redboat

I haven't posted on this thread in a long while; I missed posting last year and so thought I'd update it. Fishing on TB last year was much better than in recent years; looked like we had a good spawn. Overall still not nearly as good as 2011-2013 when TB probably WAS the best bass lake in the country, but still not terrible. I am hopeful 2021 will be a better year. SRA sucked the lake down in October; I got my boat off the lift just before the water got too low to use my launch. They kept it down all winter but have been slowly letting it up. I launched again last week; the level is now just barely usable (for me; I don't like to bang the boat up). Water temp was about 47-48 degrees. I found one spot where it was 50 degrees and caught a nice three pounder but otherwise fishing as reported by many folks has been very slow. Some hydrilla and coontail coming back in isolated coves but for the most part there is still no vegetation. I haven't heard of a planned repeat of the 2017 Great Vegetation Kill Off and so hopefully weeds will return in another ten or fifteen years. Some cautions if you're planning on fishing TB in the near future: 1) Floaters: Laura knocked down a lot of trees and shortly after SRA started sucking the lake down. A neighbor and I pulled a half dozen floaters out of United Bay - twenty - thirty foot trees. When the water starts to come up some of those downed trees will become floaters and some will wind up right smack in the middle of boat lanes and many times YOU CANT SEE THEM until you're right on top of them. So be careful! 2) Stumps: I high centered on a stump off a boat lane in a clear area 200 yards from shore. Luckily I was going like, 2 mph or it would have hit the lower unit square on. Current lake level just covers a lot of trees/stumps so if you're off a boat lane go slow! And in the lanes stay upwind of the lane markers but close to them. Good luck and good fishing!

As a matter of fact I do. Put ten thousand boats on even as big a lake as TB and yes, it'll all get fished. Many times over. And if you think this huge lake cant get fished out, look at the much MUCH larger oceans which have been overfished in many areas. TB ain't a drop in the bucket next to that! Anyway, I can see this is getting nowhere. The solution may be the recent drawdown which will probably keep some people off the lake. And maybe some grass can grow around areas that are currently dry but will be flooded when the lake comes back up. Until then I wish you well fishing those 1,264 miles of shoreline and bagging 200 fish every trip. Let me know if Santa does a flyover.

Did you catch all 200 on the same spot? Look, apologies if this sounds like I'm maligning you but anyone who fishes TB regularly knows the lake is way off from when it really WAS a great fishery. Rather than trying to insist nothing's changed or make wild claims about numbers I think it would be more productive to talk about things that could be done to bring TB back to what it once was. Some suggestions: 1) Get SRA to agree to hold the level to 170 MSL plus or minus two feet, during the spawn. I recently interviewed one of their senior Engineers, and yes, they can do that. Enough letting it down ten feet to fix the dam then back up another ten the next week, that ruins the spawn; 2) While we're at it, how about no fishing during the spawn for a couple of years, to give the bass time to rebuild? We had the same effect during the drought when almost all the launches were closed and nobody was fishing; that's why the years 2012 - 2013 immediately after the drought were spectacular; 3) How about developing a killer for Salvinia that wouldn't kill every form of vegetation EXCEPT Salvinia? That might be nice; 4) How about replanting some of the Hydrilla beds, like the area around Carrice? Several acres of Hydrilla were wiped out a couple of years ago by the Salvinia spraying, causing one of the best spots on TB to go to zero. I'm certain other folks will have other suggestions. Lets see what we can work together to do to bring Toledo Bend back.

Think so? So Catt: Caught any lately?

This is a great site; I've found the articles and videos to be insightful and generally very helpful. That said, statements like this are the reason I seldom read the boards. So: 200 fish in one day, assuming you fished constantly for ten hours, say (probably not realistic) you would have had to average 20 bass an hour or about one fish every five minutes. Not anywhere nearly realistic. Of course you COULD have been fishing a five hook Alabama rig and pulling multiple fish with every cast - or possibly you were referring to seining minnows? Or maybe there were 20 guys in the boat, and you each caught one an hour?

I'm seriously considering it. I live on Toledo Bend lake, used to be great fishing but at my current pace if I keep going two or three times a week I'll be lucky to catch five keepers this year. Sad, but they just HAD to kill the Salvinia.

I haven't seen any reports on the estimated number of bass in TB now compared to 2012-2014, when fishing was good; I don't even know if such a thing exists. It'd be interesting to see, but I'll bet the current population is way down. Like, 90% down.

