...and didn't want to go to Ivie, where would you tell me to go? Curious to see what y'all think

Pretty much any lake here in N Tex / NE Tex will give you a great chance to catch a huge fish here in about 3-4 weeks. Won’t be any need to drive 3.5 hours to Ivie

East Texas lakes should start pumping them out real soon. I am fishing Palestein next weekend, hope to hit up Fork in a few weeks. I feel like these are both great early spring lakes. Hopefully they are not flooded cold and muddy.

North End of Pines
Caddo Lake
most of the East Tx lakes will offer a good opportunity.

Lots of lakes w/better chances at a DD than Fork.

Go to Louisiana on I-20 and get off in Ruston, Louisiana on HWY 167 south. Drive about 20 miles south until you get to Jonesboro, Louisiana from there you'll take HWY 4 east about 7 or 8 miles you'll come up on Brown's Landing on Caney Lake. It was smokin' hot last year. It holds most of the top spots for state records; 6 of the top 10.
One more. Get back on I-20 and go to Monroe, head north from there on HWY 167 to Bastrop, from there you'll have to map it but Bussey Brake is a small lake; 2200 acres, it sat empty for well over a decade and grew up in willow trees. It was reopened in 2020 and is producing DD's already. The one thing I've learned about new impoundments is if they have Florida strain largemouth the odds are a lot better to catch a DD.

Eagle Mountain.

A sleeper for 10's is PK----just go before all the pleasure boaters come out of hibernation.

For me, probably BPS

Go to Fairfield and throw an Arig all day at the end of long tapering points adjacent to mid lake spawning coves.
Keep the legal keeper fish you catch to the limit.

Baccarac

in a week, lake of the arbuckles in Okieland, march thru may.

mcgee creek or sardis in Okieland also, mcgee creek is an Okie version of fork but smaller.

sam rayburn for obvious reasons, in 2 weeks

of course fork

plan B could be smallies, texoma or broken bow. 4-5# smallie is a workout.

El Salto,Mexico....

Lots of lakes in East Texas offer a fish of 10 plus you just have to fish big or let me say with the attitude of catching a big bass.

Look for spots giants should be and when the pull up it gets even better

Through all my years of fishing and guiding the best month for us has been April then May/June.

We have had a few in Feb/March but they had to be warm months not cold ones.

Hands down we caught more in April than any other month.

You just have to get on the water and swing for the fence. IMO