Check those bilge pumps it could save your life and your boat.

  A fellow tournament angler fishing the last tournament I fished on Okeechobee went out to fish the reef in a friends boat and ended up sinking the boat. The boat filled up with water and was flipped upside down by the waves. Fortunately, he and his partner were unharmed because they were able to use there cell phones and call for help. Of course the boat was pretty torn up. I don't know the details of what caused the boat to sink but I do know there was a pretty good chop out there and the boat he was using has a low stern. I think this accident might have been prevented by taking a couple precautionary measures. The bilge pumps should always be checked before leaving the dock. It's so easy to forget about the pumps because we have these auto pumps that kick on and off when needed. Guess what, they don't last forever, that's why the bilge area and pumps should be regularly monitored while the boat is in the water especially in rough water. Always have a spare pump available just in case, and know how to install it quickly. Also, two very important things to remember when anchoring, always anchor with the bow facing the waves, and never reverse into waves.   

Okeechobee tournament win

 The fishing was tough today on the big O. It only took 13.52 lbs to take the win in Carmen's tournament out of Roland s today. We didn't make allot of money but it feels good to win again. Linda Robinson my good luck charm, and I fished together.

Smiley Hsu and his Swamp Monster!

  A funny thing happened yesterday, my friend Smiley and I were out in the Glades slammin bass left and right on plastic worms and jerk baits, many of them in the two to three pound range. One of the bass I brought in spit a grass hopper on the deck of my boat which put a thought in my head. How about we try and get a few bluegills for dinner since we could see giant bluegills everywhere. So I throw half of the grass hopper out on a very small hook and caught a couple of nice gills, then I cast out again and caught about an eight inch wild shiner. What a nice surprise, because big shiners equal big bass! Within 10 minutes of tossing that thing out there Smiley had the Swamp Monster of the day!! In the video you can see the tail of the shiner still moving. That big bass was the climax of our trip thanks to a coincidentally caught shiner. HA HA HA!!

Check out the U-tube video!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYuc5gbqRQ0

UNI TO UNI OR SEAGUAR FOR FLUOROCARBON TO BRAID CONNECTIONS?

 Today I spent about three hours tying knots. Some may say, what a waist of time, but I say what a productive way to spend a rainy morning. I was experimenting with tying a 15 pound test Seaguar fluorocarbon leader to 20 pound test Stren sonic braid. My usual knot for this connection is a uni to uni knot with eight wraps on each end. I put it to the test today and hooked it to a scale to see what the breaking strength was and the max I could get was 11 or 12 pounds, but most of the time the knot broke at around 9 pounds and that’s not acceptable, I needed something stronger. I researched knots online a bit and found the Seaguar knot and decided to test it out. In the Seaguar knot there are three wraps that form the loop and no wrap through the inside of the loop . When tied that way I found it to break at about 8 pounds with the 20 braid to 15 fluorocarbon connection, that surprised me because some of the guys in U tube videos giving instruction on how to tie the knot were claiming it to be close to 100% line strength. Maybe that’s true for the larger diameter lines but not for the 20 braid to 15 fluorocarbon connection. I decided to experiment with different numbers of wraps on each end of the knot and found that three through the first loop and two through the second was the magic number. The breaking strength was consistently 11 to 13 pounds I had no more breaks at 8 and 9 pounds. If I wrapped the line three or more times it was very difficult to tighten the knot down without leaving loops in the finished knot and I found that when I did get one with more wraps tied perfectly the breaking strength was less or the same. Check out some Seaguar knot tying videos online to see what I’m talking about as far as the loops and wraps. I think I’ve pretty much eliminated the Uni to Uni for my 20 braid to 15 fluorocarbon connection. I hope this was informative.

Thanks,

Thadeus

www.gladesbassin.com   

Blog also on fishexplorer.com

Try out new lures and techniques when catch rates are high.

Fish are biting almost everywhere in the glades! We are catching numbers of bass, most are small but lots of fun to catch. When the fish are biting so well like they are right now I enjoy trying out lures and techniques that I might want to add to my main arsenal.

Okeechobee Shiner fishing!

My clients and I met up at Roland Martins in Clewiston on Sunday. I let them know I had some apprehension of how good the fishing would be. Saturday the wind started blowing in from the north at about 20 knots ruining all the areas where I found quality fish, not to mention the drop in temperature and how that could slow the bite. My clients wanted to shiner fish so that took some of the pressure off. I figured we would at least catch 10 or 12 small fish. Well the day turned into a wonderful six hours of fish catching fun!! We fished one of the dynamite holes on the south end of the lake and caught Bass after Bass, six of which were over four pounds with the biggest weighting in at about five and a half pounds. We must have caught twenty five or more bass!! What a great day! We didn't get any of the eight pound plus giants Okeechobee is known for but who can complain about catching four and five pound fish. I want to thank Bill and Ben for fishing with me. Below is a photo of their two biggest fish.

www.gladesbassin.com

THE FISHING IS HEATING UP!!

I'm back on the water and catching fish. Steven Burton and I fished in the Glades today and found a ton of bedding bass! The bite was slow starting out, but about two hours into our day we hit the jackpot. We found a stretch of canal loaded with beds. Unfortunately the big females haven't moved up yet, but we had a great time catching numerous fat males. They were stuffed with grass shrimp. Within the next week or so I predict the fishing to be amazing.