Wife and I bought a house on Toledo Bend lake a few years back.  Fishing was awesome in spring of 2013, but each year since it's gotten worse.  Two years ago the SRA sprayed the lake to kill giant Salvinia which they mostly did but in the process they killed all the hydrilla, lilly pads, and every other kind of grass.

 

Then TB was anointed as "the number one bass fishing lake in the US" (it wasn't even close).  That drew in about 10,000 boats every weekend.  They cleaned out all the spawning beds and every remaining fish over a half pound.

 

Finally this year the lake was way down for months, then flooding rains brought it up about eight feet in two weeks.  The generators are running and the gates are open but it still hasn't gone down much.  As a result the top half of the lake looks like chocolate milk and water temp is about 62 degrees.

 

I talked with a guy who fished a tournament here last weekend.  He told me that they had 43 boats; caught a total of 31 fish in two days.  I didn't ask him what the total weight was: 31 pounds maybe...

 

Anyway I know this will probably draw a lot of posts from guys who will swear they're catching a boatload of five pounders every day but based on my experience and the folks I talk with nobody's catching much of anything.  I go out two or three times a week - its a nice boat ride - but I doubt if I'll catch more than four or five keepers this year.

 

Maybe next year it'll come back.  That's what my neighbors and I tell each other.  Maybe next year. 

I checked the calendar and April 1st still isn't for a week or so...

 

I wonder if the best responses would be time stamped photos or published tournament reports?

A lot of good fish caught during the Central Regional CentralRegional.pdf (https://www.bassmaster.com/news/bass-nation-central-regional-standings-0)

 

11-6 was big bass and 59 lbs took first place. Lots of 20+ lb bags over the 3 day tournament. Doesn't seem terrible.

Pretty much every thread you've started is about how terrible fishing is, or that something doesn't work.  What's the deal?  We're here to help you catch, but if you're just going to complain, that won't put fish in the boat.  Give us a breakdown of what you're using, where, and how.  What the cover is like, how deep, etc.  There's a GIGANTIC thread on how to fish TB.  Pages of info on it.  Let us help you get better.

Wait, I think I figured it out.  The OP was writing about Toledo Bend lake, which we all misunderstood to mean Toledo Bend reservoir.  I did a little research and found that there is indeed a Toledo Bend lake and it is not the famous body of water that we are all familiar with.

 

Toledo Bend Lake is located in Ohio, not Texas.  It was named for its location, a curve in the road right next to the stadium where the Toledo Mudhens minor league baseball team plays.  It is a smaller lake, only about 150 acres, so when the OP talks about 10,000 boats on it during the weekend, you can imagine how crowded it gets.  It kind of looks like Lake Havasu during Spring Break, you can literally walk across the lake by going from boat to boat.  Needless to say, vertical presentations are preferred - casting will usually end up in you snagging another fisherman.

 

When the OP says the lake was drawn down, he is actually being kind.  In fact, the lake was drained and was completely dry during the winter.  When it was refilled, signs were posted that there are no fish in the lake, but that didn't stop those Ohioan bassmasters from giving it a try.  Later, out of pity, a nearby tech company designed, built and released about a dozen robotic "bass" that now inhabit these waters.  They are willing to bite, but there are so few of them, only catching 4 or 5 a year is about normal.

I am sure @Catt will have some input on how bad TB is

22 minutes ago, OCdockskipper said:

Wait, I think I figured it out.  The OP was writing about Toledo Bend lake, which we all misunderstood to mean Toledo Bend reservoir.  I did a little research and found that there is indeed a Toledo Bend lake and it is not the famous body of water that we are all familiar with.

 

Toledo Bend Lake is located in Ohio, not Texas.  It was named for its location, a curve in the road right next to the stadium where the Toledo Mudhens minor league baseball team plays.  It is a smaller lake, only about 150 acres, so when the OP talks about 10,000 boats on it during the weekend, you can imagine how crowded it gets.  It kind of looks like Lake Havasu during Spring Break, you can literally walk across the lake by going from boat to boat.  Needless to say, vertical presentations are preferred - casting will usually end up in you snagging another fisherman.

 

When the OP says the lake was drawn down, he is actually being kind.  In fact, the lake was drained and was completely dry during the winter.  When it was refilled, signs were posted that there are no fish in the lake, but that didn't stop those Ohioan bassmasters from giving it a try.  Later, out of pity, a nearby tech company designed, built and released about a dozen robotic "bass" that now inhabit these waters.  They are willing to bite, but there are so few of them, only catching 4 or 5 a year is about normal.

 

 

The OP's location is Many, Louisiana not Ohio. OK tongue in cheek sarcasm. 

"The report of my death was a exaggeration", Mark Twain.

Drag a dead animal across the trail to devert the hounds could also apply.

Having lived through extremely high fishing pressure created by national attention I can see how local anglers trying to fish there home lake get frustrated. 

Toledo Bend is a big lake over 70 miles long and nearly impossible for the entire lake to have it's big bass population crash from over harvesting. With that said every lake has it's peake periods and down periods regarding big bass populations. Texas has the premier bass management program in the country, Toledo Bend is in good hands. 

Tom

5 minutes ago, Dwight Hottle said:

The OP's location is Many, Louisiana not Ohio. OK tongue in cheek sarcasm. 

