Deep Spawners Hung Around Pads, Grass

By Todd Ceisner
BassFan Editor

What was initially thought to be the classic scenario for a bed-fishing tournament in Florida turned into a test of wills and patience at the Lake Toho FLW Tour.

All the talk heading into the season opener centered around the rapid rise in air temperature, the full moon that filled the night sky just before the event got started and the expectation that waves of bass would head to their spawning grounds and make easy pickings for the 154-boat field.

While spawners accounted for a good number of fish weighed in during competition, changing conditions dictated competitors have plans B and C at the ready. The trusted bait for many this week was a Texas-rigged Senko-style soft stick bait cast around spawning cover. Dead-sticking and extremely slow retrieves seemed to be the dominant techniques with that and any sort of soft plastics.

At the same time, the water level was dropping at a substantial rate as a result of a rain storm the weekend before the tournament. That produced a fair bit of current throughout the system and set up fish in places where anglers could target them with crankbaits and other reaction offerings.

Here’s a rundown of how the rest of the Top 5 tackled Toho:

2nd: Scott Canterbury

> Day 1: 5, 19-01
> Day 2: 5, 19-13
> Day 3: 5, 14-13
> Day 4: 5, 21-10
> Total = 20, 75-05

Scott Canterbury is starting to develop a soft spot for fishing in Florida, especially in the spring. He finished 13th in the Bassmaster Southern Open at Lake Toho back in January so he brought a measure of confidence with him for the Tour event.

“Having fished the Open and spending the extra time on the water really paid off and made all the difference,” he said. “I didn’t have to run around. I already knew where to look.”

Having spent considerable time at Lake Kissimmee during the Open, Canterbury wanted to seek out other potential areas for the Tour stop. He found one in Tiger Lake, a small lake connected to the west side of Kissimmee.

“I’d never been over there and there were beds all around the docks and everywhere I caught fish had that hard, sandy bottom,” he said. “The first day of practice was still cold, but I knew it would change a lot. I still went to Kissimmee every day, but I wanted to look at different areas and Tiger was one of them. It turned out that it made the difference for me.”

Bed-fishing was a fruitless endeavor since all he could catch were male bass.

“I just started fan-casting those areas because you couldn’t get up on top of the big ones because they’d spook easily,” he said.

He did that the first two days and came back with 19-pound bags both days, thanks to 7-pound kickers each day.

He switched gears on day 3 and focused more on current-oriented fish. He didn’t stick a big fish, but his 14-13 stringer gave him a spot among the 10 finalists.

He went back to the soft stick bait on the final day and spent some time in Tiger because the conditions were conducive to the area he’d found. On his second flip, he caught a 9-pounder from under a boat dock and rode a 21-10 bag to the runner-up spot.

“If it would’ve been hot and sunny all week, there’s no telling what the weights would’ve been,” he said. “I had to change every day and I’m really proud of what I did to change with the conditions and fish my instincts.”

As far as his presentation, “super slow was the whole key,” Canterbury said. “If I was throwing it weightless, I had to let it fall to the bottom. Half of the fish bit it while it was laying there. Same thing with boat docks, I’d pitch in there and let it sit.

“They just wanted it super slow and were not wanting to chase a bait. They were just in that spawning mood.”

> Worm gear: 7’6 heavy-action Halo Twilite Series casting rod, Ardent Elite Grand casting reel (7.3:1 gear ratio), 15-pound P-Line Ultimate fluorocarbon line, 3/16-, 3/8- and 1/2-oz. unnamed tungsten slip sinkers, 4/0 unnamed offset wide-gap worm hook, Bruiser Baits Stick Worm (black/blue flake).

> He upsized his weights when casting the worm in areas with current. He also threw the worm weightless at times.

> Regarding his decision to fish with 15-pound line around some pretty thick cover, he said, “I think that got me more bites. It scares you a little putting 15-pound line under docks and things like that, but I didn’t have a problem with it.”

> Main factor in his success – "The ability to change on the fly and fish the conditions. The other key was fishing super slow this week.”

> Performance edge – "My Typhoon sunglasses helped me a tremendous amount. The water was lower than it was for the Open and everybody was saying it was hard to see, but those Typhoon glasses were helpful and gave me confidence in what I was looking at. Also, half the fish I caught came with my Power-Poles down so those were a key to slowing down.”

3rd: Wesley Strader

> Day 1: 5, 18-08
> Day 2: 5, 14-07
> Day 3: 5, 21-05
> Day 4: 5, 20-07
> Total = 20, 74-11

Wesley Strader has had success in Florida in the past, but his decision to target a shell bed in Lake Hatchineha on day 3 turned his tournament around and darn near won it for him.

He worked over bedding areas in Kissimmee grass over the first two days, casting to holes in the vegetation with a Zoom Trick Worm and Super Fluke. He went through the same areas on Friday with an Old School Baits Twin Spin prop bait to catch 14-07.

“It was windy and overcast so it felt right for that bait,” he said.

On the third day, with more overcast conditions, he stopped on a shell bed he’d fished in previous events. After 30 minutes of no bites with the Trick Worm, he opted to pull a Yo-Zuri lipless crankbait across it. For the next 45 minutes, he caught fish after fish until he totaled up 21-05.

“With that vibration bait, if one would miss it, before I could get my slack reeled up, another would hit it,” he said. “I didn’t get any bites yo-yoing it like you can at other places. I just kept it steady right along the shells.”

He said the shell bed topped at 2 1/2 feet deep, but he had discovered the right angle cast to trigger bites.

