Trophy fish on Lake O tend to come on live shiners or specialized flipping baits during the spawn.
February 06, 2025
By David McGrath
With less than an hour before dark on a weedy bay on famed Lake Okeechobee, fishing guide Mark Rose handed me a spinning rod rigged with a topwater popper sporting a white bucktail on its back treble. “Long casts,” he said. “Then whip it downward to make it pop.”
Since Rose has been guiding on Okeechobee for 24 years and offers a no fish/no pay guarantee on his charters, his instructions were as good as a stock tip from Warren Buffett. The popper was easy to cast. It sailed close to 100 feet through the air. I could barely see where it landed in the approaching twilight.
Wristing the rod downward produced a satisfying “glunk” as the lure ducked beneath the surface. Then 10 more glunks on the retrieve before I cast again; this time the popper landing splat on a mound of dead cattails.
“Perfect,” said Rose. I said, “But I’m going to be snagged.” He answered, “Wait a little bit and then nudge it off.”
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As soon as I did, the water exploded and I was hooked up with what felt like a five-pound bass. It immediately got the best of me, bullying its way back down and around a submerged tangle of growth. And then it was gone.
“That was exciting,” said Rose.
Time was running out, but I was brimming with confidence in the new lure. Two more casts, and another fish smashed the popper not 10 yards from the boat. This one stayed hooked, approaching three pounds, which we photographed and released, before Rose returned to the bow platform to take us to new water.
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“Why don’t we head in,” I said. “It’ll be dark soon, and this way I can write that my biggest was caught on the proverbial last cast of the day.” The guide did not object. We had caught and released around 25 fish in three hours, ranging in size from 1 to 4 pounds. He had a 22-foot Ranger to haul out of the water and tackle to sort and secure before his day was done.
Writer David McGrath holds up a plump Lake Okeechobee largemouth caught out of Belle Glade with local guide Mark Rose. Hire a Guide or Go It Alone? Why spend money on a guide like Mark Rose? A professional guide who is on the water every day, and networking with other pros, knows where the fish are biting right now. That can be critical on the “Big O.” The lake is enormous. Thirty-seven miles long, 29 miles wide, with an area of 730 square miles, Lake Okeechobee (Seminole word for “big water”) is the second largest freshwater lake entirely within the U.S., after Lake Michigan, according to the Army Corps of Engineers which regulates its use. Yes, the fishing can be outstanding, but the action tends to be confined to certain zones, and may change from week to week, or day to day.
A charter trip—$300 to $700 range for half or full day on the lake—might ultimately be less expensive and less time-consuming than the multiple trips it might otherwise take a visiting angler to locate fish and plot strategy. Not to mention the cost of fuel and overnight lodging likely necessary for fishing the primo low light hours at dawn and dusk.
On the other hand, if you’re an experienced angler with your own boat, figuring out the pattern may be more satisfying. Self-sufficiency in the outdoors is why we shop for the gear, read about the latest methods, and tell the stories. Whereas, if you hire a guide, he is the boat captain and fish scout. Hypothetically, the fish you reel in is his trophy as much as yours.
Second, you may want to use your own stuff. Yes, guides prefer that you use their tools, tested and tried for the species and circumstances. But just as in the film The Natural, in which Roy Hobbs hit best with his hand-carved bat (“Wonderboy”), anglers have more confidence in their own rigs that are the right fit and which they’re most comfortable using.
If you’re towing your own boat, study the charts to target the major hotspots (South Bay, Monkey Box, North Shore, Harney’s Pond, Observation Shoal). Eighteen boat ramps surround the 144-mile circumference of the big lake, most of which are free and afford direct access, with the exception of the nine-lane public ramp in Clewiston, from which you follow the signs to the nearby lock, and then follow the lock master’s vocal instructions for passing through.
“Old school” electronics. Where bass pros from other states might be inclined toward the latest forward-scanning sonar, Lake O is shallow, grassy and defined by seasonal fish movements. South Bay Because BassOnline.com is a vast network of fishing guides, including over a dozen on Okeechobee, it’s convenient for anglers to pick their preferred date, place, length of trip, and type of fishing (artificials or live bait) even in high season, and up to the last minute. Accordingly, I scheduled a 4-hour trip out of Belle Glade on the lake’s south end for $300, and I met Mark Rose at the Torrey Island docks at 2 p.m.
