Lake Toho Bass Nation Qualifier 2014

The Florida Bass Nation held one if it's last qualifying tournaments for the State championship on August 23, 2014 on my favorite lake, Lake Toho, northern most lake on the Kissimmee Chain Of Lakes. 

I ended up finishing 4th place with just under 11lbs and earned my entry into the State Championship on my favorite river, the St Johns River in Palatka, FL. 

How I found and caught my bass on Toho:

The last time I had visited the lake was during the January Bassmaster Southern Open event. Wind blew heavy, the lake was muddy, and cold fronts brought freezing temperatures that covered my boat with ice each morning of that tournament. 

The month of August was the polar opposite: a heat wave with an index of 105 degrees F was forecasted, sunny skies heated lake temperatures to 90s F, and I lacked the time to practice and locate bass. I had to rely on my ability to quickly assess an area and find a pattern.

Going into the event, I made three assumptions: state agency weed control efforts from January had completed their job of reducing hydrilla in the lakes, water clarity would be a key to success, and dog-days of summer would slow down the bass bite. 

It appeared to me the summer pattern of aquatic life was normal: shad were schooling and feeding on algea, bluegill and redear sunfish were spawning, and bass were probably feeding heavy at night. 

Throwing topwater baits on a glassy morning lake was great fun, but failed to get me a strike at the first three areas I tried. Then, a gentle breeze from the west brought feeding baitfish to the surface, each fish noticeably dimpling the water as they fed on microscopic food. 

A cast to the area and a solid 3.5lb bass ate my topwater bait and gained me my first fish of the day. Several casts and several short strikes later, clued me in that something was off. As I stopped the bait to check on my live wells, a bass over 5lbs sucks under my topwater bait as it was sitting still on the surface. I was out of position, and after a brief battle I lost the fish. I knew that was going to cost me, and it did. But the strike did fulfil my assumption that the bass bite would need to be slow. 

I was able to catch three more keeper bass by fishing soft plastics baits through the area. It wasn't long before the wind died and the bite ended. 

The other typical summer pattern in Florida is flipping, so I ran to a grassline and started speed-flipping to locate active fish. About half a mile down I missed a bass that grabbed the tail of my worm. A few more feet down the grassline and I missed another fish. Same thing, the fish grab the tail. I thought, bass or bluegill?

It took me another ten missed fish before I dialled in on the bait and how to present it. Since the bait's fall triggered the bites, I just had to keep reducing the bait size until the bass ate the hook too. Once I figure that out, I caught a bass on my next hit and filled my five-bass limit. 

Lake water temperatures in my area reached 94F and I was glad that Triton live wells have a recirculation feature which vortexes air into the water. Leaving the circulator to contant-on provided great fish care and kept oxygen levels high in the hot weather. I would suggest all anglers maintain a good live well battery so the live wells can be set to constant-on in summer months. 

I continued pitching my bait along the grassline and finally caught a decent bass, a four pounder! That bass allowed me to cull a smaller one out of my live well. I caught a few more bass that helped cull a little more weight before I had to end the day.

Looking back, had I executed better and landed every fish, I think I could have made run for the 18lbs needed for second place. Many of my missed fish felt strong, but when fishing in thick grass, the tough plants make it easy to lose some bass.  

Overall, it was a fun day on the lake with bass biting steady all day. I reached my goal of qualifying for the State Championship and I earned a little money to pay for gas. 

My congratulations go out to Kyle Fox who ended up taking the win at 20+lbs.

I look forward to seeing all my fellow Bass Nation anglers at the State Championship on October 18-19, 2014 in Palatka, FL. Until then, tight lines...

Lake Toho Bass Fishing in the 2014 Bassmaster Southern Open

Lake Tohopekaliga is the northern most lake on the Kissimmee Chain of Lakes and was the focus of my 2014 Bassmaster Southern Open tournament experience. The more than 22,000 acres pose a challenge to anglers having to break down the lake in three days of practice.


Big Toho Marina at City boat ramp

Fishing on Lake Toho offered an amazing diversity of habitat that challenged even the seasoned angler. From dense shallow water cover to offshore shellbeds and submersed grass beds, the various required different fishing techniques.

I used weights up to two ounces to flip and pitch weedless baits into the dense vegetation.

Some of the open areas between lily pads could be fished pitching lighter weights, and I was able to cast worms in the larger open-water areas on the fringe.

I tried all three methods in order to determine where the bass were located on a given day.  I feel bass will change their habitat preferences throughout the day, so I change up fishing techniques every few hours to keep up with the fish.  This is especially true during radical weather changes like we experienced in the Open tournament this week.

 

With winter cold fronts coming through Florida in full force, the offshore habitat was a great option for finding the winning groups of largemouth bass.  Deeper water tends to stay warmer and is less affected by cold air.

