Boat issues and Toledo Bend

Feb 28-Mar 7

I know... It's been a long time between blog posts. Lots of reasons not the least of which is pure laziness. But I shall attempt to resume these sometimes painful, sometimes joyous discourses. 

Last fall I had a series of events that kept me off the water. My trailer bunks or runners had to be replaced. That accounted for some of the downtime. That trip to my dealer resulted in his advice to have work done on my trailer brakes. Next stop a trailer repair shop not far from my home. I guess the parts needed for my repair took a while to arrive. My boat stayed in their yard for 3 weeks. Finally got it back and I went to the lake for a short trip. Must not to have caught much because I don't even remember it. By then we are deep into November. I took several days off volunteering for Operation Christmas Child as I have for the last several years.

Now the episode occurs. I finally came across a deal for a GPS/sonar unit at Academy. It is a Humminbird 998 hd si for $899. Regular price (and anywhere on the net) was $1299. This does 2d sonar, down imaging and side imaging with an 8 inch screen.  Bought a side arm mount and a Navionics chip. The transducer is a rather long 4-5 inches and must be mounted on the transom so I decided to have my boat dealer, Riverside Marine, install it. Back on the water with my new unit but curses...no sonar. Tried all the menus but no sonar. Humminbird service said it may be the transducer, send it in. I uninstalled it, sent it in but was soon notified the transducer was tested and found to be OK. Service suggested I send the head unit in. After paying exorbitant rates to UPS to pack send to Service. They shortly responded that there was no problem with the unit. They returned it for some unknown reason with another transducer. I went back to Riverside to maybe moving the location of the transducer. Before remounting we decided to connect the transducer that was sent back with the unit and surprise it worked as it should. They exchanged the bad transducer for the good one. Problem solved. Only got on water once in January for a couple of hours but the 998 worked. 

Now you know what kind of weather we have had in February and March so I haven't been fishing until...March 2. 

February 28 found me traveling to Memphis to meet up with my fishing partner Doyal Brown. Spent the night and met our friends, Phil and Maurice at 6 the next morning to begin our annual trip to Toledo Bend, a huge lake on the Texas/Louisiana border. After a 7-8 hour drive we checked into the Bridge Bay cabins resort on the LA side. Monday, the 2nd was quite chilly with a high in the 40s. The wind was not too bad. The water was 48-49*. Doyal caught 5 bass 1.5 to 4 lbs on Carolina rig with a Rattlesnake plastic bait. I was blanked. Not a very auspicious start.

Tuesday brought a little change to the weather. Although cool to start the temp rose to 74. Doyal continued to school me with the rattlesnake. He caught 8 while I had 2. One of mine was a near 4lb. As that Wendy girl says "now that's better". Doyal also caught a 6-8 lb catfish method and lure to remain private. Wednesday looked much better with temp coming up to 77 with mild winds. Doyal couldn't make magic with his rattlesnake today but I hit pay dirt with my favorite plastic bait the Zoom SpeedWorm. Didn't take Doyal long to make the switch (unlike me not changing to the rattlesnake) to the SpeedWorm. We each caught 9 for a total of 18. We each lost at least one and we each had a break off. Mine was surely an 8 pounder. If you don't see it, it can be as big as you want. Might have been 9. 

Thursday was forecast to be 27 with a high of 34 with winds 20-30. We wisely decided to have a leisurely breakfast and spend the day at the cabin. After seeing the 4 foot waves on the lake we knew we made the right decision. Friday was cold about 30 but expected to go up to 51. The front really put the bass down but we did catch 2 each. 

You may wonder why we didn't throw crankbaits, lipless and square bills and jerk baits as well as spinnerbaits. The grass was very thick but coots had been so active in pulling up grass that strands of grass were floating everywhere. Most fish were caught in 2-4 feet of water with a few in 4-8 feet. We had a total of 37. Not great but last year we only had 14. We are reserved for a week later next year hoping for better weather.