the glory days... top 3 lakes you remember

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.

I only caught a few down there this week, but there was no question if you had a bite on Lake Falcon.

Ray Roberts back in the 90's was awesome, all we needed was a bunch of watermelon flukes and chartreuse dip. Caught my first fish over 10lbs. There.
O.H. Ivie was excellent until about 2011, caught my PB there at 11.24.
Alan Henry from 96 until 2005, it's a shame now to have to pay $30 to go catch 12" spots.
Can't add Fork Cuz my first time there was 08 and it was good but not great, still wound up buying a place there and spend 3-4 months out of the year there and have had some great days there. Got to fish Falcon and Amistad both a few times when they were hot. Frog fishing on Amistad back in the fall of 2011 was as good as it got. Smallmouth fishing on Lake Meredith was great back in the 90's we would throw black 38 special spinnerbaits at night and catch 20 fish from 3-5lbs. There is a small lake by Childress called Baylor Lake that at one time was unreal for big fish.

Nacogdoches
Cooper
Fork
Fayette County

Sorry, I went one over the limit.

how old are you again okie? still butt hurt from a thread you didn't agree with? still have your drunken childish pm, grow up man.

The $5 dollar bet is missed by many I'm sure

Fork
Martin Creek
Gilmer

Fork
Cypress
Purtis Creek

tenkiller

arbuckle

broken bow

arbuckle and broken bow still put out some big fish, tenkiller we used to find schools and wear them out and them us, great smallie fishery too.

didn't get to fish Texas lakes till later, choke, boerne city lake and canyon were my go to lakes then.

Choke
Falcon
Oh Ivie

Lake Austin before the introduction of the Grass Carp. One of the best in the Centex for both numbers AND size, and though its 21 miles long, only 1600 acres. Our little secret until BASSMaster mag declared it #8 best lake in the country a few years back. Then the grass carp destroyed the vegetation and severely damaged the ecosystem in that lake, which is trying to recover but will take years to accomplish.

I seem to remember we did good at Cooper years ago...
But Fork in the late 80’s I loved it
Bob Sandlin

In the mid 90's Fork was unbeatable....as most have stated.
I do remember Catching lots of size and numbers at Cypress Springs and the topwater fishing at Monticello was 2nd to none in the 90's.
Good thread.

Lakes that I hit in their hey days. Ray Roberts in the 90's, Amistad back around 07-08, Toledo Bend 2015.

we did and cooper wasn't a true grass lake, hydrilla came towards the end and was very little

Kurth... From about 2000 to about 2010 it had some peak years that were ridiculous. The density of 6-9lbers per acre was insane. During the spawn, we'd go almost everyday for 2 months. If you didn't catch 35-40lbs it was an off day. Several days 45+ into 50lb range. I know of atleast 3 over 13 caught and a 15+ found floating. Come summer you could flip grass in 22ft of water and catch those same toads all day.

Lake Austin.... As mentioned earlier, it was on pace to be the destination for big fish. Deep grass, cool water in summer. They'd be spawning pretty much all spring into June. Water temps would be in the 60's in may sometimes. Ttz tournaments would take 40-45lbs to win. It was crazy

Lake nacogdoches.... It's had some up and down years but early 2000's when the grass died but the pads were thick was the place to learn how to frog fish. The only frog on the market was a snagproof. We'd buy everything Mr hale had at his little tackle shop. It was pretty much endless 4-6lbers all day everyday in the summer and we didn't even know what we were doing but we learned quick and never looked back. In more recent years the new catch and release limits has helped out by keeping the big ones in the lake. There's still plenty of true sharelunkers in Nac. The spot where I caught my 13 out there gave up probably 40 over 8lbs in just a couple years. Special place

that's sounds insane Jarrett, snag proof is still the frog I throw. Bobby Barrack now lives in east texas instead of the cali delta now.

Ouachita, Degray, and Hamilton.

