Toby Wilson Explains Catching Bass in Tuscaloosa County
As we continue to raise awareness around the opportunities to fish in Tuscaloosa County, especially along the Black Warrior River, Toby Wilson continues to share his advice and expertise.
Editor’s Note: Toby Wilson is a management consultant and has been fishing the Black Warrior River in Tuscaloosa County for the last seven years. He’s also heavily involved with high-school bass fishing in Tuscaloosa County with his three sons through Holy Spirit High School. His eldest, Garrett, is 18-years old, his son, Matthew is 16 years old, and his youngest son, Chase, is 15-years old.
Toby Wilson: I have two sons who bass fish on the high-school circuit. I’ve been the coach for the Holy Spirit High School fishing team for almost six years. This year we have two people on the team, but we have had three before. I’m working on teaching the team how to fish well enough to move into the college circuits. But like most youngsters, they’d rather me take them places where I know bass are there to catch, rather than finding the bass themselves. My son Garrett already has reached-out to the fishing coach for the University of Alabama Fishing Team and will start there in the fall. I’m planning to help both of my sons to bass fish when they go to college too. I have two bass boats – one that was my dad’s boat, and the other is mine.
John E. Phillips: Toby, if someone wants to fish in Tuscaloosa County on the Black Warrior River that runs the length of the county, where can they go to get the best information on tournament results, available fishing tournaments and high school and college programs?
Wilson: Check out Bob Hale’s L&L Marine website. Bob keeps up with most of the tournaments in this area. Dustin Wright, the fishing coach for Tuscaloosa County Northside High School and the District Director for the Alabama Bass Nation, has information on tournaments located in Tuscaloosa too.
Phillips: To fish the Black Warrior River in Tuscaloosa County to catch bass, where and how will you fish, what lures will you use, and what strategies will you employ to produce the five-fish limit needed to be competitive in a tournament?
Wilson: In the spring of the year, the backwater areas that we have available to fish for bass can be very productive. These same regions may not be accessible in the winter, but in the spring and early summer, this section of the Warrior River has a lot of high water that gives anglers access to the backwaters that perhaps we can’t fish during other times of the year.
When I want to fish in Tuscaloosa County, some of my favorite backwaters are in Oliver Lake, all the way down to Lock 6. There seems to be better backwater fishing near the town of Akron and Lock 8 than there is up toward the northern portion of Oliver. Many of these backwaters don’t even have names. Because of the high water, you can find stained water in these backwater regions. The lures that work the best there for bass are lures that make a noise, like the chatterbait and the square bill crankbait. The most-productive color generally is white in both the chatterbait and the crankbait.
