Lake Okeechobee’s fishery is very healthy! Each full and new moon phase brings in another wave of bass and crappie wanting to spawn in the shallows. The crappie anglers are still out in open water drifting or slow trolling for specks that are schooling up before moving in to spawn. These anglers are having the best luck fishing with small to medium size live minnows.
The weather pattern has been pretty much all over the board bringing a mixed-bag ranging from low/mid 80 temps for the high and cooler early morning temps dipping down to the low 40’s with wind, sun, clouds and everything in-between. This type of weather pattern can cause the bite to come in spurts but all-inall the bite has remained pretty good. Some crappie anglers are still fishing offshore in areas such as the Kissimmee River; the Pass; Monkey box area and parts of the Shoal. Most anglers are in the shallows though, catching them off the beds with small jigs and live minnows.
Bass anglers have been mainly concentrating on the North shore area; Observation Island area from the 1st pole to Cochran’s pass area; Pelican bay (Belle Glade); parts of the East wall and Uncle Joe’s area. The water on the east side hasn’t been the best but there are pockets of clearer water to fish. Color patterns for soft plastics for bass can be watermelon-red, redbug, junebug, black/blue and green-pumpkin/ gold flake.
Top water lures worked slowly will produce big bites. Devil’s Horse and Zara spook need to be in your tackle arsenal. The flipping/pitching bite has been producing using creature-style lures such as crawdads, tubes and Hoo-Daddy’s by Gene Larew.
