So Yall Want To Learn Toledo Bend?

[Catt]

tmac, welcome

[zefman78]

Catt, we caught four one or two pound bass and 5 or 6 two or three pound strppers in slaughter... Strippers on the flats and large mouth pulling spinner baits out of buckbrush and visible grass on the banks

[tmac521]

Thanks Catt, sure have enjoyed reading your posts. I usually fish in the Housen creek when I fish Toledo. I don't know it real well but have been concentrating on it with every trip. I plan to be there after the 1st with my wife for a few days. Am hoping for good weather as she is mostly a fair weather person. I never fished the South bank as it never looked promising so that shows I still have some learning to do about this creek.

Thanks again for the welcome.

[zefman78]

Tmac, welcome! I'm a newbie here also and i have to wait till the afternoon til she wants to come out but glad she does!

There were three contours where i was fishing. A 10 to 20ft ledge, a 20 to 50 ft ledge, and a 50 to 70ft ledge. All crank bites came on the top of the 20ft ledge and I was fishing a dt22 bluegill. All of those fish were the smaller fish of the morning. All bigger fish were at The bottom of the 20-50ft ledge on a t-rig. Almost all those bites came on the first nudge after dragging if off 20ft, finally reaching 50ft.

[zefman78]

Tmac, welcome! I'm a newbie here also and i have to wait till the afternoon til she wants to come out but glad she does!

There were three contours where i was fishing. A 10 to 20ft ledge, a 20 to 50 ft ledge, and a 50 to 70ft ledge. All crank bites came on the top of the 20ft ledge and I was fishing a dt22 bluegill. All of those fish were the smaller fish of the morning. All bigger fish were at The bottom of the 20-50ft ledge on a t-rig. Almost all those bites came on the first nudge after dragging if off 20ft, finally reaching 50ft.

[jcdogfish]

Welcome folks.  I guess we will get winter in Feb-March.  No problem, unless they start holding in the 70-80 foot ledges.  I ain't got that much line on my reels.

[Catt]

tmac I've won tournaments fishing the first cove east of Fin-n-Feather to the marina at night.

I have a friend who launches at F-N-F heads west throwing nothing but a white spinnerbait, he will fish all the way to the pipeline & back,

You can do well fishing east from Fox's cove to the Housen Pass Coves, the boat lane just past Fox's has 2 humps in the middle of the boat lane.

[shaneus]

hey guys im still working lots of over time and hadnt got to fish much, i created a facebook page for current fishing reports and pictures today so go like and join toledo bend / sam rayburn fishing reports. i have three days off monday-wed this coming week! i will report back to yall! on here and face book

[tmac521]

Thanks Catt I will check out those areas and for sure if there is a South wind blowing. Will report back on my trip.

[wagonwheel]

I apologize for my late report. I launched at Fin & Feather about 2 pm Tuesday and fished the little island at the entrance to Hurricane then ventured on into Hurricane.  I had no bites at the island but lost two in the grass on the West side of Hurricane.  One on a black worm with blue tail shaky head, and the other on a weightless Grande Bass blue flake Snake O.  I never could locate the submerged road going across Hurricane.  I also lost one with the black worm blue tail shaky head along the old pilings at Fin & Feather.  The next morning my son and I launched about 7:30 (after the rain stopped).  We fished all around the 5 way creek bed intersection between Fin & Feather and Hurricane with no bites.  We spent several hours with crank baits, c-rig worms, spoons, spinner baits, swim baits and rattle traps.  NOTHING!  So we moved on into Hurricane.  The crank bait and swim bait (about 15 feet down) along the East side of Hurricane near the entrance point produced a couple of nice fish (2 - 2.5 lbs).  We fished that area for a while but had no more bites.  We went over to the West side and fished the grass.  Again the weightless Snake O produced a nice fish.  We also lost one with a big black worm on a shaky head. That's about it for the fish.  

On another note, the Bald Eagle put on nice show for us catching fish and chasing the coots around.  Also, I spent the day fishing with my 19 year old college student son.  We both know were not just fishing.

[jacob2000]

Haven't been fishing in forever because of school, but we just got ourselves a new boat and we're up here at the bend trying to figure everything out. Yesterday evening we went out to the mouth of Paulo Gaucho fishing the coves. We threw a lot of stuff to see how they would react, only caught 1 small one off a blue/black jig w/ trailer. This morning we went to 6 Mile and fished at the Point around humps and points about 20-30 fow. Couldn't get anything off drop shot or jigs but jigging spoons seemed to work way down at the bottom. Probably gonna hit Paulo Gaucho again tonight, Rayburn tomorrow morning. Any tips?

[jacob2000]

Also what are all of yalls favorite winter baits?