The habitat offshore is managed by FWC and consisted of hydrilla beds, shrimpgrass beds (Nitella), peppergrass beds (Pondweed), and eelgrass beds (Valisneria). It was easy in the calm-weather days of practice to locate bass using lipless crankbaits.  Just find the grassbeds and crank the lures over the submersed vegetation.  It was that easy.

Hydrilla stem picked up on a cast offshore



Shrimpgrass (Nitella) held good schools of bass 4-7ft deep

Late on our first official practice day the weather really took a turn for the worst.  Central Florida air temperatures dipped down to freezing levels.  

With light to moderate winds the fishing conditions were tolerable for anglers. Bass being cold blooded, did not seem to care about the air temperatures that we humans were enduring.  Bass continued to feed on shad and bluegill as normal. I caught fish most everywhere I practiced, and Bassmaster even posted some of my practice photos (pages 7-10) on the web site.

It was the gail force winds associated with a major front on the second day of practice that I noticed made a change in the fishing (Bassmaster blog post).  The front proved to be the beginning of several high-wind days that ultimately muddied the water and dropped the water temperature enough to change the bass I had located.  Even the flipping bite changed for me, producing fewer and smaller bass.   

Tournament Day
The first day of the tournament the weather was cold with moderate Northwest winds 10-15 mph.  Ice crystals covered my boat as freezing temperatures continued to plaque Florida.  I launched out at boat #39 and was able to fish my offshore grassbeds that were now measuring 57-58F. I caught a few nice bass on lipless crankbaits fished in a slow fluttering technique.  My coangler showed me that I was still fishing too fast for the colder conditions when he caught several nice bass behind me using a slower, worming technique.  I ended day one with only three bass.

All night long a North wind blew 15-20 mph.  While the air temperature the morning of day two was warmer, only 42F, the wind drove the water temperature down another 4 degrees.
  

High winds the morning of day two was evident by the postion of this American flag at the BASS weigh-in trailer.

 

When I arrived at my primary fishing area on the second tournament day it was muddy and 54F.  I made one short pass through the area and never got a bite. My other offshore spots were all trashed by the winds and unfishable. At this point I started fishing back up areas where I caught a few bass in water only 4 feet deep. I was only able to land a small 10" bass on this backup pattern.  As the day progressed the winds howled and continued to lower the water temperature down to 53F. 



My Mercury ProXS sure runs good in the cold weather! Gained 3 mph. 

I felt the offshore bass were going to go dormant and hold up on sandy shellbeds, but I did not know of any places that remained clear and not muddied by the winds.  I figured if anyone could locate calm areas they would find schools  of bass feeding on dying shad. My mistake in this event was my lack of weather planning during practice.

The last hours of my second tournament day I changed my fishing technique and went flipping shallow water areas outside spawning flats. The bass were not there in practice, but I thought conditions might make the bass move to these areas. I keyed on dying water hyacinth mats that had been frozen during the previous few days.

Natural bacteria that breakdown decaying plant material like water hyacinth actually produce some heat in their metobolic process, and I knew it would be the only warm water around.  The move produced limits of small bass for both me and my coangler.  I even flipped up a two pound bass that culled out one of my 12" fish. I ended the day with a small five-bass limit.

My final outcome was poor, but I salvaged what was heading to be horrible tournament for me.  I ended up in the first 2014 Bassmaster Southern Open with 12 pounds, 11ounces, which was good for 99th place out of 200 pros.  The points I earned could be valuable at the end of the year.

 

At the final weighin in the Bass Pro Shops Orlando parking lot I visited sponsor booths and learned about products such as Starbright boat cleaners. I have already been using their ethanol enzyme fuel additive Startron in my boat for several years.  Now I will have a chance to try some good boat cleaners.



Starbright pro Patrick Pierce displaying two cleaning products that make boat maintenance easier.

I was glad to see the new sponsor Allstate join the event.

I found it ironic that they are the company with the branded "mayhem" guy.  I wish they would have left the "mayhem" guy at home, he really through a wrench into this tournament for me. LOL.

The coanglers in this event beat many of the pros, so if any of you are thinking of fishing one of these events, give it a try.  You just have to remain versatile to catch bass from the back of the boat.  The best part is the pro does all the practice work and research so you get to concentrate on catching bass.  A neat game with a lot of fun and rewards. Give it a try.

Next event will be on Lewis Smith Lake in Jasper AL

 

Beginning A New Tour Season 2013

The City of Kissimmee hosted the first Bassmaster Southern Open event of 2013 on Lake Tohopekaliga.  I must say it was nice to spend nights at home since the lake was in my home town only 45 minutes away. Still practice was typical for February in Florida with bass spawning and windy cold fronts hitting every few weeks to challenge the anglers. FWC plant management efforts were providing anglers miles of hydrilla edges to fish throughout the chain. 

