Dave Lefebre Blog – Big O Bummer

What a stupid way to open the season, a big fat 102nd! I kind of felt like Florida was going to bite me one of these years and she definitely chewed me up and spit me out this go around. I feel sick; Okeechobee has been so good to me over the years. I guess I was starting to take this place for granted.

I usually kick off the year with a solid finish here and it’s always been a lot of fun in the process too. This time was not much different in the fun department, but I just couldn’t get a big bite to save my life. I caught well over 50 keepers per day and only had one big one get off, it was a 6-7 lber on day two. It bit close to the boat and in fairly open water but it just came unbuttoned. A camera boat was on me at the time, one single moment in 16 hours of fishing cost me $10,000 and at least a pulse going into event #2 next month…Oh well!

Dave Lefebre Awaiting Okeechobee Takeoff

Now we are packing everything up and getting ready to start the trek north. It takes us a couple of hours to get everything ready to travel, the trailer and boat. My friend, Lackie, took my boat to Birmingham to drop off at a friend’s house, and Anne and I will be driving the 5th wheel trailer to Knoxville and leaving it at another friends house there; stuff scattered all over the place, lol. With all the snow and ice near home, we just can’t afford to take a chance on towing everything up there. We’ll all head home together from Knoxville in the diesel for a week before flying to Tulsa for the Bassmaster Classic on Grand Lake. I’ll be doing seminars all weekend there along with legends, Bill Dance, Davey Hite, and my good friend Jimmy Houston. After all these years I’ve never had the honor of meeting Mr. Dance, I’m really looking forward to that chance in a couple weeks. I’ll be part of introducing a brand new line of baits by Rapala… can’t wait!

Other than my horrible finish, the family had a great week in the Sunshine State. The kids got to swim everyday, which they love, and we all got to hang out with friends we haven’t seen in a long time. We all wish we could stay down here a little longer, but we have to get the kiddies back to school. With the relaxed FLW Tour schedule this season, the kids were allowed to take a few weeks off from school and stay in class this year as opposed to Anne home-schooling them… so far so good!

Well, I’m off to do a photo shoot for another article and then to the FLW Expo to work, if you can call it that. Look for my FLW Tour ReCap blog from the Big O on flwoutdoors.com soon, where I will whine and make excuses for my disastrous start to the Tour season!

If you just can’t wait, I’ll do some of that on my Facebook page – follow me there