CLEWISTON, Fla. – The Toyota Series Presented by Phoenix Boats Southern Division opener on Lake Okeechobee turned out to be a great event, though the final day was certainly not easy. Big winds made a lot of water increasingly unfishable on Days 2 and 3 and, the weights went down commensurately. Still, if you’re looking for a good primer on how to succeed on Okeechobee, the Top 10 pros laid it all out there.
Here’s what got the job done on the Big O.
1. Branagh makes it happen off the lake
Sticking it out in canals for the most part, Robert Branagh targeted spawning fish with a worm for his weight.
His bait of choice was a Bruiser Baits Bullet in Christmas with a 3/16-ounce Flat Out Tungsten weight. For his setup, he went with a 7-foot, 10-inch Denali Lithium Pro, a KastKing MegaJaws Elite reel and 15-pound fluoro.
2. Okeechobee good again for Lopez
Steve Lopez has taken a real liking to Okeechobee and seen a lot of success on the big lake in recent years. This year, he fished reeds for bass in and around the spawn and did his damage with both moving baits and slow stuff.
For sparser reeds, Lopez used a 5-inch Gambler Ace on a power shot with a 7-3, medium-heavy Duckett Black Ice and 20-pound fluoro. In thicker vegetation, he used a 6-inch Gambler Fat Ace in JB blue with a 5/8-ounce weight and 65-pound braid on a 7-10, extra heavy Duckett Black Ice stick. For covering water, Lopez opted for a 3/8-ounce Z-Man Evergreen ChatterBait JackHammer in black and blue with a matching Gambler Little EZ thrown on a 7-3, medium-heavy Duckett Jacob Wheeler Series stick and 20-pound fluoro.
While everyone left some fish on the table this week, Lopez had a particularly gutting morning on Day 1.
“I had a bad first hour and a half on Day 1,” Lopez said. “If I could win this tournament after dumping five 7- to 10-pounders, it would have been a miracle. It was bad. I should’ve weighed in, like, 38 to 40. I lost it before I caught my 26 1/2. It was so windy, I couldn’t throw up a Fat Ace out there, which I was shaking them off on. So, I was throwing a ChatterBait, and they would eat it really well, really hard. And they would jump, and they were just such long casts that they would just come off. Just in a foot of water, just giants. My co-angler watched a train wreck. An absolute train wreck.”
3. Dirty 30 carries Knudsen
On Day 1, Parker Knudsen blasted 32 pounds, 1 ounce, which put him in position to make his first Top 10 on the boater side in MLF competition. Fishing on the west side of the lake for the most part, Knudsen flipped and wound a ChatterBait.
His worm of choice was a 3/8-ounce Gambler Fat Ace with a 4/0 Owner 4X Jungle Flipping Hook and 40-pound braid thrown on a 7-5, heavy G. Loomis NRX+ and an 8.1:1 Shimano Metanium. He also flipped a hematoma Reaction Innovations Sweet Beaver with a 4/0 Owner 4X Jungle Flipping Hook, a 1/2-ounce weight and 50-pound braid on a 7-5, extra heavy G. Loomis NRX+ with an 8.1:1 Shimano Metanium. For a moving option, the Minnesota angler used a 3/8-ounce Z-Man Evergreen ChatterBait JackHammer, a G. Loomis GLX bladed jig rod, 17-pound Seaguar InvizX and a 7.1:1 Shimano Bantam.
Knudsen fished a few areas with vegetation and hard bottom, which were amazing on Day 1 but didn’t last him the entire event.
“I had two main areas on the West Wall area on the lake,” Knudsen said. “In practice, when I found them, I had a couple small bites and a 6-pounder, so I thought it was something. Then I went in there tournament day. There were probably seven other boats in there. And I felt like I probably outfished them – I just put my head down, and I got five of the right bites. And then I had a little area up north that had a handful of boats in it, and I caught a 7 1/2 and another 5-pounder up there. Then they slowly just dwindled away with the wind that was just pounding on it.”
4. Swim jig and worm key for Glasgow
Alabama angler Kyle Glasgow mixed standard Okeechobee fishing with some backwater pond action to earn a Top 10. As an Alabama angler, he naturally had to work in a swim jig.
“I started out in a backwater pond the first morning,” he said. “Then I went north and caught some good ones flipping heavier round reeds. The second day, I switched it up and went north and caught a few good ones, and then went south in the afternoon. The last day I caught some in the backwater pond and some near it in some round reeds that were a little bit deeper.”
For baits, Glasgow used a Berkley PowerBait MaxScent The General in black and blue with weights ranging from 3/16 to 3/4 ounce depending on the vegetation. He used a 1/4-ounce Berkley PowerBait Swim Jig and used Abu Garcia rods and reels across the board.
5. Flipping and jerkbait play for Venditto
A Florida regular with plenty of time in on the Big O, Michael Venditto knocked out a Top 10 with a good mix of modern Okeechobee fishing.
“On the first day, I was flipping heavy buggy whips on the shoal,” he said. “But, the wind direction changed and completely shut that bite off. On Day 1, I stayed on one head almost the entire day. On Day 2, I went there knowing it had changed and would get messed up. But I thought I could get a few of the right bites, the kind that would matter. I pulled out of there around 1 o’clock and had one fish. So, I ran 20 miles and pulled out the jerkbait and got to work.”
