After practice this week, some Elite Series anglers predicted that Lake Fork was about to pop. That’s pop in a good way – pop out of the finicky summer-to-fall transition pattern and pop into a full fall feeding frenzy. It appears those forecasts were half-right, after Day 1 of the Toyota Bassmaster Texas Fest benefitting Texas Parks & Wildlife Department.
As you can see in the chart below, Lake Fork posted some better numbers than the Elite Series anglers have experienced in the three previous stops. And some that were more of the same. The top of the leaderboard is where Lake Fork stood out. For instance, Brock Mosley’s 10th place total of 19-8 yesterday would have been leading on Day 1 at Lake Guntersville and Lake Chickamauga. But as you go down the standings, Lake Fork’s 40th-place Day 1 total ranked third of the four fisheries. And the percentage of anglers catching a 5-bass limit was exactly the same as at Guntersville.
So, yeah, Lake Fork popped a little bit yesterday. We’ll see if its fall bass fishing pops open a little bit more today.
| Day 1 | Gun’ville | Santee | Chick | Fork |
| Date | 9/30 | 10/8 | 10/16 | 11/5 |
| 1st place | 19-5 | 25-8 | 19-6 | 29-4 |
| 10th place | 15-13 | 16-2 | 13-0 | 19-8 |
| 20th place | 14-5 | 14-7 | 11-0 | 16-0 |
| 40th place | 11-9 | 12-10 | 8-9 | 10-12 |
| Big bass | 8-6 | 7-9 | 6-9 | 9-9 |
| Total bass | 346 | 349 | 270 | 323 |
| Total weight | 934-13 | 952-12 | 653-4 | 957-9 |
| Ave. wt/bass | 2.70 | 2.73 | 2.42 | 2.96 |
| 5-bass limits | 46/85 | 59/85 | 29/85 | 46/85 |
| Limit % | 54.1% | 69.4% | 34.1% | 54.1% |