Torrey Island has free concrete boat ramps, well-kept washrooms, and ample parking. It’s located next to Slim’s Fish Camp where you can purchase tackle, live bait, food, beer, and other supplies.
Rose is a knowledgeable 39-year-old professional. When we met, I felt I’d known him all my life because of his affable tone and optimism. After a comfortable, 15-minute boat ride, Rose had us casting Zoom flukes in three and four feet of water in South Bay, with Abu Garcia 2000 series spinning reels with 20-pound-test Gamma braid, and 6-foot-6 Medium/Heavy Kistler rods. Flukes in various shades of watermelon that were Texas-rigged by Rose on Eagle Claw Trokar worm hooks, slithered with ease through roots and weeds.
Southern Okeechobee fishing can be quite productive. “Cast to the sawgrass,” said Rose. “Reel slowly and keep twitching it.”
As soon as he spoke, he snapped his rod low and sideways to set the hook in a two-pound bass. “That one bit as soon as it landed,” he said.
Rose explained that the lake was high for the time of year at 16 feet above sea level, so what appeared to be open water was filled with clusters of live or dead vegetation down below. Meaning I could cast anywhere and find feeding, ambushing, hiding, or spawning fish. My first was a juvenile that rose to take the fluke less than a foot below the surface.
“They’ll rise up since it’s overcast,” said Rose. “When the sun is out, their eyes are down.”
He used his 36-volt pedal operated Minn Kota trolling motor to move us quietly through the sawgrass. Water temperature was 73, air temperature 80, with just enough breeze to keep insects away. The fish were active, he said, since it was the third day of stable weather.
When I paused to photograph one of Rose’s catches, a bass picked up my fluke that had been sitting on the bottom. “Those could be males,” said Rose, “moving our baits off the spawning beds.”
For the next two hours, we stayed within the same several acres as long as fish were present. Rose seemed to boat three or four bass for every one I hooked, till he showed mercy and gave me that Spro Pop E 80 popper!
Captain Mark Rose fishes a fluke on light spinning tackle, an all-around rig for catching good numbers of bass. Advice from a Tournament Pro Mark Rogers, another Okeechobee guide and member of the Bass Online consortium, is also a professional tournament fisherman who has competed in the FLW and the Bassmasters Elite Series for eight years. I asked Rogers what is the first advice he offers newcomers.
“Okeechobee can be incredibly intimidating, and if the water is low it can get a little dangerous,” he said. “If a newcomer prefers not to hire a guide, I would practice running the lake cautiously and safely to learn the lay of the land.
“The most common mistake is fishing too fast, trying to cover too much area at once. Slow down, be more precise, use slower type lures. The lake is full of fish and will yield results if you take your time. When you find fish, stay in that area, for there are bound to be a lot of them.” Rogers says he launches all over—Clewiston, Harney Pond, Slim’s Fish Camp. “If you put in at Clewiston,” he says, “follow the signs to the lock. There’s a button you push to alert the lockmaster that you’re ready to pass through. Wait for the lockmaster to open the doors and then proceed in. Hold the ropes that are on the walls of the lock and keep control of your boat.”
While most of his clients ask to fish with live bait, chiefly shiners, Rogers’ personal preference is for the challenge of fishing the grasses with an array of artificials:
“Sometimes I flip bulrushes with craws, creature baits, or jigs. Or I fish the outside edges of bulrushes with worms and soft stick baits. I’ll fish the eelgrass with spinnerbaits, swim baits, and topwater frogs.
“For large bass you want to search for isolated cover with heavy vegetation. Look for routes in and out of spawning areas if it’s that time of year. Spawning season runs from December to February.
“Ideally, you want 72-degree water that is clean and clear, or as clear as you can find, and you want a slight breeze to put a ripple on the water. Generally, the fish are the most active first thing in the morning, which is the ideal time. But in winter they can be active all day.”
Rogers gave a preview of what a client can expect if they schedule a trip with him through Bass Online: “The average day produces about 15 to 20 bass, up to eight pounds, with the largest being 10 pounds.
“Just last year in 2023, I took a group out using live bait and we caught about 80 bass, ranging from a pound to eight pounds over the course of eight hours. It was just incredible, non-stop action.
