i have had two brand new minnkotas, both had to be brought to the repair place within a year of having them, the new triton i bought came with a minnkota, i told my dad the day i brought it home, i said watch ill be replacing that within a year, and low and behold at exactly 12 months fishing a club tournament an hour into it blip, no more trolling motor. i have used and abused my motorguides on two other boats i have and have never had a single problem.........ran smack into a tree full trolling speed a few times, bent the shaft, took it off stood on it straightened it out and put it back on, went right back to fishing......just bought a new motorguide foot control to replace this minnkota, i will be selling the minnkota 70# edge on ebay or locally as soon as it comes back from the repair shop........just to play devils advocate, i dont get those high dollar ones you guys probably have, minnkota might be better i dont know, i try to stay at 600 or less if they go bad its cheap to replace or repair, the new motorguide i got for $533 shipped. ive never had any problems with them so ill stick with them for now

Good deal man, it's all about preference and what makes you comfortable while fishing!

going hit the bend tomorrow in the morning when i get off nights!!!!! ill be out in six mile in a 16ft aluminum boat with a 50 tohatsu (since the new trolling motor wont be here until monday), come say hi! going look for some big ones! ill report when i get off the water.......oh by the way academy has their 12" 10" 7" power worms on sale for 2.99 a bag (normally 6.99 for 12") with the rebate off *** that makes them $0.99/bag bought everypack the had in blue fleck and black/blue........TIGHT LINES!

Y'all be welome

 

Keep sharing that's what this thread is all about!

going hit the bend tomorrow in the morning when i get off nights!!!!! ill be out in six mile in a 16ft aluminum boat with a 50 tohatsu (since the new trolling motor wont be here until monday), come say hi! going look for some big ones! ill report when i get off the water.......oh by the way academy has their 12" 10" 7" power worms on sale for 2.99 a bag (normally 6.99 for 12") with the rebate off *** that makes them $0.99/bag bought everypack the had in blue fleck and black/blue........TIGHT LINES!

I stocked up last week on em.  Cant beat that deal!

Hey Catt,

 

I've been watching this thread for years and am very grateful for what I've learned from you and all who have contributed here.

 

Thanks to all who keep reporting in.

 

If you don't mind my asking Catt, how's your health these days?

 

Hope you're well and getting out on the water enough.

 

Was worried about your absence a while back.

 

Sure would like to just once meet you out on the water and shake your hand.

 

Anyway, 've got a Navionics Hotmaps Platinum chip en route that I'm sure will also help me out tremendously on the Bend.

 

That coupled with the knowledge shared here on this thread will provide me with great direction and planning for my trips to the Bend that are coming up.

 

I appreciate all of the great information coming in...........and thanks to all of the true sportsmen who frequently report in.

 

Bear

Went out 7/11 from 6:30 to 11:00 p.m. Caught 3 keeper's on Tx rig worm.  Fished creeks and weed edges in Yocuum and Arnold in 15+ water. Returned next day about same time in same areas and caught 2 keeper's. Used tx rig worms and craws.  Fishing was a little slow and not staying out but 5 hours limited me. Need to get set up better in small boat,  running lights would not stay on, broke my best worm rod, had to much on deck for night fishing and did not bring drinks or food. Old man has  to get his act together to  better enjoy  his outings . Will  do repairs and better preparations and be back out as soon as possible.  Keep your lure in the water!

went out for a little fishing saturday morning, went west of the bridge in six mile, caught a ton of fish up to 2 pounds nothing big, but it was fun having something on the other end of my line. fished the weed edges with a black neon worm. it was a blast. tried to go out later that night and fish some humps in six mile and there was a due east wind that was a little strong for my liking in my little aluminum boat so i headed in after a hour or so no bites.....new trolling motor gets here today and i will install it tonight!!!!!!!!!!!! ready for my first night tournament this weekend

Bearonthewater, my back is getting worse but it’s something I’ve learned to deal with.

Can’t fish all day anymore!

 

We are doing a facelift project on our church so I’ve been busy pointing fingers, that and I have 2 grandkids living with Carol and me full time.

