This one bass fishing study may not only change how you go about bass fishing, but more than likely it will change WHERE you start fishing. A recent study done on Toledo Bend Reservoir on the Texas/Louisiana border tells us that bass fisherman may never even throw their bait in front of 41% of the bass population.
About 7 or 8 years ago, Toledo Bend reservoir was experiencing some of the best bass fishing in the World. As a matter of fact B.A.S.S., the worldwide leader in bass fishing, labeled Toledo bend as the #1 bass fishing destination in America. Not only did they do this once but the lake was #1 for 2 years in a row. No single lake has received the #1 vote 2 years in a row before so this was a big deal.
As a matter of fact, studies done in 2015 showed that the average catch rate of bass at Toledo Bend was anywhere from 1 to 1.5 fish per hour per person. Which means if you and your buddy went fishing for an 8 hour day, on average you would catch 16-24 bass. Not only were catch rates high but the amount of quality and trophy sized fish being caught was also high.
However, after 2016 with the increase in fishing pressure on the 180,000 acre lake, catch rates were noticeably going down each and every year.
In 2019, another catch rate study was conducted and found that the average catch per hour was down to .7 fish per hour per person, which is a drop of nearly 30-50% in just 4 years.
Some people speculated that the recent high water, which killed a lot of aquatic vegetation, had a big impact on these catch rates. But it also sparked the interest of Texas Parks & Wildlife Biologist and avid tournament angler, Todd Driscoll, who wanted to figure out if the increased fishing pressure had actually started to move the fish and change their behavior.
After receiving funding in late 2019, Todd and his team set out to study toledo bend’s bass and their findings are not only remarkable, but they go against what many bass fisherman perceive to be as FISHING TRUTH. Now I always like to give credit where credit is due, and the information that I am about to share with you comes from 2 interviews that Ken Smith did with Todd Driscoll of the Texas Parks & Wildlife, I will link his Ken’s youtube channel and the interviews down below in the description!
The main objectives of the study were to track bass over the course of a 2 year period to see their actual movements, this is a tradition telemetry study that has been done before, but unlike any study done in the past, once a bass location was found the team wanted to see how each bass reacted to the presence of a boat/motor being over their head! Would the fish stay put or would the engine noise scare them away? So many times when anglers are locating bass, they will purposefully drive over the fish to see their actual location, but does this actually do more harm than good? Also, unlike any study done before, the team would actually try to catch the bass with a lure by first casting to it from a distance with a texas rig worm, and then getting directly over the bass and vertically dropping a drop shot on the fish.
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