Carrot Stix PAA Tournament Series – Toledo Bend, Texas Oct. 8th – 10th

Toledo Bend, Texas is an awesome fishery that is seldom on the Tour line-up.    It was great to be back on the lake hunting for giant largemouth, competing in the final Carrot Stix PAA event of the season.  It was a nice change of pace from Lake Champlain and Erie.

Unfortunately traveling south from Sandusky Ohio I brought the wind and bad weather curse with me.  It’s been nipping at my heels since Lake Champlain.   Out of five practice days I was able to spend approximately 3-hours on the main lake.  During that time I definitely liked what I saw, but considering the forecast, it was highly doubtful that I would be able to settle in.    With a championship berth on the line, I managed to spend the majority of practice looking for protected, productive areas and probably playing it safe.

Right on cue, the winds screamed on the first day of competition, and I was only able to spend about an hour on my area before continually being blown off course.   I did have a fairly productive morning, culling several times before it shut down around 10:00, which made for a very long afternoon.  I weighed in 10-lb, 8-oz and landed in 29^th place.   The bite was definitely off, and I was never able to really lock in on a big bite. 

Day-2 storms were due to roll in along with high winds.  Fortunately the storm cell wasn’t as bad as predicted and everyone arrived back at weigh-in safely.   I was really disappointed by the fact that my weight went south instead of north.    Things were just not clicking for me and I had several opportunities to increase my 9-lb, 5-oz stringer, but just could not execute…very frustrating.   

 

The fish were definitely in a full blown fall fishing pattern, chasing bait fish all over the lake.   Guys caught bass in a wide variety of ways but a 1-oz Black-Blue Lunker Lure Grass Monster Jig on 50-lb Stren Super Braid line with a 7’9″ original Carrot Heavy Action Flipping Rod and Abu Garcia SX Revo worked best for me.

Coming in at 40^th place less than a pound out of the cut was disappointing, but I did manage to move up one spot to 12^th place in the point standing and clinch a Championship berth to Conroe TX.  I’m really looking forward to the Toyota Texas Bass Classic next week and the opportunity to compete on Conroe.  The word on the streets it’s full of giants.  I’m hoping to drag a few of them to the scales!