I did the same thing, and then got it.  I even googled the lake.

1 minute ago, J Francho said:

I did the same thing, and then got it.  I even googled the lake.

 

Us old guys are a little slow. 

1 minute ago, Dwight Hottle said:

 

Us old guys are a little slow. 

I'm only 46, Dwight.

Oh wait, maybe early onslaught...

J i was talking about me. 70 next week. 

Who are you again?

What's my name?

 

It's been a long, cold winter.

Like John and Dwight, I was falling for @OCdockskipper's post until about halfway through the second paragraph.  The humor started to exude from his words at that point.  

 

Sorry to hear the OP, @redboat, is struggling on TB.  I don't live nearby so I can't dispute his report directly, but it would take some kind of major event to take TB from the top bass lake in the nation to an also-ran in just one year.  You can bet the bass are there though it may require a different strategy to find them, or get them to bite.

47 minutes ago, Dwight Hottle said:

J i was talking about me. 70 next week. 

You don't look a day over 69 and 3/4. Happy early birthday big guy. 

Don't know what Toledo Bend ya fishing but the one I fish is still pumping out double digits & 25-30# 5 bass tournament stringers!

 

Yes there's a lot of hydrilla & milfoil gone but so is the Salvinia!

 

The grass is coming back on the south end & moving north!

 

Everyone tries comparing the lake to a couple years ago when it pumped record double digits; reservoirs catch rates raise, peak out, fall, & repeat.

 

@Bass_Fanatic myself, & others on this site are still catching 30-50 bass day.

 

 

 

2 hours ago, Dwight Hottle said:

 

 

The OP's location is Many, Louisiana not Ohio...

There is an explanation for that as well. 

 

When the tech company released the robotic "bass" into Toledo Bend Lake, the main programmer goofed up and calibrated the "fish" as being in Toledo Bend Reservoir.  When the OP caught one of these digital wonders last week, the auto-report mechanism built into each one hacked into the OP's Bassresource account and changed his location from Ohio to Louisiana.  It also shorted out his depthfinder and fried his phone, but that is another story & will be corrected in the next firmware update the "bass" receive.

52 minutes ago, OCdockskipper said:

There is an explanation for that as well. 

 

When the tech company released the robotic "bass" into Toledo Bend Lake, the main programmer goofed up and calibrated the "fish" as being in Toledo Bend Reservoir.  When the OP caught one of these digital wonders last week, the auto-report mechanism built into each one hacked into the OP's Bassresource account and changed his location from Ohio to Louisiana.  It also shorted out his depthfinder and fried his phone, but that is another story & will be corrected in the next firmware update the "bass" receive.

Its the meta-phasic shielding that is causing the problem. If the harmonizer is quadradic then you need to overpeak the pasmat. 

17 minutes ago, Gundog said:

Its the meta-phasic shielding that is causing the problem. If the harmonizer is quadradic then you need to overpeak the pasmat. 

 

We were hacked by the Russians ?

Here’s a few from my past 4 trips

Although I'm not familiar personally with this body of water, I'm sure there's plenty of quality fish still present.  Unfortunately, the #1 ranking by B.A.S.S. sometimes is a double edged sword.  Its nice to get that sort of prestige and it brings in a lot of business, but sometimes the pressure is just too much.  Mille Lacs had this ranking last year and it has gotten significantly harder too because of the pressure.

FYI: since 2006 Texas Parks and Wildlife stocked over 26,000,000 Pure Strain Florida Largemouth fingerlings, plus a few hundred thousand ShareLunker fingerlings.

 

Add to that the number of fingerlings naturally spawned by the millions of female bass in a 190,000 acre lake.

 

Ya think ya can fish it out or even scratch the population?

 

What happened is the spraying of the giant salvinia killed the Hydrilla, Milfoil, & Coontail forcing the bass to change from being related to grass to being wood/brush related.

 

The bass successful made the change... sadly many anglers did not!

Yeah, that's about the response I expected.

 

No its not a joke; fishing on TB is terrible and has been for a couple of years.  It was chosen #1 two years running but that was probably about two years behind - in 2013 TB probably WAS the number one bass lake in the country.

 

Anyway, you guys have fun with your fifty bass a day.  I'll wait for - and hope for - Toledo Bend to one day again become a premier fishing lake.  Maybe next year.

 

Oh yeah - no the Salvinia isn't totally gone; its still in the mid and north parts of the lake.  So it'll be back all over the lake again in another year or two.

I have nothing to offer here but I would love to catch 50 bass a day. Yep that'd suit me just fine

1 hour ago, redboat said:

Yeah, that's about the response I expected.

 

No its not a joke; fishing on TB is terrible and has been for a couple of years.  It was chosen #1 two years running but that was probably about two years behind - in 2013 TB probably WAS the number one bass lake in the country.

 

Anyway, you guys have fun with your fifty bass a day.  I'll wait for - and hope for - Toledo Bend to one day again become a premier fishing lake.  Maybe next year.

 

Oh yeah - no the Salvinia isn't totally gone; its still in the mid and north parts of the lake.  So it'll be back all over the lake again in another year or two.

 

How sad that you through life with such a negative attitude!