Pate’s Toledo Bend strategy works at Lake Cataouatche

• By JOE MACALUSO
• Advocate Outdoors writer
• Published: Jul 2, 2009 - Page: 8C

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Ted Pate saw Lake Cataouatche for the first time about two weeks ago. He liked what he found, if only because the veteran Alexandria angler has had more than a fair share of summertime success at Toledo Bend.

On hot days at The Bend, bass like matted grassbeds: Cataouatche’s matted hydrilla are the only places where bass can hide in this shallow south Louisiana lake.

Pate used what he knew: Take a heavy jig, add a watermelon-red Brush Hog, and punch though the heavy grass.

“I’m pitching the bait into the grass and jigging it two or three times to get a reaction bite,” Pate said Sunday after taking home the $8,000 first-place Pro Division check in the Pro Bass Challenge.

Others threw plastic frogs, buzzbaits and spinnerbaits into and around the grass.

“It’s nothing fancy,” Pate said. “The fish were pretty much over the entire lake. I picked a couple of good spots and just went to work, flipping and jigging and was able to catch some good fish.”

Pate was one of a few anglers to put together back-to-back productive days on the lake. Yet, it was the lure of a big stringer that sent most to Bayou Segnette State Park with Cataouatche their target.

Not Kevin King: He finished third and was the only angler in the Atchafalaya Spillway.

“When prefishing for the tournament, I spent all my time in the Cataouatche area and was not comfortable in getting a two-day limit.

“The fish would cooperate one day, then vanish the next,” King said.

Plan B was the Spillway where King “… found water moving, duck seed flowing and the fish relating to drains, points and runouts emerging from the woods.”

The Atchafalaya River was running above flood stage last weekend, and King settled on the Grand Lake area.

“I was working drains and points with several patterns such as the old Lunker Lures and Devil Horse early, then switch to spinnerbaits,” King said. After that he lobbed a frog on top of duck seed, then punched through water hyacinths in deeper water with a one-ounce tungsten weight and a black/blue Sweet Beaver.