OVERTIME OUTDOORS: BPT, Elite Series giving Toledo Bend a chance to shine on national stage
Published 8:00 am Tuesday, January 9, 2024
- Toledo Bend will host a Bassmaster Elite Series tournament for the first time in a long time in late February, giving the border lake a chance to shine on the national stage. It was the site of the 2023 St. Croix Bassmaster Open and showed out with more than 5,000 pounds of bass hitting the digital scale over the 3-day event. Twenty-four five-bass limits weighing 20-plus pounds and multiple 9-pounders were weighed in that mid-April tournament.
Take a bow, Toledo Bend.
You soon will be in the national spotlight twice as the site of the first tournament for two major bass fishing organizations’ top tier of pro bass anglers — Major League Fishing’s Bass Pro Tour and the Bassmaster Elite Series. I hope you show the world a couple prolonged glimpses of your glory days.
In the mid-1970s, Toledo Bend was the epicenter for professional bass fishing, so much so that some of the country’s top bass anglers moved to the region to guide on the lake. Several of them, notably Tommy Martin, Larry Nixon and Harold Allen, became legends in the sport.
Springtime bassin’ success never failed to disappoint.
For sure, bass fishing success should be prime time again as far as prespawn and spawn catches are concerned. Mix in luscious hydrilla beds, which were absent for unexplained reasons during the late 2010s but came back strong the second half of 2022, and the best “sticks” in the country and several foreign countries will wow ‘em at the digital scales at the time of reckoning.
The MLF BPT will be first up to the plate as it returns to the “every-fish-counts” scoring system after a one-year hiatus. The 80-angler field tackles the border lake later this month, Jan. 30-Feb. 4.
That opener features six Louisiana-born bass anglers who have risen through the ranks, four of them who still call Louisiana home. They are Cliff “Cajun Baby” Crochet of Pierre Part; Nick LeBrun of Bossier City; Gerald Spohrer of Gonzales, and Justin Cooper of Zwolle.
Young Dakota Ebare, listed as a Brookeland, Texas, resident, is a Louisiana native from Watson, Louisiana, who fished as a teenager with Live Oak High School. His first two MLF BPT seasons were in 2022 and 2023 when he was fourth and fifth, respectively, in the Angler of the Year competition. And Keith Poche of Pike Road, Alabama, was born and raised in Natchitoches.
Less than a month after the MLF BPT tour bass anglers finish hammering on Toledo Bend, Bassmaster Elite Series qualifiers get on the sprawling lake shared by Louisiana and Texas on Feb. 22-25. It’s a time about as close to the height of the spawn as you can get.
New Iberian Caleb Sumrall, who guided on the lake for a couple years, is among the five Louisianans who’ll try to get to Semifinal Saturday. The seventh-year pro bass angler is coming off his second straight season in which he failed to qualify for the next Bassmaster Classic.
Greg Hackney of Gonzales leads the other Elites from the Sportsman’s Paradise who are heading to Toledo Bend. His career winnings reach nearly $3 million and include six first-place finishes.
Others from Louisiana are younger bass anglers such as Derek Hudnall of Baton Rouge, Logan Latuso from Gonzales and Tyler Rivet of Raceland. Rivet’s claim to fame came last spring when he won the 2023 Site One Bassmaster Elite tournament at Florida’s Lake Okeechobee with 86 pounds, 15 ounces.
The 2023 Bassmaster Opens visited Toledo Bend. The Opens bass anglers caught more than 5,000 pounds of bass in three days, including 24 limits more than 20 pounds and several 9-pound class bass April 13-15.
For sure, both the MLF BPT and Bassmaster Elite Series tournaments ought to thrill Acadiana’s many bass anglers, non-tournament and tournament types akuje, who enjoy fishing Toledo Bend. Locals who have caught bass consistently over the years are sure to learn more about fishing the lake as the pros on the water are live streamed.
The MLF BPT features several events that enhance the fan experience, albeit one that lacks a live weigh-in due to the tour’s format. There will be a watch party at 1 p.m. Saturday and Sunday and the trophy ceremony at 4:30 p.m. Sunday, followed by a meet and greet with the BPT guys, all at Cypress Bend Park.
The Bassmaster Elites weigh-in, of course, is a main attraction. It should be a standing room-only crowd that converges on Cypress Bend Park for Championship Sunday.
As for Toledo Bend, my friend John Dean of Many, a bass fishing guide who writes a monthly Toledo Bend report for the Louisiana Sportsman, called Jan. 5 with some good news for all who love to tap the bass population there. The lake rose approximately 6-8 inches after a heavy rain the first week of January to push it to 168 on Jan. 6, the highest it’s been since early summer when it flat-lined in the 167s until the first week of 2024.
With a real “toad floater” system forecast for Jan. 8, the lake’s pool level should inch up even more. Hopefully, it will climb up to the 171s, even full pool 172, before March. That means there is much more shoreline structure underwater and more places to fish in inside grasslines, like the good ol’ days, now that the hydrilla is back strong, mostly on the Texas side.
DON SHOOPMAN is outdoors editor of The Daily Iberian.