What are some of yalls glory day stories from the past, specifically top 3 lakes?

Fork obviously comes to mind. I remember fishing with Hollice Joiner in the 80's before the timber fell and the grass was immaculate. he would run timber lined "guide lanes" in his Charger like a NASCAR race. crazy fun. fishing was insane, never have seen so many huge schools of 5-8 pounders in the mouths of the major creeks certain times of the year. matted floating islands of hydrilla, it was insane, catch em however you wanted to.

Ray Roberts brings back some memories as well. Sand branch trap bite in the spring would get your arm broke off, lots of 10-12 pounders cruising around there in the spring. Then you had the wolf island hydrilla flat drifts. that's where I learned the magic of bubblegum flukes. start on one end and let the wind push you for ever throwing over the grass. also remember black light fishing at night on the humps in the early 90's.

Cooper was a unique gem for a few years. you didn't even need a map. you could easily see every road bed, fence line, channel etc. Pitching tubes in 14ft of water along the tree lined roadbed going into doctors was a blast. During the spawn you could go deep into the forest and sight fish double digit bass spawning on huge horizontal oak tree limbs near the surface on the edge of the river channel in deep water. 10 pounders being caught daily by many anglers.

what are some of yalls?

Fork for quality and quantity
Gilmer for quality
Lone star for quantity

Gilmer still fishes good at times but isn’t the same. It used to be literally a mini Fork. I can remember when the timber stood out good and grass all around it.

Years ago I remember 50-60 fish days on lone star. Might just be me but I can’t hit those numbers anymore. 20 is a good day.

Fork, for all
The obvious reasons. Some guys can still hammer them out there, not this one

Good post. HYDRILLA (and age of lake) but mostly HYDRILLA is going to be the common denominator in this thread. Just sayn!

Fork, Gibbons Creek, Sam Rayburn were the three I loved most back in the day. Sam Rayburn still is my favorite! Guess that’s way I moved here,

I'm glad to see you posting productive threads instead of being an a-hole on all of your comments. There may be hope for you after all. Hang in there....

Falcon - # 1 for sure. From '07 until '13, we fished that lake prolly 20-25 trips. Each year conditions would be so different due to fluctuating lake levels, but we never had a bad trip. Those giants were so dumb that one year I can remember fishing hay field flats with Strike King King Shad hard swim baits the whole trip. I went out and loaded up at $25/pop afterward and still have those stupid baits to this day. Only Falcon fish eat them, or used to. I tried all of my life to catch a double digit, and mutha Falcon was able to produce 3 for me in my time span down there, biggest at 11.81.

Fork - Started fishing Fork in 1988. It was an unbelievable fishery until 1995, when it had its first LMB virus. Things slowly went downhill from there, and about the only thing that would get me back on that lake is a Billy Dyson Memorial tournament. Ole' mutha Forker….I miss you!

Alan Henry - Wow is all I can say! It's amazing how these lakes go through their productive cycles, and back. We started going out to Henry I think around 2003 or 2004, and did it for prolly 5 years. I had some of the best fishing trips out there, and also shared them with some great TFF members, some still posting and at least one that has passed away. I will remember those memories for the rest of my life. We always went during spawn. Those toads were really easy to catch, too. Our biggest out there went 10.2LBS to a buddy of mine from Tulsa. But boy did we catch a boatload of 6-8LBERS every trip. What in the world ever happened to that lake? Behooving...…


Making memories, senko...thanks!

Amistad
Falcon
Alan Henry
Was blessed to fish them all at there absolute best.
Also have to cheat and add lake Baccarac Mexico

#1: Late 80's...Lake Fork...Big Mustang...AC Plugs in the late fall/early winter with 4 - 14 pound bass busting giant gizzard shad completely out of the water. Catching my first worm fish on Fork. Wasp nests as big as basketballs. 100 fish days. Trees and grass everywhere!

#2: Believe it or not, Cedar Creek used to be covered up with hydrilla. Caney creek was where I caught my first bass over 7 pounds... and on a jig fishing the hydrilla line.

#3: Monticello in the winter. Thomas at the gate always wanting to make the $5.00 bet we wouldn't catch an over. (He won quite a few until I figured the lake out some). Weather so cold your steering cables would freeze and having to dip your rod in the warm water to thaw the line out of the rod guides. Those Monty fished pulled as hard as any bass I've ever seen!!

#4: Commedero. More 3-5 pound fish in one day than you could count. No giants on our trip, but got to go with Bob Ridgeway from SW parts and service and a great group of guys. That was very special.

Falcon
Amistad
Calaveras
Braunig

I'm talking mid seventies and the eighties. During the Heyday of the introduction of the Florida strain bass.

Fairfield in the 70's for numbers
Rayburn forever because it's Rayburn
Palestine in the 70's for big bass.

fished Guerrero in it's heyday..late 70's/early 80's....caught hundreds of bass but not any real big ones...fished Falcon in it's heyday caught lot of big fish including personal best 10.97 lbs and 5/36.77 lbs.....but the best lake for weight and numbers was comedero 2 years ago...in 6 days my partner and I caught 57 bass over 6lbs,29 over 7lbs,15 over 8lbs and 5 over 9lbs...don't recall how many but was over 700.....

Fork
Jacksonville
Gibbons Creek

Fished Falcon as a teen before all the Florida's were put in. It was still the most productive lake in Texas back then.
We lived in SA and fished it several times a year with the SABC.

Murvaul was a lake I did not fish many times but every time we went there someone in our club, the Crowley Bass Club would catch a giant. 9 or 10 pounds before the Florida's were put in Texas lakes was huge. Really a 7 pound bass back then was huge.

It not a big bass lake but I still remember finding fish stacked up at Joe Pool about 10 years after it was opened to the public. They were off the side of a drop off on a little nub and you could get a hit as soon as you put your bait down there. I remember catching 40 or more in a row off that nub a couple trips in a row before they left. Most were just fun fish but there was a few over 4 pounds.

Fork- for obvious reasons.

Hubbard Creek- I was convinced nothing under 3lbs lived in that lake after my first few trips. Numbers and qualitywere insane. And those fish fought like crazy.

Falcon- to this day I have yetto have a fish hit as hard as my first ever bass did on a football jig there. It was only a 5-6lber but that bite was insanely hard.

Gilmer used to have the thickest hydrilla in East Texas. Only other lake that had hydrilla that thick was LOP about 8 years ago.

OH Ivie within a few months of it filling up. It filled up much sooner than they expected and caught the builders off guard. Long gravel roads and ramps that weren't even ramps. The first time I went, there were four of us in two boats. We never started the big motors. Launched and started casting--Rebel Pop-Rs. We were all close enough to hear each other talking. We started counting our fish. Someone would say 1, then the other guy would say 2--every fish we caught. In no time, we were over a 100. Would then come back and go out deeper and drag c-rigs. If you went more than 5 minutes without a bite, you got pissed. Crazy.

First time on Fork was 1985. Couldn't see any open water. Just trees and cut boat lanes--and ducks everywhere. Great memory with my dad. Starting in the early '90s we would go back and just flip the biggest trees we could find. Caught monsters. Buddy flipped in one tree with 20lb line, got a bite, set the hook and the fish literally swam straight away and broke his line. He sat down to cry, and I pitched at the same tree. Same thing. Got a bite, fish swam straight away and simply pulled my 20 lb line in half. We spooled up, drove straight to Oak Ridge and had our reels filled with 30lb Big Game. Fun times.

Lake Alan Henry before the spots took over. So many big fish. Special place for a while for sure.