I fished
the Gator Division BFL this past weekend up on Lake Toho – ended up pretty
shabby in 59th even though I took 3 days off to pre-fish (3-31-12 BFL Lake Toho Results). Here’s how things layed out in my eyes.
Shad Spawn
The first
2 days I was able to track down a shad spawn bite that lasted 15-30 minutes
after sunrise. With water temps in the
morning ranging from 74-78 degrees, the shad spawn was happening pretty
solid. I found 2 areas that both had the
same overall features: a scattered hydrilla edge run up against a Kissimmee
grass line adjacent to a hard bottom area (sand/shell). One area had so much bait that it was tough
getting the fish to single out my bait over the real-deal – in that case a
Pop-R was key (old school). The rest of
the fish all fell victim to a 1/2oz D&M Custom Baits Spinnerbait in a
white/translucent pattern as well as white/chartreuse. The wind and air temps increased each day and
the shad spawn basically disappeared by the day of the tournament – I think due
to water temps starting out at 78-79 degrees and winds kicking at 15mph right
off the bat in the morning.
Flipping the Blown in Stuff
I found a
couple areas to flip as well. Nothing
too consistent but all the areas boiled down to harder cover (Kissimme grass,
Gator grass, bulrushes) with various grasses blown into them (hydrilla, chopped
Kissimmee grass, anything floating on top).
Once again, I caught a few fish here and there on this pattern up until
the day of the tournament including a 4lbs and a couple 3lbs. Depending on the thickness of cover I flipped
everything from a 3/4oz to a 1 1/2oz paired with beaver baits and smaller craw
baits. I did flip quite a bit of open
emergent grass – bulrush clumps and Kissimmee grass – without much luck.
The Irony
I tried
to cover a lot of bases during the practice time I had and ended up catching a
few cranking scattered hydrilla flats off of Kissimmee grass lines – nothing
memorable and no size comparison to the above patterns. The day of the tournament a front started
coming through kicking the wind up more than the past 3 days and my trolling
motor took a dump around 11am. I had
already missed a 4-5lbs and lost another of the same size shaking a 1oz Punch
Craw in a bulrush head. To escape the
wind a bit we drifted the flats around the powerlines without success and
finally about 1ish pushed up to the scattered hydrilla line out from one of my
shad spawn areas.
My
coangler started catching fish on a trap and I missed a few on a swimming worm. Switched to a 1/2oz Red Eye and started
burning and ripping and turned a limit around in ~1hr making 3 drift passes on
a 200yd stretch. Key was a section of
green good condition hydrilla.
Got a little lucky in end. A storm blew up ~3pm and we pushed behind an island to use the last bit of time we had in the day and I ended up ripping up a 3lbs on a trap off an isolated hydrilla patch off some old dock pilings. Ended up with a whopping 10.01lbs but I was awfully close to zeroing for a majority of the day. For as much as I was aware of the shad population in Toho and its reputation as a trap lake, I really didn’t explore that avenue enough during practice. Seemingly it’s just another case of looking at what’s right in front of your eyes instead of over thinking things. It’s too bad too, because I think I could have found a few areas to toss the Alabama Rig I’ve been wanting to bust out in some offshore circumstances = guess she’ll have to wait.
