Submitted by Fisher X (ip 209.107.239.72)

Date Fished: 3/16/2006
Water Temperature: 70
Water Clarity: 0

We fished Toledo Bend March 3 through March 13. The entire time was spent in the Patroon Arm of the lake. All the days were spent bass fishing except one. Total keepers-191 bass (6 guys 3 boats) 31 crappie (one boat). The lake level started at 165.5 msl and rose slightly to about 166 msl during the time period. The water color was as follows (distance able to see white spinner bait)…

Corsey creek arm: more clear than stained (1-2 feet)

Alligator: stained (1 foot)

Mason: dirty (less than a foot)

“Playcation” : stained to dirty (1 foot or less)

North of FM Rd 146 bridge: dirty (less than a foot)

Patroon creek itself: dirty (6 inches-except in some sloughs which were slighty cleaner)

Shamrock: clear to stained as going back (1-2 feet)

Water temps: started at 53 F everywhere on March 3rd increased to 64-70 F by March 13 depending on time of day. Except Corsey which seemed to always be a little lower than the others.

Lake level comment: The boat lanes are fine. In fact this was the best trip I had taken because you could “see” the boat lanes into the cuts (these are usually not marked but where you normally see the local guys running through what appears to be impossible timber). Anyway, after one “idle in” to check for floaters (while laying a GPS track down) you could then “run” into the cuts without lengthy idles that are normal to us tourists. It’s a great time to GPS tracks into all the cuts and boat lanes for future reference. Low water also made the fish a lot easier to find and catch.

General fishing (bass); As of 13 March the bass had not locked onto the beds. (even though it was full moon) because of the passage of 2 fronts during the week. A small percentage of males had moved up and were mainly in the sniffing stage. They were very catchable. Some even stayed up after that last front on the 13th but became more finicky. On days other than frontal days most fish were caught in less than 2 feet of water. Heres the deal…

Warm nights/stable weather (even if windy from the South)

Look for the shorelines that have that nasty brown floating “grass” in shallow water. It looks like matted down straw mixed with last years dead aquatic grasses. Only in Corsey did we find “living” milfoil. DON’T BE AFRAID OF SHALLOW SHALLOW WATER!!!! After 2 days of warm weather the fish move into this stuff. Start with a horney toad (watermelon-dip the feet in chartreuse “spike it”). Walk it over the holes allowing it to drop in. If you’re not bit and your bait doesn’t foul with grass work it to the edge and let it drop to the bottom. Then twitch it back to the boat like a suspending rouge. If it’s sunny and the fish are active they will hit it in the holes or on the edge just as it drops. Most of the time you will see the fish hit it. If it’s cloudy they will hit it on the edge or during the “twitch back”. If this fails then switch to a Senko (color 913) and repeat the process. Continue to work these ‘grass” banks until you contact fish. When you do, you can expect multiple catches in the same general area. Return each day to that same bank(s) and ignore the others that did not produce for you. Once the correct grass bank is located you will repeat your performance because the bass will “replenish” themselves on that bank as long as the weather is warm and stable. Most fish will be males. I look for the females to follow during the next warm cycle and the new moon. One more thing. The grass sucks. Its like old dried straw soaked in water. It catches on any thing you throw. Sure, you could substitute the Senko/Horney Toad with a jig or Texas rig but you will be picking gobs of grass all day long. The Senko/horney toad picked up the least amount of grass. Even with that expect half your casts to be wasted by fouling. I had limits 3 of the 10 days using this method (8 fish limits 2 days, 10 keeper fish the third). Believe me, the locals were amazed at the “horney toad/Senko in the grass method” . Apparently the nasty grass had become just too frustrating for them to fish. We talked to one guy that had given up bass fishing for crappie because of his frustration with the “grass”. We made many converts.

Post Frontal days (and to find larger females)

This is the part that took longest to figure out! When you enter a cut such as Cosey/Miller/Playcation you will see a distinct boat lane with broken timber on each side. This lane is actually the old creek channel. Go about a third of the way into the cut and drop your trolling motor at the edge of the timber. Throw a reaction bait like a spinner bait (white) or a rattle trap (red if cloudy, Lake Fork Chrome if sunny). Throw it almost randomly allowing it to graze off of as many staubs as possible while working various depths. Work your boat toward the bank doing this. Once at the bank turn around and work back out to the edge of the timber/creek channel repeating the random casting. Do this while moving slowly into the cut. You will be doing a zig zag through the timber, deep to shallow back to deep, as you work to the back of the cut. Note the depth of water that you contact fish. Then stop zigzagging and follow that depth line through the timber into (and then back out of) the cut. If the spinnerbait/trap does not work, alternate with suspending rouges (gold/orange belly). On a couple of days the rouge was da bomb. The idea is to cover as much water as possible. Sure you could flip the timber but it would take all freaking day to find one fish. Be sure to try the Senko or horney toad at the nasty grass line when you reach the bank before turning back out to the creek channel. You could get a stray active fish that way. Almost all the fish you will catch doing this zigzag will be females. Until they move up to spawn this is the best chance to get a big one. Our biggest was 10-8 (white spinner bait). There were several 6’s and 5’s. Its very very hard work (dodging staubs and “long arming” a trap all day) and the bites are VERY few. Don’t expect instant and continued results. It’s a “cover the water trying to get a reaction bite method”. But the reward can be pretty awesome. As a bonus you will catch several crappie working this method. I look for these patterns to continue until the spawning cycle is complete…. This means shallow nasty grass banks when its warm, creek timber when it chills.

Crappie: Our boat took a day off from bass fishing and we went up into Patroon creek seeking the legendary Toledo crappie. We were not disappointed. By “up into Patroon creek” I mean the actual source creek. If you don’t know how to get there…. well good luck. It’s a one hour idle through treacherous timber. If you get out of the channel you WILL run aground. The “path” is no more than 10 feet wide at places. Hire a guide or go with a local (we had a local buddy that we followed while laying a GPS track to get back). But if you want to do it yourself follow the stumps that have red spray paint (caution, the locals don’t “want” you up there and will remove any tape or telltales that you leave on stumps to find your way back). You should also know that most GPS maps do not have the channel in the right spot because it has changed due to siltation over the years. Once in the creek we found crappie in every depth from 10 to 2 feet. They definitely relate to wood. Use a white hair jig with a red head. Bump every stump, stick up or brush you encounter. We only kept crappie over 12” and ended up with 20 after about 3 hours of fishing. The wind came up and we got worried about the timber idle in 3 foot white caps and headed back early. We know of one group that took over 300 crappie from the creek while were there. The locals say that they have been like that since late January. We also saw some locals take crappie in the before mentioned cuts using minnows along the nasty grass lines. Most of them were using minnows in 2-3 feet of water. The crappie are ready to spawn anytime.

It was the best 10 days of fishing I have had at Toledo. All the big T'ments have been cancelled so you have the lake to yourself with a few locals. I look for the next warm cycle to be absolutely awesome shallow water fishing. Don't let the low water keep you away.

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