The 2023 St. Croix Bassmaster Open at Toledo Bend is set to begin in a matter of hours. The anglers are still scrambling around on this expansive 185,000-acre fishery, trying to piece things together as practice winds down.
We caught up with Texas native, Bassmaster Opens EQ angler and former Bassmaster Elite Series pro Clark Reehm to get his take on how practice has been.
“It’s looking like there are a bunch of guys scratching their heads, on a lake that should be extremely good this time of year,” said Reehm. “It’s throwing a lot of us for a loop.”
An April tournament on Toledo Bend, which is situated along the Texas/Louisiana border, should make for an all-out slugfest. But recent rains have raised the lake substantially, and this has been the main chaos-creating culprit, according to Reehm.
“This isn’t a lake that just rises real quick and then gets dropped real quick, but we had so much rain the last week in North Texas and North Louisiana that this lake came up a foot to a foot and a half.”
Leading up to this deluge, local reports had the lake fishing well and sitting fairly stable. The fish were spawning, and the water was dropping very slowly, in anticipation for heavy spring rains. Well, the rains came and now the fish are in a serious funk.
“Everybody I’ve talked to is somewhat struggling. It’s not as easy as it should be. We’re in all three stages of the spawn right now. It doesn’t seem like any one thing is being real successful.”
Choosing the right groove can be challenging when there are some fish on bed, some coming to the bed and some leaving the bed. This creates a situation where a wide range of techniques could work, but they could also all lead to sudden death with the fish constantly on the move.
As Reehm put it, “It’s going to be a pick-your-poison lake. Guys are going to be able to catch them however they want to catch them, but it seems like it’s going to be hard to get keeper bites.”
A largemouth bass must be at least 14 inches to be kept on Toledo Bend. Reehm reported that there are several spotted bass stacked up out deeper, but these are so small on average that they are a “non-factor,” unless an angler simply needs a small fish to fill his limit.
Sight fishing
“There are a lot of fish that are prespawn still it seems, but there are not a lot on bed. There’s not a lot of fish just cruising the bank.”
Reehm stated that Toledo doesn’t fish like a lot of other lakes, and that “beating the bank” typically isn’t a good way to catch them here anyway, even during the spawn. But that that is what a lot of guys are trying to do since it is April.
“I figured there would be more fish on bed. Typically on this lake the bigger fish bed deeper. So they’re hard to see anyways.”
With the bigger bass bedding off the bank a little, and the lake rising drastically, Reehm believes there are still bass bedding, but they are going be extremely hard to target.
“It’s basically changed the dynamic for sight fishing. They may be bedding in the same places that they were bedding in, but now with another foot to foot and a half of water over them, you can’t see them. And if they are spawning and you don’t hit them on the head, you’re not going to catch them anyway. Which makes fishing that much trickier.”
Prespawn and postspawn
“The lake doesn’t have as much grass as it used to, but it’s got more now than it has had the last several years. That’s why the weights have gone up in local events, but the fish are just so scattered.”
With a large portion of the bass population still headed to the bed and some coming off, Reehm believes this tournament will be won in the 6- to 12-foot range.
“The prespawn fish are going to set up like postspawn fish out here, on the same sort of structure. So it’s going to be a mix on the same stuff.”
This midrange bite is hard to find though, as Reehm pointed out. It’s a section of the water column that is too shallow to graph effectively and too deep to just fish through efficiently. So trying to find a spot or two like this out of the near 200,000 acres of fishable water makes for quite a challenge.
Shad spawn
“There’s a shad spawn in the morning. It’s not happening everywhere. But if you can find it, it’s going to be a player.”
Shad begin their spawning process typically towards the latter end of the bass spawn. This frenzy of preoccupied baitfish can make for some fantastic fishing for the first 30 minutes of daylight. But it’s very localized.
“There might be 30 dudes talking about how the shad spawn is on fire, but if you don’t find it, it really doesn’t matter.”
Other factors
“There will be a lot of resident fish caught, where guys are going into creeks and catching whatever lives there.”
Reehm has noticed that a lot of the local hotspots don’t have boats on them, and instead anglers are trying to make what works on their home fisheries work on Toledo bend. This has anglers fishing creeks, where he believes some fish will be caught, but will not replenish. And then there’s the false hope of fishing bushes.
“With the water getting up there right at full pool, it puts bushes into play. But it’s like the fish have not pulled up with the rising water.”
The water has actually started to crest according to Reehm, and he believes it may even start to fall, albeit slowly, throughout the event. Reehm does not anticipate the water dropping drastically, as the water can’t be flushed out of Toledo much faster than it is coming in, since that would flood regions to the south.
“But that pulling of the water is going to put these fish in a funk as well. Add that to the whole postspawn funk and everything else, and it’s making it fish very strange.”
Predictions
“Guys are going to catch them anywhere from 8 inches of water to 30 feet. And there’s probably going to be an outlier. The top five guys are probably going to smash them, and the rest of the field is going to be grinding around to get 12 to 15 pounds a day.”
“Smashing them” equates to 20 pounds per day on average according to Reehm, though he thinks the inevitable winner’s actual weights will look more like 20, 15 and 25 pounds on each given day.
“If I had to guess, I’d say 60 pounds is going to win. And probably to make the Top 10 cut, you’re looking at 34, so 17 pounds a day.”
The lake has very few areas with hydrilla right now, but these will be pivotal to the anglers’ success, according to Reehm. The winning bags will, “Probably be caught there, or scoping.”
“Scoping” or using forward-facing sonar to target bass that are suspended around timber is something that Reehm believes will be a player this week and could result in a win. Adding yet another variable to the mix.
“The one good thing about it is that we are getting favorable weather for the actual tournament days. The wind isn’t supposed to blow real bad, and it’s supposed to be warming up. So if you’re gambling on the calm for the fish to come to the bank, you may be in luck. But that’s still rolling the dice.”
On a lake that’s so large and with the fish in a constant state of flux, it appears as though whichever poison an angler picks this week will be a roll of the dice regardless.