Fishing the jerkbait in the rim ditch, Venditto used a pretty special custom rod from Scenko Stix. A memorial to his mother Marion, the rod says “I love you” ahead of the foregrip with “Power, Courage, Imagine, Thankful” on the reverse, all in her handwriting.
For his flipping, Venditto used a Gambler Burner Craw in blue shadow with 3/4- and 1-ounce weights as well as a Gambler Fat Ace in backatya with a 1/8-ounce weight. His jerkbait of choice was a 6th Sense Provoke 106DD.
6. Community holes and sneak holes power Weston
Hunter Weston was all-in on Florida staples, fishing in South Bay and in a small backwater in the Monkey Box that he largely had to himself.
Weston used all Scenko Stix rods and had a lot of small, but perhaps important, nuances involved in his bait choices.
A Gambler Walking Frog was one of his primary choices.
“I threw it this week around dead tussock mats,” he said. “A lot of guys were throwing popping frogs, which usually get bit. But with the added pressure and everything and the bass keying in on tilapia fry, I wanted something that had not as much of a presence. So, I threw that walking frog right in the middle of the mats and caught a couple key fish on that.”
He also used a 1/2-ounce Z-Man Evergreen ChatterBait JackHammer in ghost baby gill with a Gambler Komodo Trailer in golden shiner. His stickbait was a Gambler Fat Ace in JB blue with a 1/8-ounce Gambler Brass Rattling Weight.
“That color has just stuck out ahead of all the black and blue tip variations,” Weston said. “Everyone’s got a black worm with blue glitter. And this one has more of a blue tint in the actual worm, so it’s not really black. It’s almost more like a dark blue worm with blue glitter and then more of a faded blue tail. That color has been so good for me over the years, and it’s just a staple here in Florida. The weight, I use it just to add a little bit of something different. I always use the rattling weight just because, honestly, I think they think that the worm is down there just rooting around.”
7. A McMillan makes the Top 10 as usual
Any Okeechobee Top 10 would be incomplete without a McMillan, and this week it was Dillon McMillan who carried the flag for the Florida fishing family.
Mostly, McMillan flipped, and he turned to a ChatterBait on the last day when the wind was howling. While flipping cattails was pretty common, McMillan dialed in to a specific mix of grass.
“I found something a little bit different with the cattails and joint grass, and I was just targeting holes in either,” he said. “But it had to have had to have joint grass around the cattails for me to really get bit.”
McMillan flipped a 3/4-ounce Epic Tungsten weight with a Gambler Boxer Craw and a Gambler Fat Ace in black and blue and JB blue. He also threw a 3/8-ounce Z-Man Evergreen ChatterBait JackHammer with a Gambler Komodo Trailer.
8. Monti mixes it up
A guide and former touring pro, Kyle Monti pieced together a few patterns to make a Top 10 on his home waters.
“I started the first day flipping and started the second day flipping, but they dropped the water and that kind of went away,” Monti said. “So, I had to figure out what to do with that, and I picked up the crankbait and lost a 6 and an 8 on that. So, I figured they were moving off the bank, and I fished shellbeds and rock off the bank in the river the rest of the way.”
Flipping, Monti used a 3/16-ounce weight with a Rapala CrushCity Bronco Bug in candy bug. Fishing deeper, he used a Carolina rig with a soft jerkbait and a Rapala DT 10 in chartreuse root beer craw. Across the board, he used Denali rods and P-Line fluorocarbon.
9. Pitt winds into the Top 10
While fishing slow was a big deal on Okeechobee, Travis Pitt bucked the trend, weighing only one of his fish on a soft bait and the rest on moving baits, particularly a vibrating jig.
Pitt flipped a Gambler Boxer Craw and threw a swim jig, but his bread and butter was a 3/8-ounce Z-Man Evergreen ChatterBait JackHammer in bruised green pumpkin with a pearl Rapala Crush City Freeloader trailer.
“I was just chucking and winding that ChatterBait all day,” Pitt said. “I actually ran out of matching trailers, and I threw a white trailer on there, and I don’t know if it was just a mental thing, but I started getting more bites. When I started thinking about it, there might be something to the contrast with that white trailer being so different from the color of the skirt. Also, I’m sure somebody else is probably throwing that combo, but I would go on a limb and say probably not a ton of people use a pearl trailer on a on a black and blue ChatterBait.”
10. South Bay pays out for Catt
Fishing Florida standards, Michael Catt put together three solid days for a Top 10 to start the season.
“I was in South Bay, which had 70 boats every day in there,” Catt said. “There’s just a few areas in there better than the rest. The fish were moving in and out, and there are just a couple spots that are a little deeper in there and those areas were better.”
Fishing shallow, Catt used a BOOYAH Hard Knocker in copper shiner, a Bruiser Baits Big Stick weightless in junebug and black with a blue tip as well as a 1/2-ounce Z-Man Evergreen ChatterBait JackHammer in golden shiner with a matching Bruiser Baits Sidekick trailer.