Probably no other lake in Louisiana holds more potential for producing big bass than Toledo Bend Reservoir on the Louisiana-Texas border.
The largest reservoir in the South spreads across 186,000 acres along a 65-mile section of the Sabine River. The lake offers more than 1,264 miles of shoreline bristling with bass habitat that includes weeds and flats, flooded brush, standing timber and deep channels.
BIG BASS, BIG NUMBERS
While always known for producing numbers, Toledo Bend now offers quality fishing thanks to stockings of Florida-strain largemouth by both Texas and Louisiana. In fact, the lake produced a 15-pounder, the second largest bass ever caught in Toledo Bend, on June 27, 2009. Donnie Gill of Leesville, La., enticed the 15.03-pound bass with a Texas-rigged worm in 22 feet of water near the south end of the lake.
Eric Weems still holds the official lake record with a 15.32-pounder he caught in July 2000 while fishing in Six-Mile Creek, a major arm on the Texas side just north of the dam. The record fish hit a 1-ounce green and black jig sweetened with a watermelon craw worm.
Many Toledo Bend bassers bang woody structure with jigs, spinnerbaits or crankbaits or probe weeds with soft plastics. Main lake points and humps produce fish on shad-colored crankbaits. Sometimes, lucky anglers happen upon schooling fish busting shad in creek channels and catch an easy limit on topwater baits or chrome and blue Rat-L-Traps.
In the spring, many anglers flip tubes or creature baits into flooded brush. Shorter, but more bulky than lizards or worms, tubes resemble miniature squids and mimic crawfish. Using a long rod like a cane pole, swing tubes or jigs and drop them into open pockets between grass or twigs. Even when not feeding, a bass may react instinctively to the sudden intrusion of its lair.
TO THE WEEDS
As temperatures rise, big bass seek cooling comfort and an oxygen boost in thick weeds. Found almost everywhere on the reservoir, robust grass mats blanket many coves and flats. By late summer, nearly solid weed mats choke many coves. Across the weeds, toss Texas-rigged soft plastics like flukes, jerkshads, stick baits or similar lures. A plastic frog also makes a great presentation for weed-whacking bass.
In mid-summer and in winter, bass might escape temperature extremes by dropping into deep holes. If so, probe the depths with chrome jigging spoons. A 1/4-ounce chrome jigging spoon flutters down through the water column like a dying minnow or shad. After it hits bottom, jig it up and down a few times. Most often, bass hit spoons on the fall. A chrome spoon might also entice striped bass, yellow bass, white bass, spotted bass, crappie, bream and an occasional catfish.
Many marinas serve Toledo Bend in both Texas and Louisiana.
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