“It was like fishing a ledge,” he said. “The spot was about 50 feet wide and that was it.”

He went back there on day 4 and had another flurry that netted him an 8-pounder that anchored another 20-pound bag.

> Fluke gear: 7’5” medium-heavy Powell Max 3D casting rod, Team Lew's Lite casting reel (7.5:1 ratio), 16-pound unnamed fluorocarbon line, 1/16-oz. Reins Tungsten slip sinker, 4/0 Lazer TroKar offset worm hook, Zoom Super Fluke (watermelon).

> Worm gear: 7’6” mag medium-heavy Power Max 3D casting rod, same reel, 20-pound Izor monofilament line, 1/4-oz. Reins Tungsten slip sinker, 4/0 Lazer TroKar offset worm hook, Zoom Trick Worm (junebug).

> Lipless crankbait gear: 7’5” heavy-action Powell Max cranking rod, Team Lew's Pro Speed Spool casting reel (6.4:1 ratio), 16-pound unnamed fluorocarbon line, Yo-Zuri Rattl’N Vibe (baby bass).

> Main factor in his success – "Being able to adjust and go with my gut and do something different and experiment and explore. Being so far behind, I had to play around and go with my gut.”

> Performance edge – "My Lowrance electronics were really key for me being able to see those shell beds. And I really think the copper rose lenses in my Typhoon sunglasses really helped me see a lot deeper in the tannic water.”

4th: Stacey King

> Day 1: 5, 28-01
> Day 2: 5, 11-12
> Day 3: 5, 10-03
> Day 4: 5, 17-09
> Total = 20, 67-09

Up until two weeks before the Lake Toho tournament, Stacey King wasn’t sure he was up for the potential week-long grind of a Tour event.

“I have really been feeling good, but my endurance wasn’t that good,” he said. “I could fish for five or six hours and would get worn out. (My wife) Peggy coaxed me into coming to this thing. We came down early and fished three days at Okeechobee to get in shape so this was more of an endurance contest for me. I did pretty well, I think.”

Over the years, King, who hails from the Ozarks, has been able to obtain a better understanding of how to fish effectively in Florida and he used that experience to his advantage.

“It’s just a learning experience after you’ve fished a lot in the same place,” he said. "Eventually, you learn how to catch them. When you’re blind-casting, you have to understand what type of cover they spawn around. You need a hard bottom and openings in the vegetation so there’s sunlight getting through so they can build the bed.

“Pads and Kissimmee grass typically grow on a hard bottom, so I was keying on little openings in those.”

His go-to bait was a soft stickbait and he also threw a buzzbait, but caught the majority of his keepers on the Bass Pros Shops Stick-O.

He popped 28-01 on the first day and was a fixture in the Top 5 the rest of the event. He ran to Lake Kissimmee three of the four days, opting to stay in Toho on day 3.

“I stuck with a pattern all week,” he said. “I caught most of my fish in 3 to 5 feet.”

> Worm gear: 7’ heavy-action Bass Pro Shops Carbon Lite casting rod, Bass Pro Shops Johnny Morris signature series casting reel (6.4:1 ratio), 17- and 20-pound Bass Pro Shops XPS fluorocarbon line, 1/16- and 3/16-oz. Bass Pro Shops tungsten slip sinkers, 3/0 Gamakatsu Finesse Heavy Cover hook, 6” Bass Pro Shops Stick-O (green-pumpkin), Zoom Magnum Speed Worm (junebug).

> Main factor in his success – "That place that my wife and I had had several big bites in practice and that zeroed me in what they were doing and it paid off for me.”

> Performance edge – "My Power-Poles and Lowrance electronics, not so much for the depth but for the course extension features. You can pinpoint a spot 20 miles down the lake and go directly to it.”

5th: Luke Clausen

> Day 1: 5, 20-00
> Day 2: 5, 14-07
> Day 3: 5, 15-04
> Day 4: 5, 15-11
> Total = 20, 65-06

Toho will always hold fond memories for Luke Clausen, who won the 2006 Bassmaster Classic there to become the youngest millionaire in the sport. He fished a few memories last week – Jack’s Slough was where he won the Classic, but he said it got hammered pretty hard during the Tour event – but he was mostly focused on scattered clumps of lily pads and Kissimmee grass. He caught all of his weigh-in fish on Z-Man’s version of the Senko – the ZinkerZ.

“The spawn drags out so long here,” he said. “I think a lot of them had spawned already and there are still a lot that haven’t spawned. In Florida, you can probably come here in November and find some on beds and come back in May and still find them there.”

With the weather pattern leading into the event, he was sure there’d be a wave of fish moving on beds, but he was surprised at how few were there.

“For the most part, all of my better fish were out deeper in 4 to 5 feet,” he said. “I could get in shallow and get more bites, but not the quality you’d catch out deeper. There were few bites to be had out deep, but they were usually better ones.”

> Worm gear: 7’9” extra-heavy Megabass Orochi XX casting rod, unnamed casting reel, 16-pound Gamma Edge fluorocarbon line, 1/8- and 1/4-oz. unnamed slip sinker, 4/0 unnamed straight shank hook, Z-Man ZinkerZ (black/blue).

> Main factor in his success – "Just keeping an open mind and keeping that bait/rod/line setup in my hand. I had confidence in knowing that would work and in finding new areas.”

> Performance edge – "There’s no way I could’ve caught them that well without my Power-Poles. The way the wind was blowing, you could never get up wind and fish effectively. I put wind at my back, put the poles down and was able to be efficient.”