I'm standing here with Mr. Gary Moore. He's with the Toledo Bend Lake Association. And, Gary, tell us a little bit about Toledo Bend. We're out here. We're out here at the Bassmaster Tournament. Bassmaster elite and the boys are weighing it in. We've already had 31lbs come to the scale. But tell us what you do very well with through the Lake Association.
We have a group of volunteers that for no pay whatsoever just because they're passionate about the lake and the lake area. We try to make life better around the bend as well. Right. And that includes a lot of things. Some involve fishing and fish and other not so much. You know, we are not not known for the scholarships that we find or the back to school supplies that we make available, help make available for people that are having trouble with that.
But there are things all around the lake that people definitely know. We do. When the very system was first put in, we helped find those boys on the Louisiana side. Okay. Yeah, I guess it burned underneath the Pendleton Bridge so people can fish at night. We find that that was originally back in 2005, 2006. We inherited the Toledo Band Liquor program, and that's probably what we're most known for, at least in fishing circles.
And that's a program where if anyone catches a fish, a bass that weighs 10.00 or larger, if they take it to one of seven approved weigh stations that are located around the lake on both sides of Lake, Texas or Louisiana, Whitefish, Fill out our paperwork, turn the fish over to the people at the weight station, or them to release it alive back in the lake.
And witness that fish swimming away. That person. That anger earns a free fiberglass replica of their fish. That's awesome. That's so awesome. Right? You know, I've always it's one thing that's one thing that has eluded me on this lake. I've come close several times, but but I haven't haven't got my ten, so I'm still wanting to get one.
And I'm in the same club with you. A lot of us are. Lives are in the same boat. You may get one of those possibly this weekend. Right? I'll be surprised if we don't because of the time of year and the weather and whatnot. But anyway, there's some interesting facts about that program. Well, first of all, Toledo being is a huge lake, as most people know, over 180,000, 80,000 acres, fourth largest manmade lake in the country.
And when you start trying to manage that fishery and then when you split it down a middle between Louisiana and Texas, it gets sort of complicated. But Toledo being is a story of people working together from Texas and Louisiana. Just the fact that it got built and also the Wildlife and Fisheries, Texas Parks and Wildlife, they they work a joint plan every year for managing the fisheries.
00:04:56:00 - 00:05:29:02 Unknown And actually some people with the lead of being Lake Association started advocating the stocking of Florida Bass way back in 1992. The first fish were put in the lake excuse me, in 1985 were the first fingerlings put in the lake and a few more were put in and 88 I believe, or 89. And really, in about 92, both states really started putting fish in on a regular basis.
Right. And they since that time, they average over a million fingerlings a year, which sounds like a lot. But when you put it again, go back to 186,000 acres. It's it's not so much, but it's been enough to make a difference. And how do we know that? Well, in just when we started to put the fingerlings in, in 92 and the lake has produced three documented 15 pounder larger fish while the first fish was caught in 2000.
The second fish was caught in 2009. And the third fish, which is the new lake record, which caught a year ago almost to the day in February of 23, and it weighed £15.67, caught by a gentleman from Houston, Texas. His name is Bill Cook. Okay. And an avid tournament fisherman on the lake because that fish in a tournament.
But if you do the math on how long it takes for these fish to grow to be that size, well, first of all, the biology will tell you that not many of them live long enough to do that. Right. But if they do it in and if they're really healthy for example, a £13 fish, now that they've really upped the level of study that they give to these fish when they're caught, particularly on the Texas side, they tell us that the average age is about eight years for a £13 fish, which surprised me.
I thought it would be a little longer, but from 92 to 2000, that's about eight, eight years. Yeah, we got we saw a 15 pounder show up, but we never had one in the lake before. And ten pounders prior to 1992 were relatively rare. But we really don't have any documentation of how many were caught because there was no central program that that kept track of that.
But since 92, it's gotten a lot better because of what the longer program has done and the people that took care of it initially, it was actually managed by. Right. They handed it off to Curt Carver and Glen Carver at Toledo Town for a few years, and they handed it off to the Lake Association in 2005, 2006 season.
And the records initially were kind of sparse. You know, we would say if you go back and look at the records like one fish or two in the first year, right. And then a few the next year or two. And then as the program started to get same notoriety and people started publicizing it more, and really when the Lake Association started managing and publicizing it, really, people started using the program and might be surprising.
But since 92, we've documented believe it's 1169 fish over £10. Wow. In the in the program and since 2005, those records are pretty certain the numbers about 965. So a lot of big fish here. Yeah. And so that that's pretty pretty impressive I think, to most people that fish. Yeah. But the other thing that's pretty impressive is the fact that we tagged those fish and we were hoping that they go back into water, they live to reproduce and be caught again.
