Texada caught the big bass on a Lucky Craft 2.5 square bill crankbait
Terry Texada and his fishing partner were at precisely the right place at exactly the right time Monday on Toledo Bend.
They observed bass and stripers feeding voraciously on bream, and the 52-year-old angler even found a 2-pounder floating with a bull bream stuck in its throat.
“It really was a great day out there with partly cloudy weather and the wind wasn’t bad at all,” he said. “They were also pulling water through the generator.”
The anglers were on the water by 7 in the morning after launching near the dam on the Texas side.
“We were in the Indian Creek area,” he said. “We were on a ridge near the river fishing on scattered grass in 20 feet of water.”
It didn’t take long for his partner, who was fishing an Alabama rig, to put two bass in the boat.
Texada was running a big Lucky Craft 2.5 square bill crankbait on a custom rod that he built. The crankbait was tied to 17-pound Berkley fluorocarbon spooled onto an Abu Garcia Revo Winch reel.
”I made a remark earlier that I was going to catch a big fish with this big bait,” he said.
True to his word, Texada hooked the monster on his fifth cast.
“I knew he was big as soon as the fish hit,” he said. “My partner had one on at the same time.
“The fish jumped once, and I told my partner it was over 10 (pounds),” Texada said.
According to the angler, the bass kept pulling drag as it dove deeper.
“After a good fight, the fish was lipped into the boat,” he said.
The anglers kept fishing until 11:30, catching 16 more fish that morning.
They eventually made their way to Toledo Town and Tackle to weigh Texada’s bass at an official weigh station for the Toledo Bend Lunker Bass program.
The chunky bass weighed 11.57 pounds on T-town’s official scales, and was tagged and released back into Toledo Bend waters.
Texada easily qualified to receive a free replica of the fish from the Toledo Bend Lake Association, which awards all anglers who catch 10-plus pounders with a free replica if they agree to release the fish back into Toledo Bend waters.
Texada’s fish is bass No. 3 for the 2014-15 TBLBP season, which started up earlier this month.
The anglers went on to finish the day fishing at Toledo Bend, and caught 10 more bass, including lots of 3- and 4-pounders with crankbaits and topwaters, and Texada even caught a couple of stripers weighing 8 and 10 pounds.
