bachelorpads

I usually make a trip to the bend around this time of year and also noticed the talk of "bluelake". Is this just someone trying to push people to the north or is that section of the lake doing well this year? Just curious as during my previous visits i hadn't seen this area as being a "hotspot".

We start fishing the 8th, so i look forward to any report you have!

question about the current scenario playing out at the bend. I am sure that a lot of you have some experience with this and i am looking for some theories. The Bend got a lot of rain and it seems to be coming up pretty quick. Based on the forecast i have to figure that this will continue for a bit. What would one expect bass to do when they are in spawn/prespawn when the water level starts to rise? will fish already building beds stay put? Putting them a touch deeper? Will this slow the spawn for others? speed it up? Will bass just pulling up to spawn build nests in the newly flooded area or still lean towards the "original" water level? Basically, what do you expect to change when water level is rising during spawn/prespawn periods? I am just curious as i dont fish many lakes that see this kind of change enough to have a theory. Thanks

Ya, it is quiet.....I am heading from nebraska to spend a few days in the area so i look for new posts multiple times a day. I am itching to see liquid water. I will be fishing march 8th to the 10th. Hoping i get a nice stable warming trend starting the 5th. It does look like the bite has been picking up a bit though from the reports i am seeing.

I was there in January, Anglers inn. I don't worry about the danger part of it as i have heard it all and seen things during the transportation that makes one wonder about how good of an idea it is. But the actual camps seems quite safe the couple times i have been there. As for the fishing, i have caught my 4 biggest bass in my life out of anglers inn on 2 trips. Heck, last trip down we pulled an 8.5, 8, 7, 6.5, and 6 in one day which = 36lbs and definitely is my best big fish day. A lot of people go there chasing the infamous double digit and i am sure they are there but they don't just jump in the boat. I would say catching an 8 should make a guy happy. Make sure when you go you have enough watermelon senkos with red flecks. I prefer to avoid plastics fishing when i can but if you just want to put them in the boat....thats the bait. Bring your own rods.....Don't take an untested weapon into battle.

The closest i have seen is the dragonfly which still requires a base unit instead of just a usb or similar tranducer direct to a device using software. I have researched and found a few solutions but none of them are even close to polished or work anywhere near as well as I would expect. I have seen some that go for 10s of thousands of dollars for large commercial/yachts but nothing that is anything other then screen replication like the dragonfly does for fishing purposes.

I don't have any complaints about the ray marine dragonfly unit, but i would opt for something with side imaging as stated previously. I would have a tough time spending more then 500 on one now adays as....see below. I am currently confused by most boat technology. I don't understand why i can't integrate the sonar directly to my windows/android/mac and get the display on a reasonable screen i already own. Software updates could significantly update functionality. Screens would be bigger and much better quality. Time to market for these manufacturers would be drastically reduced and one could easily make just as much money with subscriptions as they do with hardware sales. basically unlimited storage of locations and paths. Cloud functionality. integration with publicly acceptable software like google maps. I see units for 4k+ now and it just makes me laugh. I can get a couple surface pros for that and use them on and off the boat. Or go the android path and just treat them like disposable units.

