OKEECHOBEE, Fla. — Tyler Rivet was more interested in filling his belly than scouting for bass during practice for the SiteOne Bassmaster Elite at Lake Okeechobee. Rather than mix it up on the main lake with other Elite Series anglers during miserable fishing conditions earlier this week, Rivet ran up the Kissimmee River to catch some crappie, i.e. sac-a-lait, if you’re a Louisiana native like Rivet.
“I was just getting out of the wind and trying to catch some sac-a-lait,” said the 28-year-old from Raceland, La. “I caught about 20-something and a 6-pounder and a 4-pounder (bass). That kind of showed me that bass were there too.”
Rivet weighed bass limits of 24 pounds, 5 ounces on Day 1 and 29-1 on Day 2. His two-day total of 53-7 has him only 2-1 behind Day 2 leader Brandon Cobb. Oh, and he’s still catching crappie too. Rivet said he’s going to talk to tournament director Lisa Talmage and see if it’s legal for him to put a cooler for crappie in his boat Saturday.
“I threw back too many today that I wanted to keep on ice,” he said. “It was killing me.”
Rivet’s strengths are punching and frogging, exactly what you’d expect him to be doing in the abundant vegetation of Lake Okeechobee. Yet here he is looking at his forward-facing sonar in the river channel throwing a medium-diving jerkbait and occasionally a Carolina rig.
“It’s a hard spot on the bottom,” he said of his main area. “They’re just staging there, waiting to spawn. It comes in waves. They’re just coming in and coming out of that spot.”
He said he’s got two other similar places where he’s caught bass (and crappie), adding, “I could literally go down the whole river and do this. It’s all about sitting there and being patient with it. There’s a ton of fish there. It’s just getting one to bite”
“I figured it out today. They come in waves. You catch one or two, and they stop biting. Then I’d pick up a Carolina rig and catch one or two. Then I can pick up the jerkbait again and start catching them.”
In January, before Okeechobee went off-limits, Rivet spent only about a day and a half pre-fishing when he got word that his 89-year-old grandmother, Maifred “Mammaw” Killen was sick. He was able to drive through the night and get home before she died. Rivet has a gardenia blossom on the right shoulder of his tournament jersey in memory of his grandmother. It was her favorite flower. Rivet enjoyed working in her garden and shopping for her groceries. She would make him a list every week, he said, and she was very particular. Rivet has her last grocery list framed on his wall at home.
If Rivet were to win this tournament, it would seem that some power greater than himself is working on his behalf. How else do you explain why a Louisiana grass-punching, frog-throwing shallow water angler is in the Kissimmee River looking at his sonar while casting a jerkbait and a Carolina rig?
