Bass fishing fit for these Kings
There are plenty of fish to be caught in Lake Okeechobee
BELLE GLADE— If you can handle the heat and avoid the thunderstorms, there are plenty of quality bass to be caught at Lake Okeechobee.
Bob Gallik and Jeff Peterson knowthat better than most.
On Monday, the twomen caught bass up to 6 pounds, 11ounces, throwing a variety of lures.
The fishing was getting better as the sunny blue skies gaveway to storms that moved in slowly, but when lightning started flashing in the distance, Gallik ran through the rain to safely get back to the boat ramps at Torrey Island.
“A lot of times the fish will be out roaming in the morning but they’ll set up in the grass more later,” said Gallik, who fished an area with peppergrass, Kissimmee grass, bulrushes and cleanwater.
“It’s nice and clear back up in here and that’s what we look for more than anything on Okeechobee. Clearwater.”
Gallik usually likes to start fishing with a Crazy Shad topwater plug, which produced several fish. He had the most success on a watermelon red Zoom Speed Worm, which he swam on or just belowthe surface until a bass would follow it, then he’d drop it and wait for the fish to pick it up.
Peterson caught the 6-11 on a stickworm thatwas picked up by the bass as the lure sank. He also caught fish on a big plastic worm and swimbaits.
The area they fished had been very good to Gallik and Peterson.
Fishing the King of the Glades Open Team Trail for the first time, they finished second while fishing in that spot in the trail’s Wild Card tournament in May to secure a berth in the season-ending Classic.
Twoweeks later in the same spot, they became the Kings of the Glades with a Classic victory, catching a five-fish limit weighing 26.28 pounds to win the title by .26 pounds.
They had figured the area would be good because it had been productive when the water was at the same lowlevel three years ago.
“We found fish in the Wild Card that nobody else was on thatwe had found years ago the last time the lake was low,” said Gallik, a retired Publix manager who lives in Delray Beach.
“Wewere fishing in half a foot to a foot ofwater,” added Peterson, of West Palm Beach, who works for Palm Beach County.
Both men a remembers of the Everglades Bassmasters of South Florida. Peterson is in his fourth year with the club, and Gallik has been a member for 30 years.
They had fished a couple of club tournaments together and done well. While at a club meeting, Peterson, who had fished commercially for kingfish with his father before switching to bass fishing, asked Gallik if hewanted to fish together in South Florida’s most competitive and prestigious bass trail.
“We got excited about it, I can tell you that much,” Gallik said. “I changed my whole strategy of fishing.
“When I’m in the club it’s all about five fish, getting a limit. Whenwewere doing the King of the Glades, itwas all about five big fish. We knew we had to catch a big bag, because the guys we were fishing against were that good.”
It took patience and fortitude for Gallik and Peterson to get their big limit in the Classic.
“We had 11 pounds by11 o’clock,” said Peterson of their five biggest fish at the time. “Then all of a sudden an 8-pounder hit.”
And the hits kept coming.
“Then a big storm came through, andwe could barely hold on,” Peterson said.“We said, ‘Should we go in for safety or rough it out?’ We roughed it out and as it started to pass, we caught a 7 and a half. That right there kind of got our hope up.”
“As the day progressed, we just kept on getting better and better weights,” Gallik said. “Jeff and Iwere both, ‘We gotta dowell, we gotta dowell, wewant to have a showing.’ We’ve been ‘just fishermen’ long enough.”
Now, they are royalty.