fished the mega bass yesterday and right off the bat im going down the boat lane and hear comes a fool going straight through the no wake zone under a bridge and almost side swipes us, NOTE;;; this is the first time I have ever been on fork so I asked a lot of questions on the lanes so I would avoid this kind of problem,,,,,, so my question is does this happen a lot??? thank god for my quick reflexes and awesome boat driving(that's a joke guys) my buddy did tell me he could have high fived the guy, he was that close to us.....

I see it every once in a while on the 154 bridge.

You probably didn't notice that he was a professional fishermen with extraordinary skills.

I honestly don't see a lot of guys running under the bridges on fork.
Sorry you ran into "that" guy and glad it wasn't any worse.

Correct me if I'm wrong but those no wake zones under the bridges were put in after someone got killed running under one?

I see it every time I fish fork.

Not too much on fork but on other lakes I see it all the time. I did have a handful of idiots that decided to stop right in the middle of the boat lane to fish. If youre gonna do that then pull off the boat lane to get off plane then go back to it. Just asking to get run over, some people act like boats have brakes.

Ive seen it several times during the big tournaments. Youve got to watch out for these idiots.

I agree with Nathan,.."normally" the locals, frequent fishermen, and residents have a lot of respect of each other on the lake. It's the hourly weigh-ins, run n gun guys that are dangerous. I've seen them racing back
to the weigh-in, 2=3 wide,

The story I recall was a crappie angler under a bridge who was standing in a boat. He got waked by someone plowing under the bridge, made contact with the bottom of the bridge and broke his neck. I'm sure their may have been others but that's the one I recall. From lightning strikes to collisions to timber falling on anglers, Fork has had its share of fatalities.

Welcome to Lake Fork! It happens and you just have to go with the flow. Seen people run through upper Birch right past us where the channel swings in close to the bank right through the timber.

Dad and I were deep cranking one of the tank dams on Big Caney just north of 154. Apparently there is a guide lane over over there and with the nose pointed north I didn't hear the first boat that blew past us at full speed on pad about 30 feet away until he was right there. It scared me actually and made me flinch. The second following boat showed some respect and shut it down and idled through. So the next thing that happened was two guys on high trolling motor making a beeline for where we were. I looked back at him and he said yes this is nuts "lets go."

For safety reasons and out of respect for the Crappie fisherman I always get off plane and idle thru under the bridges. Much in the same way while working a bank will go around and not crowd someone else that's on a spot. Its just basic respect. Some don't feel that way but for the most part I think that most people that fish do the same. But there is always that one guy!!!

Good luck.

JT

I remember running that lane in Birch. I also remember them putting buoys in when they marked the boat lanes and seeing a big widow maker in a direct line between two buoys half way from the cut to the power lines . I now run about half way from the power line to the cut and come off plane in open water. But back in the day it was fun to watch the graph drop to 1.5 on depth as we ran thru there.

First time running up Birch going buoy to buoy I was running about 60ish and was coming up on the power lines. Up ahead I saw what I thought were lane buoys but there was timber in between. Then those buoys started moving and turned out to be two big swans... And I shut it down real quick!

When in doubt idle and learn.

thanks guys, we weren't really mad about it just glad we didn't hit each other because it could have been bad for both of us, I will be back though, it was an awesome lake to fish even if it was pretty slow fishing for us,

I've seen those swan bouys before...