Hi everyone it's Capt. Brian Brown with your Feburary fishing report for the Big O - Lake Okeechobee. The lake is still high sitting around the 14.75 mark most of the month. They begining to release higher volumes of water in an effort to get the lake down to 12.5 before the summer rainy season. As usual for Feburary we've been plagued by cold front after cold front with one passing through every couple days. Couple that with some extrodinarly high winds in the 20+ range over the past 3 weeks or better has made fishing a bit of a challenge. As usual my clients have been up to the task and have come out with some great results. Live bait fishing has been the main course of action along with finding some clean water. With the winds blowning in every direction it keeps you guessing day to day where the clean water will be. We have either set up on the outside grass lines catching fishing in and out of spawning flats or setting up on cattail heads that fish are using as feeding buffers. When we've fished artificials we have used a two prong approve by fishing faster moving baits looking for active fish and slowing way down pitching plastics and jigs. When looking for fish we are throwing a either a Big Bite Baits cane thumper on a 3/16-5/16 weighted Gamakatsu hook or an Outkast Tackle swim jig on a 7' med. hvy powell rod spooled with 30lb Sunline braid. When we've slowed down punching we pull out the big sticks 7 1/2 - 8' rods spooled with 65lb Sunline braid and with either a 1oz Outkast Tackle RTX jig or a Big Bite Baits 4'' YoMama beaver style bait rigged on a 4/0 Gamakastu flippin hook paired with a Bag5Baits 1-2oz tungsten flippin wgt.



Crappie fishing has been some of the best anyone has seen in recent years. They call Okeechobee the crappie capital and it has showed out this year. Wether your a drifter at night, bobber and minnow guy or just love to jig for them the Big O is giving it up. We've spent most of our time split between cork and minnow fishing in the mornings in the open water and jigging in the after noon once the sun gets up and pushes the fish into the heavier grassy cover. Getting a 12-14'' crappie out of this cover looks to be a daunghting task it's really not to hard. We rig up a 12-16' rod with 15lb yellow braid 1/16-1/8 jig head and either a Big Bite Baits tube or 2'' cane thumper and your in business.



Come on down to sunny southern Florida and enjoy a day on Lake Okeechobee. I have a few days left open the last two weeks of March. Give me a call to get your dream trip booked today.

Tight Lines,
Capt. Brian Brown
www.fishinghype.com
www.bassonline.com