Found some time to get out this morning.. Hit the stick marsh and had the yak in and paddling at grey dawn... First cast with the horny toad was a hookup! They really come out of their skin for that thing they were airborne all day trying to eat it... Had a bass boat come in on me around 8 this morning.. Two guys fishing live shiners with floats and in the 45 minutes they were on top of me the horny toad outfished their shiners 11 to 2.. Lost count of how many I caught, at least 40 fish, most were dinks in the 1lb range.. The biggest was probably not even 4lbs..  I'm good at catching the young stupid ones apparantly... I cut out early because the gators were out in force and they were being really territorial (mating and nesting season).. I was cutting through a canal about 20 feet wide and had a 10 footer come off the bank and nearly get in my kayak with me.. I took that as a sign to call it a day haha..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Couple quick questions.. If I am in an area where I am only catching small ones, is that likely all that is there or do the big ones mix in with the dinks? 

 

ALSO... For some reason, my horny toad ran upside down unless I retrieved it super slow.. Rigged weightless with a 4/0 owner EWG .. anyone else have this problem? Didn't seem to mess with the hookup ratio though.. Toward the end I rigged it on a keel weighted swimbait hook and it kept it right side up, but the retrieve speed in order to get it to plane out was too fast.. 

 

 

I was hoping I wasn't the only one who had problems with the horny toad running upside down haha.. rigged them all perfectly straight and centered.. I went out and bought a few packs of rage toads yesterday, which look a hell of a lot beefier, durable, and look like they move more water.. we'll give er a whirl tomorrow and see how they do.. gonna also keep the horny toads in my box for the days when more action from the rage toads may possibly offend the fish.. 

Looks like you had a real good outing, good job!

Love a good Horny toad bite!

i'll take those young dumb ones ALL DAY LONG!  nice going!

very nice!

Now that's a horny toad bite!