Anglers can boat limits of crappie and big bass
Quality bass and crappie fishing opportunities take center stage in April at Toledo Bend.
This great border lake already was on an unbelievable pace through the first week of March, never mind the fact the pool level has been hovering around 168, 4 feet below full pool, for the past several months.
April should be a banner month that’ll find me bouncing back and forth from my bass boat to my pontoon boat for this red-hot time of the year — mid-spring. I’m looking forward to more crappie fishing days like today, when two women enjoying a day on my pontoon boat targeted slabs while competing in a two-day tournament. They weighed in a five-fish limit at 5 pounds, 8 ounces. We caught some big post-spawners. No telling how many crappie we could have boated, but we wanted the right size for a tournament and got about 20 of those on 1/16-ounce Roadrunner jigs and monkey milk-colored Berkley Panfish Assassins on 1/32-ounce jigheads.
Myself and other Living the Dream Guide Service fishing guides expect to find the crappie, either in the spawn or post-spawn mode, from right along the shoreline out to 20-foot depths. We’ve been catching good numbers through February and early March and there are no signs of the crappie fishing slowing down for any reason. Both grass and wood should give up the crappie this month, mostly on monkey milk and chartreuse/blue soft plastics or shiners with fewer falling for Roadrunners. This time of year my go-tos are 1/32- to 1/16-ounce jigheads.
For shiners, I stick them on a No. 2 or No. 4 hook with a weight anywhere from a No. 5 to a No. 0.
Top baits for bass
It should be a good April for bass, too. They’ll be anywhere from the shoreline out to approximately 15 feet deep. The key is to concentrate on spawning areas as well as avenues leading out of them, such as creek channels and ditches. Lure selection choices should agree with just about anyone’s fancy, everything from weightless soft plastics, topwaters, Carolina-rigged soft plastics, shad-colored crankbaits, soft plastic swim baits or plastic frogs.
One of the first soft plastics I pick up is a watermelon-based or black/blue Bass Assassin Lures Fat Job, rigged weightless or Texas- or wacky-rigged.
Shad- and bluegill-colored topwaters can be very productive, particularly poppers. One of the best is a Berkley Bullet.
When I throw a Carolina rig it usually has a watermelon Berkley Bass Assassin Shad on the business end of a 4- to 5-foot long, 15-pound test monofilament leader tied to a 20-pound test monofilament or fluorocarbon line leader with a 3/4-ounce weight most of the time. If I’m fishing it in grass I might drop to a ¼-ounce weight.
I also reach for shad-colored crankbaits like the Berkley Dredger going about 15-feet deep and shad- or bluegill-colored swimbaits like the 4 ½-inch long Berkley Bass Assassin Boss Shiner.
This month is prime time for the shad spawn, which is when white Stanley Ribbits, swimbaits, swim jigs and spinnerbaits really shine. You can get those fish to bite a lot of times during the shad spawn on the Ribbit, a long-time favorite of mine. ■
Call Living the Dream Guide Service at (318) 256-8991 to make a dream fishing trip come true on Toledo Bend.