[jcdogfish]

Hot Chocolate or Coffee comes to mind.  I use most of the same lures all year.  Basically I slow down, maybe bulk up the lure a little.  Maybe instead of a rage craw trailer on a jig I'll use something with more bulk and less action. I do keep a jig with a rage craw or something similar rigged because from time to time in cold months I catch a few pitching to timber where they nail it on the drop.  Suspended I guess.  On the other hand I still use jerk baits, rattletraps, crankbaits and spinnerbaits. Depends on the day and conditions.  Some days you have to go real sloooow.  Then a week later (or the same afternoon) they are crashing a rattletrap.  You never know. Wacky worms and senkos unweighted and weighted.  I think in the winter its more of a mind set.  You have to prepare yourself for slowing down and fewer bites.  If you are prepared for a few bites you can really enjoy the winter fishing.  And if you get one of those special days, its a treat.  If you go out thinking you will get 50 bites the day after a cold front with sub 50 degree water and bluebird skys your expectations are probably set too high, but you never know. If I'm not having any success I tend to just put a jig with a chunk trailer in my hand and just think big.  My theory is I fish lures I like to fish and have confidence in.  That makes the dry spells a lot more enjoyable. A morning bite and afternoon bite can be very different.   After mid January I will probably be there most weekends.

[Catt]

wagonwheel not bad if ya quit missing en! Missing em does show ya on em!

Jacob, 24/7/365 I have a Texas Rig & a Jig-n-trailer on the deck of my boat!

The weight of the t-rig & what I have on it varies through out the year as does the jig. With each changing season or should I say water tempature change I'll add or subtract to my repertoire of techniques.

It maybe traps, spinner baits, buzz baits, frogs, cranks or what ever is appropriate for conditions.

During winter stability is very important! As in stable weather; I don't care what the ambient temperature is or the weather conditions are as long as it has been stable for 2-3 days.

[jacob2000]

Thanks, and hey Catt, I've got a question. So obviously this winter is a "tad" warmer than the usual winters, and since we base our techniques off of water temps and not necessarily seasons, would bass still be in a fall pattern? I mean in our area the high for Christmas is literally 81 degrees, so the water has to be fall temps at least right?

[Bass_Fanatic]

I fished Rayburn today and looked for a winter pattern. Caught a measly 9 fish and no size. I couldn't even find fish on my graph in places they should be. So, IMO, at least on Rayburn, they are not in a winter pattern yet.

[jacob2000]

We went to Rayburn on our trip last weekend, too. So are Rayburn report's forbidden or should I go ahead and tell?

[dcmclassic]

Just found this thread. I grew up fishing on TB.  The last two weekends we have caught a ton, nothing over 4 lbs though and nothing deeper than 10 ft and caught more on a shaky head than the t-rig, which I always have laying around.  I think the warmer than normal water, higher water and no hydrilla have kind of thrown things off a little but they are still there.  We nailed them on points close to deep water and some large shallow flats.   We found several huge schools of baitfish in creek channels but nothing chasing them. The magic color seemed to be Candy Bug. 

Lots of good info in this thread. Good job everybody.

[Bass_Fanatic]

54 minutes ago, jacob2000 said:

We went to Rayburn on our trip last weekend, too. So are Rayburn report's forbidden or should I go ahead and tell?

By all means share! I need some help out there lol. There is a Rayburn thread too you can post reports in.

[RCCA]

Fall pattern's not working too good for me the last two days at The Bend, unfortunately. Try deeper tomorrow somewhere else with all new baits lol 

[jacob2000]

Ok, so I'm on my HS's fishing team, and nearly all of the tournaments are at Rayburn, which unfortunately we're not very familiar with. So we decided to go try and see any spots we might try at the tournament in February. There was showers on and off all day, but it wasn't too bad, and the day had looked promising. We pulled out of San Augustine's boat launch and went to a point nearby. But just as we pulled into our spot, the switch to our electronics shorted, so all of our electronics were rendered useless. We continued to fish a group of trees that stood out in water, and I immediately got bit on a rattletrap, but after that, nothing. After a while we decided to go into the adjacent cove, but we had no idea what depth was under us. We spent some time over there but to no avail. The morning was looking bleak, so we decided that our best bet would be to fish visible structure/cover since we didn't have a good idea of what was going on below. We went to the bank of the cove and trolled into a small cut. There my dad caught 4 fish quickly off of a green w/ some flake wacky worm, and I caught one flipping a blue/black jig w/ an orange grub trailer under a small tree. Then the monsoon came and we decided to head home. Its crazy how blind I felt without our electronics when I hadn't ever used them before 3 days ago!

[Bass_Fanatic]

Yep, my electronics are my eyes. Good report and I'll let you know if I figure anything out before February. 

[shaneus]

I caught a few fish Wednesday, I still couldn't get them to bite deep. Caught my fish 5 for 12# fishing a white swim jig around hay grass and throwing a spro little john in cell mate color on main points in six mile. It was real windy and rough with almost a due west wind that I tried to stay out of.. but i fished toledo the same way i would have rayburn..... find ditches to and from haygrass cranks deeper in the ditch swim jigs shallower, they are definately on the shad, bluegill colored baits did not work for me.....

[dcmclassic]

The baitfish are gathering in HUGE schools in random deep creek channels. If you can locate the schools a spoon or dropshot should produce some fish. Last weekend I came across probably the biggest baitfish school I have ever seen. Guess I need to get an SD card for my df.

[RCCA]

The loons and I were fishing the same schools in Six Mile. I'm sure they did better than me but I never saw them with a fish either. The fog was so bad all afternoon you couldn't see the buoys to travel much.