Okeechobee FLW Tour Open

Jay Yelas – Day 2
Friday, February 4, 2011

> Day 1: 5, 21-07
> Day 2: 5, 19-06
> Total = 10, 40-13 (37th)

I had fun down here – it's so much fun out there right now and it was a very enjoyable week. But I made a mistake in practice. I didn't find enough of the right stuff to really compete for the win. As I look back, that's where I goofed up. I found some good water, but it was like finding needles in a haystack. It takes forever to troll around and look, especially when you have to troll through miles and miles of reeds and bullrushes. The fish are all back in that stuff and I never found a real honeyhole.

First and 2nd place are sharing a spot – that's an awesome school of bass. I didn't have anything like that. I saw a 35-pound limit today, but they just never would lock on the beds for me. And I might have been a little bit rusty with my sight-fishing. I think I left a little bit on the table as far as that goes. I caught everything that was locked on, but some of the fish that weren't locked on I could have caught using a little better technique and presentation.

I caught all my weigh-fish, which were bed-fish, on Berkley Power tubes and Power lizards. I caught a lot of fish on spinnerbaits this week, but I never weighed one of those.

A friend of ours tried to get into the tournament at the last minute. He never did, but he came and pre-fished and he was just out there fishing the last couple of days and was catching 30 pounds and never had another tournament boat around him. It's such a massive lake, there's no telling how many schools never got found. It's just unbelievable. It could be the best lake in the country right now.

Jay Yelas – Day 1
Thursday, February 3, 2011

> Day 1: 5, 21-07 (34th)

I had a good day of fishing today. I caught one big one on a bed but just didn't find any more giants. We caught so many bass today. I don't know if I've ever caught as many fish in a tournament as I did today, or at least in recent memory. I caught probably close to 100 bass today. Maybe 70 of those were less than a pound and a half, but this lake's just fishing really good. The FLW folks said they've been coming here since 1983 and this was the best weigh-in they've had. It's pretty impressive, really.

But I was real disappointed when I came to the weigh-in and saw how poorly I'd done compared to the rest of the field. But there's a lot of big ones out there and several more days of fishing. It'll be whoever stumbles upon those big 7- and 8-pounders. That's the ticket.

Today was all sight-fishing for me for the most part. You can catch zillions on a spinnerbait or Horny Toad or swim-worm or whatever you want, but those bigger bedding fish are what you need. The flipping bite was non-existent – my flipping stick was the only thing I didn't catch a fish on. It was just a lot of fun. They've got 6 inches of snow in Birmingham. If you like to bass fish, this is the place to be right now.

Jay Yelas – Practice
Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Okeechobee's a great place to be this time of year with the weather and the fishing. You can't catch fish like you can here anywhere else in the country. You get lots and lots of bites each day and the weather's been in the upper-70s. It's been a delight.

I think it sets up to be an interesting tournament. They weren't on the beds very strong at all in practice, but they started moving up. We're on a warming trend and it was really hot today – 80 degrees. I think the fish are kind of in the middle of the spawn. It started a month ago, so I don't expect any big waves tomorrow, but I think there'll be enough fish to where a guy can compete and maybe catch a big load.

But I do think it's too much in the middle of the spawn for the tournament to be won sight-fishing. I think it'll be won on a blend of different techniques, like some flipping and some sight-fishing. There's also a lot of fish out that you can catch on a Rat-L-Trap, but I didn't get to do that enough to really determine how big a stringer you can catch out there.

Really, it's typical Okeechobee and you can catch them any way you want to catch them. The best way, historically, is to sight-fish and flip, and I'll lean on both those techniques tomorrow. It's going to be a fun day. I've got a 5:00 weigh-in so there's no excuses. I fish 7 to 5, and that's a good, long day on Okeechobee.

It feels good to be back in the swing of things. I had a long off-season. I've been catching a lot of steelhead, but it's kind of fun to get back in the saddle again, and get back into the tournament scene.

The one thing is, I've always been a terrible starter my whole career. I think the last time I made any money in the first tournament was like 10 years ago. So it would be a moral victory for me to have a strong showing in this tournament.