“And then in June, I had a trip where the largemouth were gorging on bluegills; we caught over a hundred bass, up to 10 pounds, and they were biting on everything: Chatterbaits, Swimbaits, Zara Spooks, and plastic worms.”
Though Rogers is originally from California, he has been fishing Lake O for 38 years. I asked him how it has changed in his lifetime:
“The grasses, like the pepper grass, eelgrass, hydrilla, bulrushes, are dying away because the water levels are too high. Also from herbicide spraying, from what I can observe. There is definitely more pressure on the lake from tourism, tournaments, and just more fishermen in general.
“It’s vital that they do what’s necessary to bring the water levels down so the sunlight can reach the bottom and the natural grasses can grow abundantly and filter the lake again.”
Following my trip with Rose, in winter 2024, the Army Corps of Engineers began lowering Lake Okeechobee from its high level, flushing brown stained water down the Caloosahatchee River to where it soon began showing up in the Gulf of Mexico.
Remembering the toxic blue-green algae that coated beaches along the southwestern Florida coast in 2018, residents and business owners in Fort Myers and coastal Lee County watch such releases with justifiable anxiety—just as do those in Stuart and Martin County, on the east coast.
Ample news in recent years has centered around the agriculturally polluted discharges into Lake Okeechobee and from there into the Caloosahatchee and St. Lucie estuaries. Balancing the needs of Florida’s most famous bass fishing lake is important, but so too is protecting the downstream ecologies and associated fisheries and communities. Minimizing the runoff of nutrients into Lake Okeechobee and restoring the historical flow south to the Florida Everglades is the ultimate solution.
Shifting Levels Lake O levels typically ebb and flow—not with tides—but with rainy seasons. The peak of Florida’s rainy seasons occurs between August and October at the height of the hurricane season. It’s during this time that the great lake, sometimes called “the liquid heart of the Everglades,” can swell by as much as 4 feet in depth in a few months—That’s a lot for a 730-square mile lake.
In ancient times, the lake overflowed its southern shores each rainy season. The water slowly flowed south a few inches to a couple feet deep through the “river of grass” to Florida Bay 100 miles to the lake’s south.
Managing water quantity in one of the nation’s greatest freshwater fisheries is a task the Army Corps of Engineers has still not mastered in its 100-plus years of oversight.
The primary focus of the military branch has been to provide flood control and irrigation needs to the region’s expansive agricultural interests. Providing a healthy, thriving bass, panfish or catfish fishery to residents and visitors has been one of its lowest priorities. As a result, thousands of acres of submerged aquatic vegetation in the lake have been lost because of a combination of high lake levels and state-sanctioned herbicide programs. This loss has taken a toll on a world-class bass fishery and waterfowl hunting habitat.
To learn more about the recent changes in the Army Corps’ management philosophy for Lake Okeechobee refer to the Conservation Front in this issue or go to saj.usace.army.mil/LOSOM .
Lake O: Florida’s Greatest Lake? On Aug. 12, after a design process taking more than 5 1⁄2 years, engaging 50 stakeholders and recording more than 22,000 public comments, the Army Corps of Engineers signed the Lake Okeechobee System Operating Manual (LOSOM) into action. The decision will manage the lake’s ever-changing water levels for the next 20 years. Will the plan send more water south to the thirsty Everglades while reducing the frequency and volume of harmful discharges to Gulf and Atlantic estuaries? Will LOSOM further enhance Lake O’s robust fisheries and duck hunting?
If you go: Points of interest on Lake Okeechobee. (Satellite image: Bing) Bait and Tackle Shops Garrard’s—4375 US-441, Okeechobee. Hours 5 a.m. to 6 p.m. 863-763-3416, Live bait, tackle, guide service. Mickey’s Bait and Tackle—401 US Hwy 27, Moore Haven. Hours 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. 863-946-3100, Live bait, tackle. Roland & Mary Ann Martin’s Marinaand Resort—920 E. Del Monte Ave, Clewiston. 863-983-3151, Tackle, boats, apparel, lodging, RV resort, restaurant. Slim’s Fish Camp—215 Marina Dr, South Bay. Hours 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. 561-996-3844, Live bait, tackle, guide service, groceries Guides Mentioned in Article This article was featured in the November 2024 issue of Florida Sportsman magazine. Click to subscribe .