Fork and cooper. Have caught 4 double digits outa fork But my biggest bass came outa cooper 12.54. Caught 3 tens outa cooper in one day Never done that outa fork and have fished it much more.

Fork, WestPoint in Ga., and Zaza Cuba.

id like to hear about Zaza

Toledo Bend
Early 70's
Acres of bass schooling busting shad in the boat roads.
For as far as you could see.
Acres I tell you!
All you needed was a chugger

I believe it.

Palestine
Purtis
Lake O the Pines

I was a kid fishing Fork with my Dad in the mid 80's.. Ended up in Mississippi after he died in 95.

Fork
Ross Barnett Reservoir (Mainly Pelahitchie Bay)
Ray Roberts

Fork
Cooper
Big Creek

I missed out on big creek, I was at the other ____ creek...

Pinkston (The early days with my dad. This was before anyone but locals knew of lake)
Nacogdoches (Special day that my brother- law and I caught 97 off 1 spot)
Naconiche (Personal Best. DD)

All of these except #4 since I've only been to Como once and it was last Feb. Lots of fish but a lack of 3-5 pounders made it a little monotonous.

Every time I think of Fork from the 80's & early 90's I get a tear in my eye.

#heartbroken

Squaw creek. I remember in the prime the lake was producing fish over 2.75lbs

Tawakoni in the late 60's & 70's (when it was still full of grass)
Monticello
Of course Fork, 80's for numbers & 90's for big fish. Those were Krazy days...

100000% agree. Lake or tank, all of the best fishing I’ve had for LMB is from grass

For me personally I would go with these glory days....

1) Lake Fork - from opening day until LBV came around, day and night fishing was just so good.
2) Monticello - from late 70's thru early 90's, winter time fishing at it's best
3) Ray Roberts - first 10 years of opening, numbers and quality were hard to beat

Toledo would be on the list but I only fished it a half-dozen times and blame myself for not going more to Toledo and Rayburn back in the 80 and 90's.

Sam Rayburn late 60s, early 70s black forest so thick you dang near had to follow logging trails, Multi acre schools of bass gorging on shad.
Toledo Bend, 70s/80s boat lanes covered with schooling fish. Every bush up the creeks had one or more on it.
Lake Guerrero 80s through 2005. Catching fish till your hands bled.(wore golf gloves for protection) Multple DD days/nights

Amazing lake, first day first spot sitting in 10 ft casting into 50ft with 30 tall timber. It was a bend in the Rio Zaza and while I tried to get my mind around the drop off my friend from Ks. caught 3 over 7 on consecutive casts. It got better from there.

No butt hurt here. I can read previous posts. You've changed your demeanor and I'm proud of you

Miller Lake (Ontario Canada) 100+ 3-5lb smallmouth per day per person on topwaters and crankbaits in 1998. I still would put that little lake against anything in the states, mostly due to fish quality and lack of fishing pressure.
Rayburn
Fayette

Do you think we can petition TPWD to start putting hydrilla back in some of these lakes? Can't they be convinced some invasive are good? Honeybees were imported from Europe after all?

And horses, cattle, and sheep from Europe
Bermuda and St Augustine grass are from Africa

Consider yourselves lucky
I did go on a fishing trip to Lake Conroe in the early 1980s. I remember grass everywhere and catching bass on every dock
I suppose I can tell the next generations that I got to fish Mountain Creek and Monticello before closure

Sam Rayburn & Toledo Bend in the 80's & 90's. Toledo Bend had hydrillia growing up north of Huxley bay. Murvaul & Pinkston was also great.

Chronologically for me:
1 - Holbrook was good back in the 70’s (even before Florida bass and hydrilla) coontail moss!
2 - Blundell / Monticello - never thought that would come to an end
3 - Fork anytime of the year day or night
4 - RayBob in the early years

I'll add Richland Chambers to the list.

