Thread: Lake Okeechobee

Watergate and all, Just a KY guy that spent 1 week in February at the North end of the Big O a few years ago. Drove 17 hours to fish 3 hours/day,night for the week I was there. My friend had a place just north of the lake, on the river about 1/4 mile north from the bridge. He had a pontoon, generator, lights set up for night fishing in the river, (we fished from the bridge south to the lake). We caught our limit within 3 hours after dark, along with probably 50 other boats anchored along the river bank each night. We set the size limit in our boat to 12" and still got our 50 each night. So, if you fish the river at night, and there are not at least 25-50 boats out there with you, the crappie are not there yet. You CANNOT fish/anchor/drift in the middle of the river at night. So stay from 20-100 ft from each bank when fishing at night.

Awesome area to fish. This will be the 1st February in years I didn't make it down. So many great memories there around Buckhead Ridge.

Took my sons yesterday from 10:00am to 12:00pm and caught 10 in 14ft water with minnows. There were a lot of other boats but plenty of fish for everyone


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Originally Posted by Want2fish

Took my sons yesterday from 10:00am to 12:00pm and caught 10 in 14ft water with minnows. There were a lot of other boats but plenty of fish for everyone


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I bet those kids got a kick out of that. You were using minnows. I like to use plastic with a nibble.How does that work on Florida water. Guess I will find soon


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Originally Posted by watergate

I bet those kids got a kick out of that. You were using minnows. I like to use plastic with a nibble.How does that work on Florida water. Guess I will find soon


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108. Thanks for the information


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Watergate, forgot to tell you we ONLY used minnows when fishing at night with the lights over the side(8-12 ft deep in 15ft of water). My partner had over 20 poles/rod holders on the pontoon boat. The pole lengths ranged from 3ft to 16 feet staggered between the rod holders to keep them somewhat separated as far as distance from the boat. I was only able to keep up with 4 poles, he used up to 10. IF you happen to get hooked up with a gar, you will have a big mess as he did a few times. It will end up wrapping up a pile of your lines before you can get it cut off or removed.

Originally Posted by perchjerker108

Watergate, forgot to tell you we ONLY used minnows when fishing at night with the lights over the side(8-12 ft deep in 15ft of water). My partner had over 20 poles/rod holders on the pontoon boat. The pole lengths ranged from 3ft to 16 feet staggered between the rod holders to keep them somewhat separated as far as distance from the boat. I was only able to keep up with 4 poles, he used up to 10. IF you happen to get hooked up with a gar, you will have a big mess as he did a few times. It will end up wrapping up a pile of your lines before you can get it cut off or removed.

I most likely won’t be night fishing. I’m not set up for that. No generator no lights. I understand the bugs eat you up. Would be a lot of expense to get set up.Do you guys fishing nights where bug netting or will repellent work

If you wanna get into night fishing don't worry about bringing a generator...you can leave that in the shed. Get you some small led lights bars and you're in business. I ordered mine from ebay and they are cheap...got 10 7" bars for $50. I used a piece of conduit and made 2 brackets for my lights. The end of the conduit is bent and it locks in the center of my boat cleat and hangs off the side of the boat and I've got 2 light bars mounted to the end at a 45...I use one in the front and one in the back and it lights the place up. The LEDs draw very little power so I hook them up to one of my trolling batteries and can fish all night without issue. When you're done fishing the light brackets pop right off.