I love Toledo Bend lake so much that my wife and I bought a house on the lake. Beautiful lake, pelicans, eagles, gators, deer. We have a red fox who runs through the back yard every day or two. We decided on this lake after fishing a lot of other lakes, and we did fairly well on TB. Caught a couple of six pounders, several fives, and a lot of two, three, and four pounders. But all that ended around 2015 when the fishing dried up, and things have been getting steadily worse year after year. I go two or three times a week and am currently in the five fish a year club. The last bass I caught was a two pounder the first week of May. And so it finally dawned on me - I've been doing it all wrong, I need to change tactics! Instead of fishing Carolina and Texas rigged plastics, spinner baits, jigs, and crankbaits around main and secondary points, humps, and stumps I've decided to switch to a new pattern. My back porch is about 150 feet from the lake. If I sit on it and throw a one ounce practice plug down the driveway I can get to within about 50 or 75 feet of the water, and catch just as many fish as before! And, this pattern has other advantages: * I can legally drink beer while I fish * I don't need a sixty thousand dollar bass boat, a six dollar lawn chair works just as well * I use a lot less gas (but produce more) * If I get hung up I can just walk down and free it by hand * I can yell 'Fish on!!!' from time to time just to watch the neighbors reactions * I probably wont get a hook stuck in my thumb Of course the wife can find me for 'honeydo's', but I've learned to fake being sound asleep so I can avoid most of that. Anyway, I'll keep everyone posted on my progress, I'm hoping for a double digit bass!

Yeah, that's about the response I expected. No its not a joke; fishing on TB is terrible and has been for a couple of years. It was chosen #1 two years running but that was probably about two years behind - in 2013 TB probably WAS the number one bass lake in the country. Anyway, you guys have fun with your fifty bass a day. I'll wait for - and hope for - Toledo Bend to one day again become a premier fishing lake. Maybe next year. Oh yeah - no the Salvinia isn't totally gone; its still in the mid and north parts of the lake. So it'll be back all over the lake again in another year or two.

Wife and I bought a house on Toledo Bend lake a few years back. Fishing was awesome in spring of 2013, but each year since it's gotten worse. Two years ago the SRA sprayed the lake to kill giant Salvinia which they mostly did but in the process they killed all the hydrilla, lilly pads, and every other kind of grass. Then TB was anointed as "the number one bass fishing lake in the US" (it wasn't even close). That drew in about 10,000 boats every weekend. They cleaned out all the spawning beds and every remaining fish over a half pound. Finally this year the lake was way down for months, then flooding rains brought it up about eight feet in two weeks. The generators are running and the gates are open but it still hasn't gone down much. As a result the top half of the lake looks like chocolate milk and water temp is about 62 degrees. I talked with a guy who fished a tournament here last weekend. He told me that they had 43 boats; caught a total of 31 fish in two days. I didn't ask him what the total weight was: 31 pounds maybe... Anyway I know this will probably draw a lot of posts from guys who will swear they're catching a boatload of five pounders every day but based on my experience and the folks I talk with nobody's catching much of anything. I go out two or three times a week - its a nice boat ride - but I doubt if I'll catch more than four or five keepers this year. Maybe next year it'll come back. That's what my neighbors and I tell each other. Maybe next year.

Yeah I thought of that. I have to run as much up trim as possible regardless of prop height. If I drop it even a little RPM and top speed both drop.

I bought my second Triton last year, a TRX 20 Patriot with a 25p Rage prop. I'd heard that Triton had fixed the chine walking issue - my 196 would chine walk above 68 but I could get 70 GPS max and the chine walking was controllable. After break in I got 74 MPH with the new boat but RPM was only about 5500. I had a Hydro Dynamics jack plate installed and had the prop blueprinted and balanced (doing these things to my 196 got me about 5 MPH more top speed). I started with the prop 3 1/2 inches below pad and raised it 1/4 inch at a time. The best top speed I've gotten since the prop and jack plate mods has been 72 and at that speed it is VERY squirrely. Chine walking begins around 68 and is almost uncontrollable above 70. Higher than 3 1/4 inch above pad and it blows out badly on hole shot. In all cases maximum up trim is required in order to obtain best top speed. Trimming down even a little causes both speed and RPM to drop dramatically. I've settled on 3 1/4 inches below pad. I get a decent hole shot and can do 65-66 before it starts chine walking. This is not a driver issue, I have 12 years in my older Triton and a year in this one. I think the issue is the Triton hull just isn't designed to go more than 65 or 66. Push it past that and it fights back. One comment: I did notice with my older rig I usually blew past the "80 mph" boats at around 65 or 66. I don't know if these guys were getting their MPH readings from the onboard speedo but they sure weren't doing 75 or 80.

I have one word for you: SNAKE!!!

Lol, just kiddin!

Trade your Merc in on a Yamaha - THAT'LL slow you down!