Wow, I thought I was doing fairly decent yesterday given that big front blew through at Fork. I wasn't fishing the Basschamps tournament but we brought in 3 bass and thought it was a tough day. Come to find out folks killed them yesterday, what the heck were most of these guys doing? Was it just the massive numbers of boats that you had to fish smartly and fast covering a ton of water? We were pitching jigs on docks/timber and fishing chigger craws very slowly on timber in the backs of creeks. Any PMs to give some sort of direction would be greatly appreciated. It's so frustrating to fish 3 days straight and struggle, when so many say the fishing has been great!

Fork will do that to you.
It can be tough, but when your on them..it could be the best day you ever had fishing.

Welcome to the TFF. Sorry to hear about the tough day, but thats the way it goes on Fork. You go home feeling ok about your day until you read the posts here. Somebody always get em and you dont hear about the other 95% that had a day just like yours or worse. Cover water and when you find them stay with them. Your lure selection is excellent. Just add a lipless crankbait, spinnerbait, or chatterbait when the wind gets the fish active.

Dont feel bad, when i was new to fork i had a ton of days like that, its a tough lake to learn, and the most highly pressured lake there is. Like andrew said i would have probably just fished the moving baits yesterday. Pm me what areas you fished and ill try to help you out the best i can. And another thing Andrew mentioned i agree with is probably a high majority of people out there did just as bad if not worse but you'll only here about the small minority that slayed'em or caught a giant.

Fork can be very tough especially when you see some of the fish that people post on here.

When I can't figure out anything on Fork, I put the trolling motor down, get out the lipless crank or chatterbait and start covering water. When me or my partner catch two fish in a short period of time we slow way down to pick the area between the fish apart, thinking that we may have found some. It seems to work for us.

Well there are no secrets on Fork, so here you go.. My father and I came in second in the Bass Champs yesterday and here is how we did it.
We threw nothing but KVD square bill cranks, Ghost Shad color, the ones that run around 1.5 feet deep. ALL of our fish came from 5 foot of water or less and most came from less that 3 foot. we found exposed shore lines that were full of shells and worked the area, also using what I would call shallow water drop-offs, but the most productive was when we went into the far back of coves that had a creek channel and found a stand alone lay down and 9 out of 10 times it had a bass, one time a 9.32 . We tried our best to bump the bait off of everything that we saw, but in the early morning in the mouths of secondary coves we found bass chasing shad like they weren't going to eat for another year! I hope that some of this was a help. Like I said there are no secrets on lake fork and if you ever need any help just shoot me a PM and IF I can help I will.

Oh one last thing, we were burning these cranks through the water with random stops.

Thanks very much guys! I'm hoping to head out there again within a week or two. Let me know if there are any takers for either filling the back seat or going with me. I appreciate the valuable feedback. Typically my experience with Fork at the lake and on the forums is the opposite of what CHall states "no secrets at Fork", I thought the motto was more like "what happens at Fork stays at Fork"

Try to find yourself an area to learn, and learn what holds some fish in that area then after you are satisfied with that area go to a new one and duplicate that pattern for the same type of conditions (weather,wind,water temps,time of year). Do that for 100 years then you have probably learned 30% of the lake,just kidding. That is seriously what I have been doing for the past year and can usually find one of my areas that isn't overrun with boats and has some decent fish..

Good Luck and like everyone else said, you only hear about the small percentage that are "killing them". Many , many more are struggling..

Looking for a backseater to Fork. Where you at in TX? I could use a ride.


Wes

If we can work out the day I would have no problem going out with you, or taking you out, to show you around and help if I can. I have been fishing the lake since the start. I remember fishing the lake when there was leaves on the trees and walking from our dock a long ways before we got to the water. Anyways I don't really fish tournaments, just every once in a while, I just love to fish and don't mind showing people what I can when I can. Just shoot me a message if you would like to go.

I've been to fork once and that was about 6 years ago. Had one fish on all day and she spit it at the boat. She would have went 6 lbs or so but I have never seen boat pressure lIke that.