 

But I still sneak out when I can

Hi everyone, I am new, but not so new. I have finally caught up with the forum. Catt, SkeeterDon, TBendBassin, Bass_Fanatic and many others thanks for everything this has been very helpful. I was wondering if there is a possiblity if we could get the forum going back like it was. Maybe dissect some more areas on the south side of toledo bend (preferably Housen Bay, Six Mile, and Pirates Cove) . Would like to know more information on flipping grass. I plan on trying it for the first time next week. I have probably learned more in the last 2 months than I have in my entire life. From going on a few guided trips, research, and this forum also can't forget youtube. I also think it would be great to be able to go fish with you guys if we are ever on the lake at the same time. I hope all is well with everyone, and I really hope to learn even more.

Catt, sorry to hear about your back issues, I know what you are going thru. I had back surgery years ago and never have gotten better. I live in pain and walk on eggs every day . This limits my time fishing to four or five hours when I can go. I pray that both of us can continue doing activities that we enjoy , like fishing, grandkids , and pointing fingers using our experiences to help our family and friend. Getting to spend more time at the camp on Toledo Bend around Yocum and would like someday to meet with you and buy you a drink. I will continue applying your teachings that I have learned in this class , it is a personal challenge to get my pb to 10lb. Hope to hear from you and that you are well and doing great ...................

hey catt and cajunpapi, granted im not very old, but ive had my fair share of cortizone and injections from shoulders to elbows to knees and everything in between (including surgeries to these areas) from playing sports my whole life and into college......one thing yall may already know or have already been told, the best thing i have found to relieve pain and keep it away is STRETCHING i have been to numerous sports medicine doctors and chiropractors and trainers and they all say stretch and hydration, i stretch everyday and it keeps back pain and shoulder pain to a minumum....another thing that helps with aches and pains is hydration...make sure you are over hydrated on the water and everyday, yes you gotta make bathroom runs more often but no pain is worth it.....i used to be so achy and aggravated after a day of fishing and drinking beer all day, knowing i shouldnt feel like this, now i stretch everyday before i get out of bed, and when im fishing i mix in a bottle of water between beers and it keeps the aches and pains away, so if you havent tried this i recommend it........if you are currently doing all of this i would look into electric stem treatments to relax the muscles and relieve a little of the pain, stem is amazing!!!!! 

Shaneus,thank you very much for the stretching and hydration reminder. I have been told many times and have not done what I need to do on a consistant basis. I will take your info and start incorparating them along with walking in my daily activities. This should help with grandkids and fishing goals. Dam, those high school and college athletics.

Bassangler08 Welcome! I agree we need to continue this forum and start dissecting other parts of this great lake.I would like to see the Pirates Cove area dissected along with more input on night fishing. Let's get more people involved.

Night fishing is simple!

Fish the same areas & the same lures as you would during the day

Bassangler08 what would you like to know about flipping grass? There are two main tactics which are punching matted grass and flippin deep grass. Which one would you like to know about? I haven't been active on here for awhile but I'm gonna start posting again and share my T Bend knowledge. Also whatever place you want to learn about let us know I will be more than willing to help!! With that being said I'm not going post any waypoints or give pin point coordinates. Not bc Im worried about giving up spots but bc I honestly believe giving people spots to go fish handicaps them as an angler and they never learn how to find or pattern fish. Trust me I see this happen all the time a guy will get alot of waypoints from someone then get on the water with pre conceived notions and when it doesn't work out they don't know what to do!! This is a great learning thread and I think Catt would agree that's what this thread needs to get back to! T Bend ain't no puppy!! And it will humble any angler real quick!!

Bassangler08 what would you like to know about flipping grass? There are two main tactics which are punching matted grass and flippin deep grass. Which one would you like to know about? I haven't been active on here for awhile but I'm gonna start posting again and share my T Bend knowledge. Also whatever place you want to learn about let us know I will be more than willing to help!! With that being said I'm not going post any waypoints or give pin point coordinates. Not bc Im worried about giving up spots but bc I honestly believe giving people spots to go fish handicaps them as an angler and they never learn how to find or pattern fish. Trust me I see this happen all the time a guy will get alot of waypoints from someone then get on the water with pre conceived notions and when it doesn't work out they don't know what to do!! This is a great learning thread and I think Catt would agree that's what this thread needs to get back to! T Bend ain't no puppy!! And it will humble any angler real quick!!

what do you look for when flipping grass? do you run ditches or edges flipping? stay at a certain depth contour, or look for openings with electronics? any preferential depths? do you only flip hydrilla? do you only flip when you know there is timber around the hydrilla? what depth do you look for ex....the water is 15 feet deep and the grass tops out at 12 feet leaving 3 feet of water on top the grass, or do you look for 20 feet deep where grass tops out at 12 feet leaving 8 feet of water on top of grass? 

