Lake Okeechobee help needed

[RangerAndBass]

Hi all!
My brother bought a used Ranger on Ebay which he will be hauling back home to Canada but before he does we want to fish Okeechobee!   
We will be going out of Clewiston.
Any help on areas near Clewiston would be great. We will want to test the boat out a little but not knowing the water we won't get too adventurous. Also we won't fish live bait so any thoughts on how deep the bass might be or the type of structure or what they may be likely to be biting would be great.
What about fishing the channels around Clewiston, is that any good this time of year?
I promise to post our results with pictures after!
Thanks for your help!
CB

[Nowsker]

Okee is hot right now to say the least so if you can get out, do it! You need to be careful where you run because the lake is pretty shallow wherever you go. Make sure you ask the locals where you are launching from where it safe to run. I am not a local expert but I can fill you in a little on whats been going on out there. The west side is the side to fish for the big fish. A local told me the Harney Pond area is just ridiculous for big fish right now. They are fishing topwater frogs and Reaction Innovation Trixie Sticks? in green something or other. We had our North Tampa Bass Club tournament this past weekend out of Okeechobee on the North side and everyone caught a ton of fish. We made a short run to the south side of Kings bar and fished the cuts and did pretty well. Used t-rigged trick worms for smaller fish and flipped and frogged for the bigger fish. Flipping baits in black and blue have been hot. Don't be afraid to fish in 2 feet of water, they are there! You just need to drop the trolling motor and fish and when you find them, hammer em! We could drop the power poles and catch 10-15 apiece on one grass patch before pulling the poles up. They are bunched up bigtime! Hope this helps! PM me if you need more info.

[kidd]

Trixie Sharks. Also swimbaits in the grass are killing them too. Find grass and you'll probably find fish but please stay out of the monkey box area because that's where I am and I'm hammering em flipping 1 oz anything

[RangerAndBass]

Thanks for all the great advice guys. We went, we had a great time.

We ended up launching at Roland Martins. We ran the Rim ditch. We got to test out the top speed of his boat (or at least as close as we wanted to get!). We turned out in to the lake & fished along some grass throwing senkos, swimbaits, rattletraps & flukes. The tall "buggy whip" grass was better but clear water over low weed was where the biggest were roaming! We caught about 10 fish in 2 hours, but in hind sight we wasted time fishing cloudy water, when one of the guys had told me to look for clear water. That was where we caught most of the fish.  We fished the Rim Ditch too but didn't have as much luck there. There were a ton of Gators & Gar Pike in the water. I even caught a bowfin!
Here is the best...

[kidd]

That's a big girl!