Choke Canyon

OH Ivie

Since I have never fished East of Ft Worth all of my lakes are out West. Oh yeah I am a old.
1. Hubbard Creek started fishing it in the late 60's. Man it was awesome back then.
2. Amistad fished it the first time in 1969. There were lots of 50 & 60 fish days back then
3. E. V. Spence was there the first day the public was allowed on the lake. 1970 I think

Interesting thread to say the least.

The consensus seems to be that our lakes are not what they used to be, and that grass was a good thing.
In other words our lakes have not gotten better no matter how many share a lunker offspring have been stocked.

Consider the fact that during those early years of the 60's 70's and 80's the sophisticated electronics and other high tech equipment wasn't even available yet.

Take away all the electronics from today's fisherman and they will be lost!

Cooper for me best five ever came from there 47+
Fished a C.A.S.T. tourney there came in with 37lbs and did not even make the top 3 that day.

Then Fork, When I got finished with milking cows I would always drop my tin boat off into Fork and back then the lake wasn't even opened as of yet. The dairy backed up in the back of birch. The timber was so thick you would loose sight of anything within 30-40 yards.

Then my next would be Toledo Bend
Love Love TB

It seem as the grass goes so goes the fishing. It is something that everyone will ask, have seen any and where. I remember when you could fine grass in 20 ft of water on Sam Rayburn. It was great.

Fork-obviously-too many great memories to begin, but I missed out on its best or so I hear-didn’t fish there until 93-dang!
Sam Rayburn-89-92-big Florida strain toads in grass
Alan Henry-2004-2006-best sight fishing ever-almost never went a spring day that I didn’t see a DD cruising or bedding
Falcon-2010-2011ish-bang the rocks crankin-wow!-lots of really big ones
Sorry went over

Looking ahead for next great peak somewhere.
Maybe it’s here now-I should be fishing not typing!!!

Fork - Night fishing at Fork through the 90’s was the most fun non tournament fishing I have ever done. Some of those all nighters were magical.
Sam Rayburn and Toledo Bend - Will never forget the first few times I went to these lakes for tournaments. Just the drive to Rayburn was awesome and could not believe the size of the lakes. Still look forward to going back to those lakes when I have the opportunity.

It was off the beaten path you might say, but Lake Corpus Christi (We called it Lake Mathis back in the day). In the mid 80's it was one of the top lakes in the state. Low water killed it like so many other lakes. I lived in Corpus for 13 years when I worked for a Refining company, fished it all the time.

Choke Canyon was another lake that was dang good but filet knife and low water knocked it down no doubt.

Thanks, Billy

O.H Ivie
Amistad
Brady Lake

I was going to say Toledo bend in the late sixties and early seventies. I remember running back into the timber and fishing in 4 to 7 feet crystal clear water. My dad hooked one in there that had to be well into double digits. I watched her take the bait it was so clear.

Isn’t it weird that the majority of the time frames on here came before catch and release was popular? Not all, but definitely a lot. It’s almost like keeping bass helped the population, and or made the fish easier to catch because the didn’t get pressured. Once they were caught they didn’t get put back in where they knew to be line shy or bait shy. I’ve just always wondered if some harvesting doesn’t help. Started thinking about it years ago when I was on Falcon watching the Mexicans running their gill nets every single day. Day after day, and thinking how the fishing was awesome.

The pressure back then was nothing compared to the relentless pressure those same older lakes receive now. Add in better boats and electronics, it's no comparison. Some of our lakes mentioned were similar to going to Mexico when they would open a new lake it was easy

^^^In a borrowed Pond Hopper from the BPS days before they killed the grass, those were good times Dave^^^


Fork - Before they sprayed the grass, killed the fish and called it LMBV - first time I went with Dean Strohman RIP

Purtis Creek - Before they sprayed the grass

Ray Roberts - Before they sprayed the grass

Oh and I almost forgot BBR park in HEB area, only needed one bait, a superfluke...

I think there might be a common theme here...

No, we can't have anything that's not native to Texas. If we start importing life forms from elsewhere we will destroy the ecosystem.