Nearly 200 pro bass anglers visited Kissimmee Florida for practice on Monday and a shot at winning a berth to the Bassmaster Classic.  Both Monday and Tuesday practice days held nice weather, partly sunny cloud cover and a mild February breeze out of the north.  Then Mother Nature realized this was the first tournament of the year and she wanted to remind everyone who was boss. She hit the area with Gail force winds over 32mph from the South none the less.  Extremely unusual for the month of February.  Needless to say, the winds muddied up a lot of water the night before the tournament, leaving many anglers unsure of whether they had areas to fish on day 1 or not.

My name was randomly drawn as boat #31 on Day 1, flight #2 with a weigh-in time of 3:15pm.  This meant the early morning bite that I had discovered in practice had a chance to help me as it was in a wind protected area.  Luckily the area held up and produced two nice keepers in the first 45 minutes while the tournament director was still launching out the other anglers one at a time.  No more old fashion shot-gun starts like in the 80s.

The four pound bass I had found in practice had vacated the area and I probably spent too much of my morning searching for them.  As the sun peaked higher in the horizon I headed over to some shallower spawning areas and used a soft swimbait to pick up my limit by 10:30 am.  One of my personal goals of catching a five-fish limit of bass was accomplished, but I was still short of my other goal of having fish that averaged over three pounds. My research had shown that fifteen pound limits each day would give an angler a top 20 fish on Lake Toho, while an eighteen pound limit each day would make the third day’s cut of the top 12 anglers. 

Fishing the 2012 tour taught me that a small limit of bass only makes an angler feel good, it does nothing to help in the tour standings. To be successful on this tour, anglers must have larger than average bass and a big bass each day.  Knowing this I spent the afternoon chasing the ghosts of big bass I had found in practice.  Over 30% of the water I practiced on was muddied by the unusual Gail force winds. I was able to get two good bites flipping, one four pound bass I pulled to the surface of a cattail mat before it came off, and the other I lost when my braided line slipped out the eye of my flipping hook, another rare occurrence.  All the other big bass I had found under floating plant mats either scattered or were not biting.  The sport of fishing is very hard when you can’t see your targets, e.g. bass.  Imagine shooting basketball in a room with an invisible hoop that only showed up when you made a basket!  That’s bass fishing.  There could be 40 bass under a floating island and if you don’t entice them to bite a hunk of metal and plastic, things we call fishing lures, then you don’t even know they are there.   

My first day's limit of five bass weighed 9lbs 9ozs, averaging only 1.91 lbs/bass which put me in 53^rd place.

 photo by James Overstreet, BASS

On day 2, I was drawn as boat #168, flight 9 with a 5:00 pm weigh-in time.  This late draw was going to prove beneficial as the bass were getting more active in the afternoons when the sun was high.  With an over night cold front dropping air temperatures down to 36 degrees F, I was going to need that sun to get my bigger bass active again.  I launched out in the morning with hopes that the cold front would improve my flipping bite again.

I started day 2 in the same early morning area as day one, got two nice keepers on a jerkbait, a dozen short bass, and then a nice three pound fish.  I flipped the mats around this area to no avail.  Next, I ran the same stretch of spawning flats in Lake Toho and finished out my limit by 11:00 am.  With a limit in hand I ran to south Toho and pitched floating hydrilla mats to cull up with another nice three pound bass.  On my next pitch I lost a good bass of nearly four pounds. I spent the next four hours pitching and flipping mats trying to catch a big bass but all I could do was upgrade my limit by ounces.   I found the big bass were no longer under my mats, but my stubbornness kept me wishing instead of fishing.   I picked up my jerkbait and starting working a little deeper water around my areas and again picked up a half dozen bass that only gained me ounces. 

    

With twenty minutes left until weigh-in, I made a cast next to some spatterdock lilypads. I ripped that jerkbait past the pads and enticed a reaction strike from a bass.  My line jumped, so I swept the rod to my right side to set the hook.  It was then that I saw the bass, a solid six pounder!  When I set the hook it turned her sideways to me and I could see she hit the jerkbait in the middle, with only one treble hook having a chance to hook her.  That chance was slim, and when she opened her mouth out came my bait.  I made many more pitches in the area knowing she never really got hooked, but I never could entice her to bite again.  I fished down the bank and nailed another solid three pound bass, culled up a few ounces, then headed to weigh-in.

My second day weight of 10lbs, 14ozs put me in 45th place overall; 10 ounces sky of making a paycheck, 5.5 lbs out of the top 20 list, and only 7.2 lbs out of the top 12 cut to fish the third day.  The lost four pound bass on day one and lost six pound bass on day two would have pushed me way up the leader board and given me the dream of fishing on the third day. 

So there you have it, my best finish, yet the worst tournament execution of my professional fishing career.  The yin and yang of fishing.  I felt good about finding the fish it took to win, just could not get them in the boat.  I can’t wait to try it all over again in April on Lake Douglas in Jefferson County, Dandridge, TN.