FORT WORTH, Texas — Trophy bass hunters from around the nation flock to Texas during springtime to catch a personal best largemouth, and the myriad entries into the Toyota ShareLunker program prove why. Joining them in that quest will be the 56 qualifiers in the Bass Pro Shops Bassmaster Classic presented by Under Armour.
The Classic will be played out March 21-23 on Lake Ray Roberts, with the chances of ShareLunker entries being weighed in a great possibility. The categories for ShareLunker entries are for largemouth weighing 8, 10 and 13 pounds and over. Legacy ShareLunkers weighing 13-plus pounds and caught during the January to March spawning season can be loaned to Texas Parks and Wildlife to support its selective breeding program, which stocks genetically superior offspring into Texas impoundments.
Will ShareLunker trophies come across the Classic stage? We turned to an expert to from Texas Parks and Wildlife to find out.
“Ray Roberts sets up really well in March for catching big bass, with the bass moving into shallower water to spawn,” said Dan Bennett, district supervisor who oversees fisheries management on the Classic fishery. “Generally, when we get higher water, it provides more cover and habitat for bass as they get pushed into the button bush shorelines.”
Ray Roberts has produced six Legacy class ShareLunkers, including the current lake record weighing 15.18 pounds, coincidentally caught in March 2015. Since the Classic was last held in 2021 on Ray Roberts, three ShareLunker entries weighing over 10 pounds were caught in the month of March.
Prior to the impoundment of Ray Roberts in 1987, Texas Parks and Wildlife fisheries biologists envisioned following the same blueprint as Lake Fork, the state’s top producer of ShareLunker entries. At both projects, Florida largemouth breeding pairs were stocked in existing farm ponds before the lakes were inundated. The theory was the trophy potential would be jumpstarted as the lake filled. At Lake Fork, the plan was an overwhelming success.
Texas Parks and Wildlife and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service coordinated a timber management plan during the construction process of Ray Roberts to boost sport fishing productivity. Approximately 3,000 acres of standing timber were left in the reservoir, while cleared timber was consolidated into 44 large piles, most located in the open water of the lower end.
What remains is roughly 2,000 acres of standing timber. Coverage area was reduced after the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers discovered significant erosion along the 2-mile riprap shoreline of the dam. The water level was lowered 12 feet to bolster the riprap, and in doing so, much of the newly exposed and waterlogged standing timber collapsed at the water level.
The predominant visual habitat at Ray Roberts is the standing timber. Aquatic vegetation is sparse. The Elm Fork arm is more turbid than the west arm, due to runoff from farmland. Hydrilla grows in one cove on the east arm, and common and American pondweed covers about 10% of the surface area. Coverage of aquatic vegetation, namely milfoil and pondweed, expanded in 2023 to almost 7,000 of the lake’s 26,000 surface acres.
“Aquatic vegetation has increased somewhat since the last Classic in 2021,” said Bennett. “That’s due to natural causes with the stability of the lake level and rainfall supporting vegetation growth.”
Ray Roberts is divided into two arms that run north and south on the compass dial. Those are the Elm Fork of the Trinity River, to the west, and the east arm. The clearer east arm supports the most aquatic vegetation, while the west arm tends to be more turbid due to the flow of the river.
As a Corps of Engineers Lake, there has been minimal development around the 259 miles of shoreline, so most of the shoreline is natural and consists of rocky banks and seasonally flooded shrubs like button bush.
Ray Roberts is on a regular stocking program to keep the fishery up to par with other trophy lakes in Texas. The lake has received 4.6 million Florida largemouth, with the fisheries management plan calling for subsequent stockings every two to three years. Notably in 2024, 347,000 Lonestar Bass were stocked, which are descendants of ShareLuker Legacy class largemouth weighing 13 pounds or more.
Will the Classic fishery show out with a double-digit trophy? There is a legit chance it will happen. After all, Texas is known as the land of the giants.
