Living the Dream: Lake Okeechobee, Part 4
Dave Andrews offers look at first 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 and Part 3)
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Wal-Mart FLW Series BP Eastern Division
Stop No. 1: Lake Okeechobee
Jan. 23-26, 2008
Tournament, day one (Wednesday, Jan. 23)
I met my partner at 6 a.m., and we proceeded to launch the boat, went through boat-check and then pulled up on the bank and waited with everyone else. Dense fog hung low over the rim canal, and it was abundantly clear to all that we would not be leaving on time this morning. The weather was supposed to be nice once the fog lifted. A mix of clouds and sun was forecast with daytime highs to reach the low 80s. The wind, which had punished the region for the previous three days, had finally let go.
My game plan was to start in the rim canal and work the Sammy and Long A along whatever rocky banks were available. I wanted to power fish and cover water fast, hoping for a quick limit before the sun and pressure forced the fish to suspend and become inactive in the middle part of the canal.
The fog began to lift around 8 a.m. and FLW officials let us go shortly thereafter. I headed north a short distance and picked a stretch of rocky bank that had a quick drop into deep water. Boats zipped by just 
15 or 20 feet away. I started with the Sammy, but I felt more like I was surf-casting for stripers in the Cape Cod surf as the topwater got lost in all the waves that were crashing along the bank.
Tournament boats pulled up on the bank until they were dotted as far as the eye could see. Scott Martin pulled in ahead of me, so I turned and headed south down the bank, but Gary Yamamoto was working his way toward me. Boat after boat screamed north in the rim canal, and to make matters worse, the morning sun had cleared off the rest of the fog, and it got hot quickly.
I was sweating in the morning humidity, my glasses fogged up. I switched to the old beaten-up silver Long A that had worked so well in practice and immediately had a fish swirl on it. I set the hook and called for the net. The bass didn’t provide much resistance, and I just swung it into the boat. It was small, and I needed the bump board. It just fell short of keeper length and was the first nonkeeper fish I had caught including prepractice. Figures …
A few more casts with the Long A, and another bite. I set on the fish and soon had my first keeper of the tournament, a 14-inch largemouth. Another fish would boil on the bait, but I didn’t connect, and that was it for quite awhile.
I pushed hard and switched banks, moving farther north and throwing the jerkbait. A few hours had gone by, and there was barely a hunk of bank in the rim canal that didn’t have a boat on it. There were probably 50 boats in a three-mile stretch that I was fishing. At around 10 a.m., I heard a splash and turned around and saw bass chasing shad along the muddy bank on the opposite side of the canal. I kicked the motor on high and moved over to the bank. As I approached, a line of good-sized shad was swimming along the surface. One of the baitfish nervously broke rank and skittered across the surface of the water only to be crushed by a bass from below. My Long A landed on the spot a moment later, and the water erupted. I set the hook and played the fish to the net. My second keeper was a solid 2 1/2-pound fish.
We stayed in the area, moving back and forth between two little points where the bass would occasionally erupt, chasing the shad, but I could coax no more bass to hit the jerkbait. I switched to a worm and a Rat-L-Trap, but eventually had to move on as the sun pushed the fish deeper. I started to 
get antsy and wanted to run out of the canal to my main-lake fish, but I was watching several fish get caught, and some good ones, right there in the canal. I fished on, delaying my decision to head to the main lake. My third keeper came on the Long A on a mud bank. It was a 13-inch fish. A cloudbank rolled in, and it even started to sprinkle a little, so I continued to power fish, hoping to finish my limit.
Noon turned into 1 p.m., and still no more bites would come. I was due in at 4:10 p.m., and it was already too late to run to my main-lake fish, but I was anxious to make a move and shake things up. I pulled up the Minn Kota and told my partner that we were going to roll the dice. I decided to lock into the Caloosahatchee River and head for the spillway. I figured two keepers would salvage the day for me, and if I could catch another big one there, I would really be in good shape.
Along the way, I passed dozens and dozens of tournament boats fishing in the rim canal. In all my years of tournament fishing, I’ve never seen so many boats crammed into such a small area. Here we were on the enormous Big O, and it was fishing more like a golf-course pond. It took me a long time to navigate through the hoard of boats and lock into the river. Another 20 minutes to get through the long no-wake zone and drive to the back of the ditch. I was pleased to see no other boats back in there, but once I got close to the spillway, my heart sank. The gates were closed and no water was spilling into my area. I fished it anyway just to see, but it was clear that without the current there would be no bites here today. I watched a few small keepers cruise along the bank, but they were unresponsive to the Giggy Head worm I pitched in front of them.
We ran out of there quickly, hoping the ever-increasing cloud bank would turn the fish on in the rim canal. It was our only hope at this point. We ran back through the throng of boats and pulled up near where we started with roughly an hour to fish. The storm clouds erupted, and it poured for about 20 minutes. I pulled my rain gear on quickly and burned down the bank with the jerkbait, hoping to catch two more active fish. My partner threw a white spinnerbait behind me and connected on a fish that weighed close to 3 pounds. A good bass then boiled on my jerkbait as it floated on the surface. I set the hook but came up empty. I dropped a worm on the spot, but couldn’t entice the fish.
The day would end like that. My three small keepers would weigh just under 5 pounds and leave me way back in the pack. Overall the field caught them pretty good, probably better than expected. When the scales stopped spinning, Russ Lane would lead with just over 20 pounds.
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Editor’s note: Stay tuned for Part 5 of Andrews’ adventure on Lake Okeechobee, in which he’ll write about the second day of Wal-Mart FLW Series BP Eastern competition on the Big O.
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