Shaneus I think I remember you saying that you fished Rayburn a whole lot correct? Since you started fishing t bend have you noticed how much deeper the grass grows here and how much clearer the water is. Anyway alot of the time when flippin deep grass isolated patches are usually good. There are places where won't be anything then all of a sudden you will see a grass patch the size of boat or bigger. This helps isolate the bass and if its in a productive place then those bass are going to be in there. Yes any ditches or drains with grass in them are also going to be awesome!! Especially if it runs through a flat or swings by one. Creek channels are also amazing if lined with grass. You asked about the mixture of different types of grass. You will here the big boys always preaching on if you can find a spot where the different types mix then that's gold. I have found on t bend that, at least to me, it really doesn't make that big of a difference. Now Im saying its bad but just in my experience it hasn't made a Hugh difference. I still like to have hydrilla mixed with milfoil or pepper grass but if its just straight hydrilla I still fish it. Ill give you an example of a good way to flip deeper grass. If you follow the the creek channel in hurricane it usually has a good mix of milfoil and hydrilla. Just follow the creek and spend a little more time when you come to bend, point, or gut. If you haven't noticed there are already a ton of mats to punch but I really don't start punching until late summer/fall. I have found that its more productive in the fall when the bass start moving back shallow for the fall feeding frenzy!

yes i fish rayburn alot..... i mainly fish productive areas versus pattern fishing, i have spots where decent fish are year round and they dont move far, they have everything they need in these few areas, last year i worked on pattern fishing a little more and added a few spots to my milk run as fish are always there.....fish always there meaning i run a contour line ive chosen casting both sides and i always run into them....my main problem with toledo bend is when i find a good school of fish they are liable to have moved 5 miles in one night lol......which aggravates the hell out of me... where i fish my spots on rayburn, the fish seem to be residential meaning they never leave they just move a little bit at a time and i can stay on a school for some times 2 months not so on toledo bend they move and i cant stay on them from day to day i have tried the same approach following a contour line and casting around trying to run into them and using my electronics scanning..no dice...yes i have noticed that toledo bend is deeper, clearer, grassier, and stingier in the short time ive been fishing it....me and a guy won a little club tournament casting a wind blown bank and didnt know why the fish were there, 2 months later the grass that we were catching the fish out of  grew up where i could see it and i then knew why we caught fish there.....to tell the truth im no great fisherman on a big body of water, we used to belong to a pond in beaumont that i fished 3-4 days a week and i can honestly say i knew where the fish were and how they moved intimately, and could go catch when no one else was catching anything, spending all that time out there i was able to figure it out all by my self. even on rayburn my success is/was from a good friend of my dads took us around the lake and showed us some things and i learned a hell of alot from him and how the fish acted and moved and got basically a on the lake "fishing school" on big sam rayburn for a whole week. i have been able to enjoy my fishing on rayburn with my dad ever since as i have never got skunked since being "schooled".......hopefully once my lake house is built, i want to have some sort of cook out with you toledo bend guys here on the forum and get to know a little more about the lake, so i can enjoy it fishing it as much as rayburn. then hopefully i can pass it down when i get later in my years.....i fish a few club tournaments but i mainly like bringing my dad out and having him catch fish. THANKS CATT for the fishing west of the six mile bridge tip i brought my dad out there and he had a blast, he had me 10 to 1 on catching and he loved rubbing it in, i didnt tell him i was throwing something different i hadnt tried yet, i wanted him to catch them on what i knew they would hit...he loves fishing the edge of grass/lily pads with a worm, thats his favorite as he has been doing it longer than ive been alive......later in the day i try to go fishing deeper and he cant feel the bite on a carolina rig or a jig so i try to go where he can tear up those little fish...when i go deeper is usually when he kicks back for nap time  

Caught this one fishing deep grass the other day

Caught this one fishing deep grass the other day image.jpg

TBendBassin Nice........ Lat&Log Please HaHa

after  doing a little research, i looked at all my waypoints ive saved with the screen shots, i have about 30 places to try this deep flipping grass for bass, i now understand the difference in flipping and punching, im a puncher never actually gone flipping

Yes to me flippin deep grass is usually grass I cannot see with my eyes only my electronics

I struggle when I get around acres of grass...I like to fish patches of grass or no grass at all.  Earlier this year the mouth of Housen Bay had patchy grass and there were big fish in every patch!  I havent been there in a couple months, so not sure if it matted or not, but this would be a great place to learn to flip grass.

