The Lake Fork Baptist church had a paper tourney for preachers and I was asked if I would take some of them out. I agreed to do so.
I took out local pastors wife, Dorinda & another pastors wife from Greenville, June.
It was all in fun & bragging rights and they had a system that allowed for any fish to be caught & measured. Then the length was multiplied by a factor on easy the species the fish are supposed to be to catch. Fishing times were from safe light to Noon, be back at the church at 12:30 for weigh in and a hamburger lunch.

The ladies definitely wanted to go after crappie even after I warned them that it had been hit or miss for me lately. I even told them they could more than likely win if we hit the sandbass, but they opted to stick to crappie.
We ended up with 4 crappie & 5 catfish - all caught on jig & cork rigs in 2-8 fow.
Here's a picture of Dorinda with 1 of her crappie and June behind her.



I had a blast fishing with them and would do it again in a minute!
But I was confused as to why there has not been many fish shallow. I have only got into spawners good a couple of times so far. On my way to the ramp for weigh-in, I was idling to the boat lane while side scanning and my graph lit up on a submerged tree top in 20 fow!!!!

After weigh in and lunch, I came back home and rested for a bit, but the lake was dead calm, it was warm & I had to find out where the fish are.
Belinda put me in at the 515W ramp. They have just finished blacktopping the parking lot, it is in great shape now!
I idled out to a submerged treetop, dropped a Lil' Fry and THUMP
1st 2 lb'r


I very quickly caught 5 or 6 more and moved to another treetop when it slowed down - THUMP

Another 2 lb'r


Although about 1/3 of the fish I caught were dinks, I was putting some nice ones in the box. I didn't keep anything under 11"s.
The wind quickly picked up out of the east, I was already worn out, so I quit with 16 in the box.
All were caught within sight of the ramp, on main lake, in 20-24 fow, suspended on the treetops 8-14' deep.
Bought 2 bags of ice.
Right after church the next day, I cleaned them and this is what I found. 12 were females.Sorry no pics, but the biggest fish was spawned out, next one was full of eggs ready to spawn. The rest had eggs that were ready to spawn to still needing a little more development.
I'm still scratching my head, but I believe the majority of fish have still yet to go shallow, if they spawn at all this year......or maybe they are spawning in the treetops as was suggested in another thread?????
Lake Fork is now just a tad bit over 2' low now and rises with every rain. After being 7'7" low.

In conclusion, don't be hesitant to look in your summer spots for fish right now here.
Good luck everyone

great report. me and my wife went Saturday as well several fish, but lots of dinks. Caught them from 10' to 20' of water in various spots.

Great report Todd!! Glad the ladies caught some!

Good report Todd. We're all scratching our heads this year. No discern-able pattern. Some fish definitely have spawned, but we're looking in the wrong places. Think I'm gona hit the blue cats this week.

nice report. i was out there saturday and only caught a few little ones.

very nice gesture Mr B! wtg back and get'em!

Solid post with some solid fish. Good job.

Yer sir! It has been a great year and its fixing to get real good.

Your a good man Todd Box. Nice fish.

Thanks for the update!

Awesome job Mr. Box and nice report. We have been finding the same, fish 10-12' down in 16-20' of water mostly over tree tops... in April, Glad the ladies caught some fish

Thanks for the report, it gives me a little hope lol. May have to try fork again this weekend.

Sure looks like a good time with the church group. Thanks for pitching in for "Todd's Guide Service". LOL
Great report. WTG!

Like Ken said, been a very strange year...