The Great Seven Year Itch, Lake Fork Style

The winter periods from '86-'87 through '92-'93 may be the most unbelievable fishing experience the country and certainly Texas has ever seen in terms of giant largemouth bass. In those seven winter periods Lake Fork produced record sized bass in numbers that may never be seen again. So what really came from Fork from winter 1986 through Spring 1993?

Inside the astounding numbers

• The SIX (6) largest bass ever caught in Texas.
• TEN(10) out of the FIFTEEN (15) Largest bass ever caught in Texas.
• A full FIFTEEN (15) out of the TWENTY FIVE (25) largest bass ever caught in Texas.
• One Half of the FIFTY (50) Largest Bass of all time in Texas.

To help put these numbers in prospective consider that since 1987 Budweiser, and now Toyota have operated a joint program with Texas Parks & Wildlife called the ShareLunker program. The program operates to harvest and research giant Texas Bass. Any person catching a fish weighing 13lbs or more from Texas waters can have the fish picked up by TPWD and entered into the program.

The research program lists now over 475 fish of at least 13lbs. No surprise is that Lake Fork has more than half of the largest fish in the program. That is half of the fish over 13lbs all caught in one lake! The other lakes in the Top Five all time ShareLunker entries are Alan Henry (25), Sam Rayburn (23), Conroe (16) and Choke Canyon (12).

So how do these lakes stack up against the TWENTY FIVE monsters of greater than 15lbs caught in fork from winter 1986 through spring 1993?

Combined these four lakes have produced only three (3) fish large enough to be in the top 50, EVER!
And as for the current king Lake Falcon, it is yet to produce a fish large enough to crack the top 50.

The seven year period at Lake Fork is something that may never again be duplicated by any Bass fishing lake anywhere. Just the idea that any body of water produced over 25 black bass weighing more than 15.30 pounds in that amount of time is unreal.

Sometimes the Reeltruth is hard to believe!


http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/fishboat/fish/programs/fishrecords/freshwater/top50_largemouth.phtml