Biologist Coughlin Says Toho Catch Rate Good

Florida's West Lake Toho, and connected waters, play host to next week's Bassmaster Classic. The lake recently underwent a rehabilitation – a drawdown and dredging project – meant to improve the fishery.

Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission fisheries biologist Tim Coughlin helped oversee the project. As the project leader for the Kissimmee chain of lakes, he's directly plugged into everything Toho. Here's what he had to say about how the project went, and the condition of the Toho fishery right now.

BassFan: Why was there a need to rehabilitate West Lake Toho?

Coughlin: Water levels in the whole Kissimmee chain used to fluctuate quite a bit throughout the year. Beginning in the 1960s, the U.S. Corps of Engineers put in various structures and canals, several of which reduced water-level fluctuations. After that, it pretty much stabilized.

In the past, when you had higher water levels, it left a lot of organic muck and heavy vegetation along the shore. That would get blown pretty far inland during high water.

During low water, the area would dry out, and when it refilled we'd have good vegetation. That's how Mother Nature took care of herself.

Now what we've had to do is lower the water levels periodically. We'll have a drawdown, then go into an area of shoreline that, after years of stable water, has gotten filled with thick muck and vegetation – too thick to support a fish population.

So you lowered the water and dredged out the muck and weeds. Where did you put it?

We either dispose of it upland, or when we run out of areas to store it, we dispose of it out in the lake. We consolidate it and pile in 1- or 2-acre islands.

We try to put as much as possible in outside disposal. But we're limited in the tracts of land and landowners willing to accept the material. That's getting harder and harder to find.

How much material was removed during the project?

It cost roughly $7 million and we removed somewhere around 8 million cubic yards of organic muck and vegetation.

When did the project begin, and when did it end?

We started lowering water levels in the late fall of 2003, and we didn't reach our target low, where everything dried out, until winter 2004.

We continued to work and I think we finished up by June 1 (2004), which is when they started to bring the water level up to normal. We reached normal low pool in 6 weeks. But then we had a problem.

When the hurricanes came, the water level just got real high real fast. That was not good for the area we worked on. We like a slow refill to allow the vegetation to come back – the bulrushes and different types of grasses.

The water came up very quickly, got very high, and we had the wind and wave action associated with the hurricanes. As a result, the plants that were coming up and germinating basically got wiped out by the hurricanes and high water.

Did you have to do further work after that?

Things aren't ideal yet. We're taking steps to get the vegetation back that we want – to quicken it up a little. In April I'm planting 350,000 potted plants.

It was just West Lake Toho involved in the project, right?

Yes, just Toho was drawn down. Kissimmee had gone through a drawdown in 1996 and is still looking pretty good habitat-wise.

To sum it up quickly, the reason we do them (drawdowns) is just to get back a desireable aquatic plant community.

How is the Toho fish population right now?

It's pretty good. We started electro-shock sampling, and we do creel surveys every fall. The last 2 years, Toho has been hanging right around 0.5 bass per hour catch-rate for anglers. That's good.

In terms of size, I would have to look at the data, but there's plenty of good fish there.

(Editor's note: Coughlin spoke with BassFan from his home and did not have access to sampling data.)

How does that catch-rate compare to historical rates?

It's been lower and higher, but 0.5 is kind of the historical average. Where we like to see it is around 0.6 or 0.7. Those are figures that are reasonable.

There was the one outstanding year, 2001, when it was 1.0 bass per hour. That was by far the highest catch-rate during any creel surveys in the history of the lake.

And that was the same year Dean Rojas broke the all-time BASS weight record at Toho.

Right, but that's not a goal we can really set and maintain. Your population will always fluctuate due to natural events. But typically, the range in the past has been between 0.4 and 0.7.

Has there been a major spawn yet on the lake this year?

There's been a few fish spawning, but I haven't seen a real heavy surge yet. And actually right now, if I was to put in my order for an ideal weather pattern for the Classic, we're getting it right now.

We had cold weather, and last week we had one of the coldest nights in history, where it was below freezing for 3 or 4 hours. That's not a real common event in Florida.

Now, after the last cold front, things are warming up. It's around 80 today, and on through the time of the Classic we'll have highs in the 70s.

I think we'll probably see a surge of fish hitting the spawn just prior to and during the Classic. That should make the sight-fishermen very happy.

What's the main forage base in the lake?

It has quite a bit of shad. The bass in Florida for the most part like to predominantly feed on shad. Crawfish don't make up as big a portion of their diet as in some other lakes in other states. So shad is the dominant food type.

And of course there are grass shrimp around, but those are so small only juvenile bass feed on those. They're not big enough for an adult bass to mess with and forage on.

Are there both threadfin and gizzard shad?

There's a mix of both, but the bass seem to key on the threadfin. They're more important because they spend their entire lives within a size that bass can forage on. Gizzard shad can grow relatively quickly and eventually grow too big for bass to forage on.

And lastly, how about size? Are there still 10-plus-pounders swimming in Toho?

There's been a few big fish caught this year. There's still definitely a bunch of big fish.

No matter what, every year, there's a number of 10-plus-pound fish swimming in every one of those lakes. They never disappear.