| TOLEDO BEND, TEXAS pg. 1 of 4 |
| Back in the early '70s three of the guys from the local hangout, 'Heavy', 'Crazy Jack', and 'Dogfish', decided that they wanted to go on a bass fishing trip. One of them read about a 'Hot' lake in East Texas called Toledo Bend. They made plans to go in the spring of the following year, 1974, and they reserved a trailer at Carmichael's Marina on the southern end of the 100-mile-long lake. Spring came and they towed their 14 ft aluminum boat the 1000 miles from Dayton, Ohio down to the lake. When they arrived they found a lake that was filled with flooded timber and stumps and every place looked like it would hold fish. Navigation was a problem and they were leery of venturing too far from the marina in fear of shearing a prop or damaging the hull on a submerged tree or stump. |
| Although they caught a few nice bass each day they were in awe of all the stringers of big largemouth that the locals and guides were bringing in each day. They knew that they had to find out how to fish the lake in order to match the catches that were consistently coming in. Before leaving they made arrangements to book a guide for the next spring. The guide's name was Bill Fox. |
| That following spring of '75 my brother Tim, 'Heavy', 'Dogfish', and 'Pip' made the long trip. Throughout the week they took turns fishing with Bill Fox. He took them to various locations and explained to them what type of structure to look for. |
| He taught them to fish an 1/8 oz black marabou jig with light line over the submerged weed beds. He would hold the boat just outside the deeper edge of the weeds and make casts over the weeds and swim/hop it back to the boat. |
| This method was totally new to the group who thought that they needed heavy tackle because of all the timber throughout the lake. Although Bill Fox caught most of the fish they realized that there were plenty of good bass in the lake and all they had to do was to perfect the technique Fox taught them. |
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