Hey Everybody. I fished the Bend with 2 buddies April 1-3rd. Rain and all. It was definitely slower then i expected......but when you walk away having caught the biggest and 3rd biggest bass you have ever witnessed in the continental US that says something. We talked to a ton of locals that had been doing really well a couple weeks ago and most of them were really working to get anything going. Seems to me like the fish were moved quite a ways off the bank, where most bass men like to play, or there was a general case of lock jaw. It was still a great time, and fishing next to a bunch of Pro's and guides that were having a hell of a tough time made it even more interesting. Things i took note of that seemed worth explicitly stating. Toledo bend is definitely the most dangerous boating lake i have ever personally witnessed. Don't think ripping around this lake in a fiberglass boat is just "ok". The stump fields are awe inspiring. I ran into people that had destroyed lower units more then once. Take note...if you aren't in a boating lane, pay attention and don't hurry. The comments stating "there is no grass" is kind of insane to me. There is grass EVERYWHERE. Since this was my first visit to the lake I guess it could have been more insane at one point. I expect that there was more before last years flooding and it will take a couple years to fully recover. I see these cycles in lakes all the time but the comment that the grass is gone is definitely incorrect. I found some stats from the biologists that deal with the bend a few weeks ago that took into account the total bass population determined via sampling and the total percentage of fish that encounter fisherman. It was like .15% or something insanely low. So all these discussions of people fishing out the lake because they eat bass or there are too many fisherman are really kind of ignorant. The only scientific information i could find indicated that fisherman were incapable of harming this particular body of water. All the people that have a tough time fishing need something to blame besides their own poor fishing. It is sad but it is just the way it is. People are unable to own up to their own failings so blame someone, or everyone else, for doing some percieved injustice in the name of the "moral right". "you killed a bass, you are bad" is this same line of percieved moral high ground. I loved the Bend and it kicked my a***. I will be back soon and hope all the locals and visitors keep following the rules of the biologists that use science to make rules, instead of a bad week of fishing. People were great there. Thanks for the great time.

So what happens when the Bend gets hit by 2+ inches of rain in a day? how much does the water level rise? Any tidbits people have picked up around what happens to the fish after an event like this? I will report back with my results.

I will have a report on how the spro / equivalent works next week. I am a spro junkie and am unable to stop myself from using it as my primary....i start fishing this sunday and will have a report by end of next week.

Thanks everyone for the help so far. Does anyone ever use live shad for bass fishing? Like a cast net and throw that little 1st year shad on a drop shot? I have done this many other times elsewhere but i cant even seem to find reports of anyone doing it at the bend and it just seems surprising to me all things considered.

Hopefully this hasn't been answered as i have read this amazingly long thread a couple times now and don't recall it. I am staying at the fin & feather starting April 1st, I plan to be out on the lake and at the fishing spots at first light and was wondering if i will be making my own breakfast or if anything is open before 6am around there?

I will start with THANK YOU ALL FOR THIS FANTASTIC THREAD! There is so much info in here that spans multiple years that i find it amazing. One of the best single lake dedicated threads on any board i have ever read. I figure it is about time.....to finally give the bend a try. I am setting up a trip from Omaha, Nebraska to Toledo Bend the last few days in March into the first few days of April. This is the 3rd bass trip in what i am calling my "tour of the best bass lakes i can find". First i hit El Salto down in Mexico. Then Mille Lacs to chase around the smallies. The next target is the Bend. The list is fairly long but if i hit 3 a year.....well i am sure i will die before i finish the list. Considering i will definitely hit the first 2 again soon, you get the point. Right now it is a group of 3. ~40yrs old. All capable fisherman. We are waffling on the plan as it is still coming together here. But how bad will the weekend before Bassmasters be? I expect a basic level of insanity. I would like to stay as close to the area i will be most likely to fish and that seems to be the south west corner of the lake. Any recomendations are welcome. I can't imagine that there will still be a guide available on the dates i am looking at but i have found that if i can get a guide to give me a run down of a lake for a day that i can usually hold my own from then on. As in i can usually find a way to mimic the necessary baits or concepts in other areas of a lake. I will definitely check with some guides for the dates so any recommended guides would be great....or one of you great folks that have nothing to do but show 3 guys from nebraska some tips...hey, whatever works. I expect the easiest way for me to ask is just a list. -Recommendations for a place to stay? -It would be nice if we could get a decent meal each night so a few good places to eat? -Guides that would be able to teach, We have all our own gear, No need for tying our hooks, no need to take off our fish, but would like someone personable. Again, i know this is a long shot for the week I am looking at but it never hurts to ask. -Anything you want to tell someone that is effectively a Bend newbie that reads way too much on the internet and is staring at a high res map of this behemoth of a lake on a 50 inch 4k monitor and it still doesn't seem big enough. HAHA. Thanks guys....great thread