You're right, the mark you want to hit at fork is 10 pounds. And I'm not saying that a guide will always or even most times catch an over. Here's my point. If you fish fork a lot like I do you understand that those good unders can be super hard to find. I can remember a tournament day on fork when I caught what would have been a 25 lb limit in a span of 30 minutes, yet went on to only catch 2 unders for about 3 lbs and see 6 lbs take the tournament. I've had many days like that. You're looking for a fish thats not 3 lbs because that's usually an over, but has to be at least 1.75 or 2 lbs to be productive towards your limit. And it's not like you can have a couple 1 lbers and have a 4 lber to balance out the average. Every single fish has to be in that 1 lb window. For a guide who is fishing everyday and can note the patterns that result in fish that fall into this small window, this is a huge edge. Fork is not a swing for the fences lake when it comes to tournaments. There is a lot of strategy that goes into catching good unders and a guide will certainly have a lot more current info to work with in developing their strategies. And about guides fishing for trucks; the berkley, dodge mega bass(now ford mega bass), skeeter, McDonald's, legends, and just about every other big tournament that gives out trucks/boats on fork ban guides and pros. That's why you don't see guides fishing these tournaments and winning boats and trucks.

Well I mainly fish tournaments on Rayburn and Toledo and guides rarely win

Well that may be the case. But as I said in an earlier comment, fork tournament fishing is a completely different game. If you're not familiar with it, there is a 16-24"(only fish under 16 or over 24") slot at fork. This makes it different in that you have an extremely small window of fish that can be weighed. You really have to target the unders and if you land an over then that's all the better. That being said, where a tournament on Toledo or Rayburn is about who has the best 5 quality fish, this makes it more of a competition of who is the better fisherman and who can put the best 5 in the boat. At fork, it is about who has the best strategy of targeting these size specific fish. Say I'm a better fisherman than a guide, but the guide has found the patterns that seem to catch the dinks due to the amount of time they get on the water, if I go out and catch 30 lbs worth of slot fish and the guide catches 9 lbs of unders, he comes out ahead even though I had a better day and caught better quality fish. I don't agree with guides fishing their home lakes in any tournaments, but it is really more prevalent on fork. And you say guides don't win much on Rayburn or Toledo? I see Harold Allen at the top of just about every tournament I see at tbend. He has guided that lake forever

Fork tournaments are like going to a casino...

I always tell anyone who is new to fork and hasn't seen it at its best to go fish a tournament there. You will never catch more 5-8 lb fish than you will when you are fishing in a fork tournament and trying to catch unders. And when you go fun fishing or prefishing you will catch 2 lbers all day. Never fails

Which tournaments?

This is a VERY TRUE statement !!!!

Don't ask me how I know

SO,,,,,
any more information for the thread owner on those Fall Tournament Trails ???

I think I'm going to fish the jc outdoors trail. The rest of this is just everyone critiquing my decision to not participate in guide eligible tournents. Thank you to those who actually answered my question