Stage set for season-opening shootout on Toledo Bend

The Bass Pro Tour is back for its sixth season, with Tuesday marking the start of B&W Trailer Hitches Stage One Presented by Power-Pole on Toledo Bend.  

Fans shouldn’t have to wait long for the action to warm up. Local anglers believe the first major-tour-level event on Toledo Bend since 2017 will provide plenty of fireworks, with bass hitting SCORETRACKER® in big numbers and a few giants making an appearance as well. 

“Toledo Bend is absolutely on fire from a fish quality standpoint, the number of ways to catch ‘em,” said BPT pro Nick LeBrun, a Bossier City, Louisiana, native. “It’s going to be an amazing tournament for us if the weather allows it.” 

During the early to mid-2010s, Toledo Bend earned a reputation as one of the best bass fisheries in the country, drawing near-annual visits from national tournament trails. However, a decline in aquatic vegetation (plus, perhaps, the effects of heavy fishing pressure) caused the bass population to flag. 

In recent years, though, the fishing on the Louisiana/Texas border reservoir has rebounded in a major way. BPT rookie Justin Cooper, who lives in nearby Zwolle, Louisiana, and guides on the lake, said Toledo Bend is nearing a return to its peak level of production. 

“It’s the best I’ve seen it since like 2015, 2016, when it was at the healthiest that I’ve ever seen it in my lifetime,” Cooper said. “Before off-limits, there were just big numbers of fish that you could catch a day, good average size.” 

Between the health of the fishery, the time of year and a warming trend that should have fat, prespawn females moving and eating, Cooper believes Stage One is setting up to provide an explosive start to the 2024 season. 

“We could potentially see multiple 10-pounders caught just because of the time of year, prespawn, they’re the heaviest they’re going to be right now, full of eggs, and just how healthy Toledo is becoming,” he said. “So I’m excited. I think there’s going to be some really big fish caught.” 

Multiple patterns in play

Stage One promises intrigue not just because of the sheer amount of weight expected to hit SCORETRACKER® but the fact that the winning fish could be caught several different ways, from shallow grass to the abyss.  

At 185,000 acres, Toledo Bend provides a massive playing field, especially since recent rains brought the lake level up about three feet. It’s now about a foot below full pool. Cooper expects most of the field to concentrate on the lower end of the lake, south of the Highway 6 bridge, but he and LeBrun both believe multiple patterns will play.

Chasing fish offshore using forward-facing sonar has become the hottest technique in tournament fishing, and a cadre of anglers will undoubtedly commit to that bite. However, LeBrun expects others to find success fishing shallow around the lake’s resurgent grass beds. Still others could target more traditional offshore habitat like shell beds or brushpiles. 

“In that lake, a lot of groups of fish will winter up shallow — and when I say winter, that’s just where they’re going to hang out for these cold-water months,” LeBrun explained. “But you’ve also got another class of fish that winter out deep, and they live out deep all year long, and going to the bank to spawn is almost an inconvenience to them. And with the group of anglers in the Bass Pro Tour and how good these guys are, I think that every depth from 3 foot to 30 foot is going to be a player.” 

Given the size of Toledo Bend and its bass population, LeBrun believes anglers will be able to take their pick between searching for schools or patterns. That could make for some compelling, back-and-forth action on SCORETRACKER®. An angler who finds and triggers a group of fish might rack up weight in a hurry and then go dormant, whereas someone who identifies a productive pattern could steadily add to their total throughout the day. 

Cooper thinks the top baits will largely consist of Texas staples — lipless crankbaits, vibrating jigs and wacky worms in the grass; crankbaits, jigs and Carolina rigs around offshore cover; jerkbaits, jighead minnows and other finesse offerings for those using forward-facing sonar. Then there’s the oversized swimbaits and glide baits that have become popular on Toledo Bend in recent years. Cooper doesn’t expect anyone to throw big baits all day, but they could account for a few big bites under the right circumstances.