Right. And does that happen? Absolutely. On a fairly typical year, we'll see 10% of the lockers that are waiting in were previously caught and tagged. Wow. And we've had one fish that was caught three times. So and we had one fish that was caught twice by the same angler in the same year. Wow. So some really interesting things come to light when you start doing that.
But clearly, we know that the program works. Yes, yes, yes. From now, from that particular set of facts. And we we're proud of what that program represents for Tilly to be in. And, you know, it's it's it's sometimes overwhelming when you think about all the tournaments, all the people fishing around the lake. How do we get people to a place where they can weigh them?
And all these are independent store owners, bait shop owners on the lake, marinas that do it because they love the lake as well. You know, they get some publicity out of it, but they that's really all they get. They get the satisfaction of waiting and seeing those big fish. That's right. And we really appreciate their participation in that.
And then we have, you know, it takes a lot of people to help raise the money to to find that program right. Those replicas are more than $500 apiece now. And so we have a pretty sizable chunk of of our budget that is allocated every year for that. And the largest number of fish in a longer year, which we run made in May, was in the 1516 season.
I believe we had 139 fish in one year and we've people out which we scratch our heads about why. But some of the biologists told us, if you go back and look at what happened three or four years ago and what happened in 2010 or so on this lake, we had the worst drought we ever had, right? The light basically went down sub ten feet for more than two years.
Right. And everybody was really sort of in a bind. If you had a business on the lake, if people weren't coming. But the pain I think was probably worth the gain because while everybody was suffering that wanted the lake to be full, all the trees and grass and plants and things that grew in at Lake Bottom basically generated the food to create a biomass like a new lake.
In fact, they call it the new lake effect. And we got that. And you could see from 2010 the number of lockers climb up to 139. And on the other side of that you could see them come down is that biomass was consumed by the lake. And and we also went through sort of some tough times. We lost a lot of the grass in the lake and the number came down in the thirties or twenties per year.
But if you go back and look at the records, that's not the first time that has ever happened for sure. Yeah. And if you do the math on the numbers in the years, the average number per year is about 50, which is still a lot of fish. Yeah, and last year we had a very impressive year. We had 57 and one of which was the lake record, over 15lbs.
We had one over 14, we had two over 13. In addition to the the others. And so the lake is sort of on an uptick and it's very healthy. And we've got some people, anglers that are beginning to figure out how to catch some of these fish without the grass and and they're finding them offshore, you know, at open water.
And with the new technology, the forward facing sonar that's out there, they're they're figuring out how to catch them. And this year was proof of that mammoth. Even today is proof right now that just what's going on at the top of the board, it's unbelievable that you can that you can do that. Now, how the game is changed.
But you can go out and you can target these fish that were never targeted before because they're in 50 and 60 feet of water. You can find them with that for ice and sonar and catch them. It's I expect to see the numbers continue to grow with lockers because they would a lot of these pick off of those fish that haven't been fished right there a long time.
Right. Have never been fished right now. So they're virgin fish and it's absolutely so Yeah, it's going to just all go I'm going to keep making a bunch of replicas. I hope we we hope so. I mean, that's our that's our goal because you know what? What makes people want to come to the lake are things like the chance to catch a compound fish, a fish of a lifetime and have a, you know, a legitimate chance and and it's amazing where people come from to to do that.
And wow, some of us get tired of people coming in, visiting you know, it's it's good for our local economy when they come. That's right. And I think in the long run, the good certainly outweighs the bad. And all of that goes to make life better around the bend. That's what we're all about. That's exactly right. That's exactly right.
Well, Gary, that's a lot. I appreciate it. Look, to lead a band like association, go out there, go catch you a ten pounder, go see this man. You go to one of the local weigh stations. Just tell tell everybody how if you were to catch a £10 bass, what do you need to go do? Okay, well, first you've got to go to a station, and we do have pamphlets around the lake that say where those waste stations are.
But we have two in Louisiana. One is that live in the drain guides service. One is down at it's not big bass. I'm on message. Stop now. Well, tomorrow we'll start over on the Buckeye at Buck Island and and on the Texas side we have a place it's in in feather. We also have one that's just off the water down at Fairmount Store.
We have one at tackle on Highway 21 just before you come across the lake. And we have one at Holly Park, and there is one north. It hopefully, but they're they're going through, I think, a change up there. So probably more and it's not likely. Most of these fish are caught on the southern end of the lake. So yeah, those are the ones that that where the white section goes.
But you take the fish there, it's got to be alive. You need to take care of it in your life. Well, don't holler around all day if you can help it, go immediately to one of those sites in a way, and bag with water into the facility. Get them to weigh the fish. They'll measure it, they'll tag it, they'll put it back in the bag.
They will go out there with you. They'll turn it loose with you guys. So that's all it takes. Awesome. Awesome. Well, hey, y'all, get up here. Come, fish. Come get you one. Thanks, man. Thank you.
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