WOOD COUNTY, Texas — A popular East Texas lake is once again ranked among the best lakes in the country.
Lake Fork has cracked Bassmaster's list of the top five best bass lakes in the United States.
Avid anglers affectionately call the kind of largemouth bass that live in Lake Fork, “bucket mouths." And it's the lure of these bass that puts Lake Fork on many anglers’ bucket list.
Lake Fork fishing guide Jacky Wiggins might concentrate on crappie, but he knows the legend of Lake Fork.
“It was one of the greatest bass fisheries in the nation for many years," Wiggins said. "And then it kind of fell off for a little while, but I think that the bass pros helped to bring it back."
Wiggins is talking about the Bassmaster Elite Series tournament. Professional anglers from across the country brought out Lake Fork’s famed lunkers. Sixty-four bass caught that weekend weighed more than 8 lbs. Every angler that made it to the final day caught more than 100 lbs. of bass and earned a century belt.
Jake Norman is the supervising biologist for the Tyler District His area includes Lake Fork. “I kind of knew after the elite event in February and March that this lake is going to be easily top 10," Jake Norman, supervising biologist for the Texas Parks and Wildlife Tyler District, said. "Again, we'll see how far it actually lands when they break records like that.
In 2024, Lake Fork produced 94 ShareLunker bass - that's any bass weighing 8+ lbs.
“They caught a lot of big fish here and they showed that it is still a great fishery," Wiggins said. "You just got to know how to catch them. And there's not many lakes in our country that you can go out and catch multiple fish that over 8 lbs. in a day."
"Again, Lake Fork, I expect that to almost happen for some folks any given day out of the year," Norman said. "And you've seen lately, with some of our better guides, they're catching 35 to 40 lbs. for their best five in a day consistently right now."
The bigger fish are back thanks to a return of plant life on the edges of the lake and East Texas pro angler Lee Livesay says the return of lake grass makes the difference.
“Vegetation is key, especially Hydrilla," Livesay said. "We got hydrilla back. These fish are super healthy. They’re fat. It’s Lake Fork. We’re the GOAT lake. You can look at the list of ShareLunkers donated over the years and Lake Fork has always been the king and always will be."
The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department meticulously manages the 27,000-acre crown jewel of bass lakes. Fork is considered a “slot lake." Any fish between 16" and 24" must be safely released.
“So that's just giving those a greater percentage of fish a greater chance to keep growing larger," Norman said. "We stocked that lake religiously, we put close to half a million fingerlings in that lake every year. And as long as it has good shoreline habitat like we're seeing right now the survival is great for those the natural reproduction is phenomenal. So all those things combined it just keeps producing and producing and producing."
Lake Fork is not the only lake in Texas to make the elite Bassmaster list. In fact, O.H. Ivie, located just west of San Angelo, came in at No. 2. A dozen legacy class ShareLunkers, or bass weighing 13 lbs. or more, were caught at O.H. Ivie between January and March of this year.