learning and exploring lakes is becoming one of my favorite parts of bass fishing. brings back memories as a kid, we always lived on or close to a creek. even at a young age we would just explore all day long, always pushing ourselves what was around the next bend. of course you had to be home before the street lights came on. yesterday at Ray Roberts it was 4pm and I was 4 hours back in, luckily I got out quicker as I wouldn't have made it by the street lights. lakes like Roberts and Fork are the best for this because they are huge, some open run areas, but there are so many places you can explore out of the way.

I agree. We have 64 of them and I find it hard to make it to all of them. Much less understand how each fishes, and how each fishes during certain times of the year, how they fish when the water is high or low, how they fish after introducing shad or tilapia, how they fish after adding brush piles. That is the fun of fishing any lake, public or private as they are an ever changing eco-system.

if you think those lakes are big go check out toledo bend. during certain times of the year fish up north will be on summer patterns while fish on the south end are still on beds. Very large and diverse. I like going and fishing new lakes, its like starting over, not tournament fishing though.

When I was member of TCHC/AFG I had a bunch of fun doing that. You have more now, but I probably went to 75% of the original ones. I printed off Dusty's page on each and then added my own notes, I still have a folder with all of those. Exploring all those properties had its own challenges going 2 hours west of DFW to 2 hours Northeast.

yes, I have coangled Toledo and Rayburn, those lakes are in own category beyond Roberts and Fork.

Toledo 181,600 acres
Rayburn 114,500 acres
Roberts 25,600 acres
Fork 27,264 acres (Fork bigger than Roberts, WOW!!!)
Grapevine 6,684 acres ***my home lake SOO small.

I think the data on TPWD may be inaccurate. The Martin's map shows it to be 29,350 acres. It sure seems bigger than 25,600.

Fished Roberts since 1989 ,had to saw our way into creeks. FUN !

That's awesome!

I love learning a brand new lake that has just filled. I have been fortunate enough to fish four of them in Oklahoma, Sardis, Magee Creek, Skiatook, and Barnsdall lakes. Must haves are a chain saw, wasp spray, and snake charmer.

tell you how messed up I am now about learning new lakes, I turned down 2 days at Fork next week with buddy so I can go practice gar-hole Texoma by myself.

Back before nothing was paved except the ramp. Ray's barbeque (guy pulling a smoker trailer) waiting for you when you came off the lake. I wonder if that BBQ was really as good as I remember...I know the fishing was!

If you really want to go on the ultimate adventure exploring new bodies of water try exploring and fishing some of the larger river systems in the south. I fished the Ouachita River out of Monroe, Louisiana for a big chunk of my life and didn't come close to seeing what all it had to offer. You can put in and fire up your GPS and literally go almost anywhere in the bayou state and central/southern Arkansas if you are willing and persistent enough.....Lots of flooded cypress oxbows, bayous, creeks, and canals to explore all loaded with 2 to 3 pound and slightly larger LMB'S and spots that are usually always willing to hit a lure. The Ouachita is just one of many like this...........

Rob, what kind of approach would you tell someone to use when going to a lake for the first time? I will be getting my first boat in about two weeks and have been wondering what the best way of learning lakes without tearing up the boat.

I like exploring small lakes as well as bigger ones. Less pressure and some good fishin.

I always start with a paper map. Look over the map and find areas that look good on the map then take that to the lake and explore from there. You will learn alot about a lake from a paper map. I love looking over paper maps. Then going exploring at a lake.