Digh Looking For Bigger Bass In Costa Flw Series Southeastern Division Tournament
The Lake Okeechobee bass are biting, which is good news for anglers in the Costa FLW Series Southeastern Division tournament Thursday through Saturday. The bad news, however, said veteran pro Rob Digh of Denver, N.C., the bass he is catching are not the right size.
“I’ve been catching a lot of fish in practice, just not big fish,” said Digh. “Some of my buddies are catching big fish, but I’ve just not found them yet.”
The big fish are there and, as of last weekend, they were eager, but a cold front this week has things out of whack for some anglers.
This past weekend George Kapiton of Inverness, Fla., won the first FLW Bass Fishing League event of the season on Okeechobee with a massive 31-pound limit, while Okeechobee veteran Mike Surman came in second with just shy of 29 pounds. Five other limits topped 20 pounds.
“There are a lot of beds – and a lot of buck bass,” Digh said. “I think the first wave of females has come up and what is left on the beds is mostly bucks. The other females are out on the outside edge of the grass and kind of wandering around.”
Before the cold front, Digh said the fish were biting “pretty much everything – a lot of plastic and swim baits. We were catching some on a frog and a Bang-O-Lure, but the cold front killed the topwater bite today. They have not hit a lot of moving baits since the front came in.”
All of the fish he is catching are pretty shallow, he said, and they are buried in the heavy vegetation.
“Most of the fish I’ve caught have been by flipping and you’ve got to have a really stiff rod to get them out, even the 2- to 3-pounders that I have been catching. You need 55-pound braid line and a stiff 7 ½-foot rod. They just take you to lunch when you hook one.”
A full roster of 250 pros and as many co-anglers is ready to get the season rolling. The field of 250 boats will tie the record set last season for the largest FLW Series field of all-time. All anglers in the field will fish the first two days on Thursday and Friday, with the top 10 pros and co-anglers advancing to Saturday’s final round. Heaviest cumulative three-day weight wins.
The Costa FLW Series – formerly the Rayovac Series – consists of five divisions: Central, Northern, Southeastern, Southwestern and Western. Each division consists of three tournaments with competitors vying for valuable points that could earn them the opportunity to fish in the Costa FLW Series Championship. The 2016 Costa FLW Series Championship will be held Nov. 3-5 on Table Rock Lake in Branson, Mo.
Costa FLW Series – Southeastern Division
Jan 14-16, 2016
Lake Okeechobee
C Scott Driver Park