Quick report.

 

Just got back from TB.............stayed at Fin-N-Feather.

Only fished daytime.........no night fishing

 

First time I got to use my new Navionics HotMaps Platinum chip...................BOY what difference!

Much more details than any map I've seen yet.

 

As being reported, main lake points holding submerged grass beds in 20' - 30' water was where the fish were found............especially near creek channels.

Fish seemed to be holding around 10' - 15'.

 

SK 5XD's in Tennessee Shad and Gizzard Shad were the main ticket for me.

Picked up a few on DT-14's in Smash color too.

Met a fellow at the boathouse that recommended pausing the crankbait more.............and that seemed to help tremendously.

 

Texas Rigged Ole Monster worms and Watermelon Red Senko's fished with small split shot placed ~ 3 ft. above worm for fluttering action worked pretty well too.

 

Biggest fish of the trip went 6.5 lbs. caught at daybreak on bone colored one-knocker near point in Hurricane.

Caught some white bass as well.........a few of them going 2-3 lbs.

 

Couldn't help but to think of Catt while out on TB as I was scouting humps and creek channels.

Visited many of the areas I've read about here on this thread.

 

So, thanks again to you Catt and everyone else here who has contributed their stories and experiences on TB.

It's certainly helped me to become a much better bass fisherman and has provided me with a means to fish much more efficiently.

 

Just as an FYI, Fin-N-Feather is under new ownership as of 2 weeks ago.

Texas Couple that's been living away in Tennessee for the last 20 years is back, have taken it over, and claim to have big plans for the place.

Still a great place to stay, very friendly people, and first class facilities.

 

My two cents..........

Please keep the posts coming.

During the early 70s on Toledo Bend the Hydrilla started really getting thick and numerous anglers (me included) were basically fishing the matted grass with weightless Texas Rigs & Johnson Weed less spoons, there wasn't many other baits that would work in this thick stuff. At the time I belonged to the Hemphill Bass Club out of the Harbor Light Marina and one of our members started wining back to back tournaments, not just ours but every ones. He was killing us with 15 fish stringers averaging 3 1/2 to 4 lbs. a fish. No one could figure out how he was doing it, we had all seen him on the main lake flats fishing the grass flats like us or so we thought. Finally at a club meeting he revealed what he was doing. Being a diver he had went out to the grass flats & dove under to see what was there, what he found was tunnels, caverns, & caves under the surface matted grass. In of these areas he could see crawfish clinging to the grass stems, they were also filled with schools of bass, mostly large bass. The next question was what bait could get to the bass, the answer was provided by Lonnie Stanley with a ¾ oz. Jig! Who is this angler that jigged his was too many a tournament win as well to the top of B.A.S.S. Texas Bass Fishing Legend Tommy Martin!

Tommy's approach to this technique is different from what you've seen, read, or heard. With most techniques you are actually fishing the densest areas of the matted Hydrilla. The focus of Tommy's technique is the outer 15 to 25 yards of the mat; in this area the grass is a little sparser, his simply pitches or flips the jigs to a near vertical presentation. His main objective is to keep the jig in contact with the bottom at all times, something most anglers fishing grass fail to do. When the jig stops falling many anglers believe they have reached bottom, but from an underwater view with scuba gear the jig has only settled on the thick base stems of the Hydrilla. After making a pitch Tommy will strip about 3 or 4 arms lengths of line letting the jig fall near straight down. Then he will shake the jig to make sure it has not stop on the grass stems. With the jig now resting on the bottom, pause several seconds, the shake the jig once or twice with pauses between each. If no strike is detected simply reel up & pitch again moving locations about 20 ft from the previous. Once you get bite quickly kick or toss a buoy marker over board, fish in grass flats tend to school up so when you catch one there is usually more. Circle the buoy in increasing diameters & depths working the jig slowly (I once caught nine 6 lb + bass in an area the size of your living room). You may work 70 yards or 700 yards to locate the fish but when you do hang on!

Thirty years later Tommy is still living in Hemphill Texas, still guiding on Toledo Bend, & still fishing the B.A.S.S. tour. The deep grass technique is still catching huge stringers of quality bass with most Toledo tournament wins averaging 5 lbs. So if you've got the patience to work a jig for sometimes hours with out a bump or if you aint afraid of hanging several hawgs back to back give deep grass jigging a try.