch a couple bass on a guide trip last week but they were few and far between. The lake level is down to 12.66 above sea level and still dropping and the water temperature was down to 75 degrees and with the cool nights it will continue to drop. The wind is forecasted to slow down as this week progresses and most of the areas should clean up in a couple days. Another area that is producing some bass is at the junction of the rim canal and Uncle Joe's Cut, try using junebug colored Senkos rigged wacky style with no weight or a Zoom Super Fluke in watermelon-red color, I like to rig my Flukes with an 1/8 ounce screw in bullet weight and a 4/0 extra wide gap hook.
The snowbirds are starting to come back from the northern states and they are catching a few crappies almost every day they are reporting that the crappies they are catching have white bellies from just coming in from out on the lake and that they are extremely thick so it sounds like they have been eating good. Most are being quiet about where they are catching the crappie but I do know they are catching a few around Uncle Joe's Cut and also at the Football Field and the dynamite holes. Next week I will have much better news to report about the bass fishing on the lake because the wind will give us a break and the fish will start using the same areas for the next few month.
Bass Wishes
Capt. Scott Martin / Capt. Mark King