“The only way I see guys throwing a big glide or a big swimbait is if they get a big lead in their round or something like that, and they’re comfortable and they know they’re going to move on, and then they just go and try to target a big one for Heavy Hitters,” Cooper said. “In my mind, that’s my plan.” 

Weather watch

The determining factor for which approach accounts for the first BPT win of 2024 will likely be the weather. It appears anglers won’t have to deal with frigid temperatures, which some feared given the early-season timing of Stage One. But Mother Nature will still loom large. 

The area has been inundated with rain leading up to practice, with more forecast to fall during the latter days of competition. Cooper expressed concern that the resulting runoff could muddy Toledo Bend’s creeks to the point that they become unfishable. That would hinder the grass bite. 

“A lot of the grass is not all the way in the backs of creeks but inside creeks, even at the mouth,” Cooper said. “So if they’re calling for as much rain as we get, the whole creek could get muddy, potentially. So that might hurt the grass bite. … You may see more of the timber, LiveScope, offshore shell beds, that kind of deal play than the grass if the lake does muddy up with this rain coming.” 

That doesn’t necessarily mean offshore anglers will dominate, though. LeBrun pointed out that those looking to fish away from the bank could be impacted by the weather, too. 

Wind is always a factor on Toledo Bend. If it blows hard out of the north or south, the main lake could get so rough that targeting fish with forward-facing sonar there becomes impossible. It would also make traversing the lake difficult. With its plethora of submerged stumps and timber, Toledo Bend is challenging to navigate on a calm day. Throw in 5-foot waves and anglers could be confined to small areas. 

“On some other big bodies of water, if the wind is blowing out of the northwest, well I can kind of run the west bank and get up shallow and navigate it and change some angles with my boat,” LeBrun said. “But you can’t do that on Toledo because you’re at the mercy of the boat lanes. And with the lake being so low, there’s some stumps showing that I didn’t even know existed, and some of them are either in the boat lane or right near it. And man, if that lake gets rolling, that’s a good way to knock a hole in your boat.” 

Strategy predictions

The Bass Pro Tour’s return to every-fish-counts scoring provides another unique wrinkle to the season opener. Competitors won’t be able to solely target big bites, although catching a lunker or two would allow someone to erase a deficit in a hurry.

Still, both Cooper and LeBrun believe finding numbers of fish will be the path to victory. Given the health of Toledo Bend’s bass population, if an angler can do that, he’ll likely run into some big ones, too. 

“I think the guys that go and chase 2-pounders are still going to find some quality fish mixed in,” Cooper said. “It’s Toledo Bend. There’s a lot of 3- and 4-pounders swimming around in that lake. So I think the guy that wins it is somebody that gets on that 2 ½- to 3 ½-pound average and occasionally mixes in a 5- to 7-pounder.” 

LeBrun doesn’t expect his strategy to be drastically different than it would be for a five-fish limit tournament. To catch five bass for 30 pounds, he noted, he’d have to weed through several smaller fish, which would add to his total in the current format.  

The difference, however, will be how anglers manage the fish they find. Given the amount of weight it will likely take to advance, anglers won’t be able to milk one area or school across the six-day event. LeBrun believes they’ll need to have multiple plans in place. As a result, he foresees a “junk-fishing slugfest.” 

“With how good the lake is right now, I don’t think you can just do one thing and ride all the way into Championship Sunday,” he said. “I think you’re going to have 12 rods out and you’re going to have to just have a few different patterns, a few different ways to catch ‘em, and every day might be a little bit different.” 

As for the winning weight, if the weather cooperates and keeps all three bites in play, Cooper believes anglers might need to rack up as much as 100 pounds per day to qualify for the 20-angler Knockout Round and advance to the 10-angler Championship Round, with the final-day winning weight potentially surpassing 150 pounds. LeBrun didn’t even want to hazard a guess. 

“Whatever it is,” he said, “it’s going to be a lot.”