4-1-11 Fishing on Lake Okeechobee, Florida with Bill Campbell

I first saw Bill (this trip) at the "Frozen in Fire: Crystalline Waves" activities in Dunedin, Florida. Afterwards Bill went to the air show in Lakeland and I went to Tampa for NCECA and the What's New in Crystalline Glazes panel discussion.  A tornado blew through Lakeland and caused millions of dollars worth of damage to aircraft and facilities while Bill was there (in one of the hangers).

We drove from Tampa to Clewiston, Florida Friday morning in Bill's "new" Mercedes. What a  nice ride! We got in an afternoon's fishing with Capt. Mike Balon and stayed at Roland Martin's Resort.

     
  http://www.rolandmartinmarina.com http://balonsproguideservice.com/  Mike has a real nice boat. 
       
Bill wasted no time pulling them in.

I was hoping for a bass with a big fat gut bigger and fatter than mine. 

The Birdman of Okeechobee was plagued by birds going for his bait. This tern was wrapped in his line and was all about getting away. You should have seen Bill scramble to set the thing free.

Mike's boat was great. Nice clean carpeting made fishing in just shorts a pleasure. I did a pretty good job applying sunscreen except to my back where all the spots I missed got fried.
Bill turned out to be as good an aloe sprayer as he is ceramics glazer.

     
  Saturday  morning  ......  out at the crack of dawn. Fishing in 2 ft. of water. We probably pulled in 30 to 40 fish between us in 1 1/2 days fishing.  
       
       

We broke for lunch and went back out in the afternoon. Clewiston is along the inter-coastal waterway and there were some pretty good size boats going through. 

     
 

$1,031.09 towards filling up somebody's boat.

Peacock Bass the owner caught in Brazil. 
       

This iguana was sunning itself when we went back out. 

We caught largemouth bass, catfish and a pickerel. 

This cormorant Bill got was all about getting away until it turned on Mike and tried to take a chunk out of his arm. 

The pelicans wanted to get in the act too.

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