Well...except horses and whitetail deer...and Florida bass.

Fork
Ray Roberts
Squaw Creek
Nacogdoches

Thats four^,lol

Yea, I know, couldn't limit it to just 3. Same way with soft plastics colors I have in the boat,,,,,way too many colors.

dang, we used to be young.

Being that I grew up and stayed in West Texas I'll go with:
1.Oak Creek-in the 60's and 70's it could put out some good fish for a small lake,I want to say during that time it was in the top 5 for average pounds per fish in tournments.A really good tube lake also.
2.O H Ivie thru the 90's and then off and on.
3.J.B. Thomas,I know some will say it is just an old mudhole,but I saw my first 5-25lb stringer come out of that lake.Tube fisherman caught that also!

BBR before it was a park, before superflukes were invented - weightless Fliptail Lizards

I was at bbr in the 70's. used to put a nickel in old man Allens wooden box and hop on one of his horses and go perch jerkin on horseback in the water. almost forgot about those days.

Jimbo its funny that you say grass is a major factor today and I know it is but back in the 60'/early 70's nobody had heard of hydrilla.
We had things like duck weed, moss, lily pads and cattails for vegetation.

Best days ever.

Fayette County Lake. Over 100 in a day over 5#. Top5 went over 45#
Conroe 34# got us second in the Sunday tournament. Caught another 4 30# stringers that day.
Fork on a Jackall Mikey swim bait. Wrecked the 5 and 6 pounders during the Shad Spawn.

Worst days.....plenty of zeroes.

100 over 5 lbs in a day? Must be a record! Dang, wish I could have fished Fayette when that was going on.

Guerrero early 90's, big numbers and big fish. Spinnerbaits, lizards, cranks and caught my first bass on a swimbait there in 1993.
9" AC Plug fire tiger pattern, 9lbs 13 oz and a looong fish.

Fork, first trip there was early April 1990. You had to be there.
Had a tap on a 6" red shad Culprit worm on a point in about 7' of water. Set the hook hard and the stump didn't move. Then it started swimming off and broke my 20 lb test in the trees like it was nothing.
Numerous other ones that got away stories on that trip. That timber and big fish was a tough combination. I should have quit my job and just fish Fork from 1990 to 1993.

Amistad several years back (has it really been over a decade?, ouch) when it was red hot. The big fish ate swimbaits, jigs and senkos like candy. It was so awesome to see those big fish hit swimbaits in that clear water.
I saw many giants swimming in California waters but one of the biggest bass I ever saw, looked every bit of 20 lbs, was at Amistad. I only saw her for a couple of seconds and she disappeared , blended in with the depths.

Falcon a few years ago. Every day hooking at least a couple over 8. One day I fished a point at the mouth of Tigers. I called it the magic point. baitfish stayed on the point, bass would have baitfish jumping and skipping on the surface, then a big boil. Throw what you want. I never left the point until near sundown when a wildlife and fisheries boat pulled up next to me and ruined the bite.
I loved throwing jigs and chatterbaits on that lake.

Conroe - Pre Asian carp days with hydrilla
Livingston - '72 - '80 North of 190 bridge
Amistad

Toledo Bend 70's & 80's, Palastine 70's, Sam Rayburn 90's. And a close #4 would be Richland Chambers in the 90's. And I'd love to experience any of it like it was then 1 more time , before I have to check out.

Fork
Falcon

Austin with milfoil in the 70s-90s.
Austin with hydrilla in the 90s-00s.
Georgetown when it first opened in the early 80s.

Lake Austin from 2006-2013 before I moved away. Back in 2006 you would only see a handful of bass boats even in the spring. Almost everyone was fishing Travis I think. The fishing really started to take off in 2008-2009. More and more people were starting to fish it but the fishing was just getting crazy good. So good that I always felt my chances were pretty good of catching a DD bass even in the middle of the dog days of summer. I’d put the boat in the water and just feel all of that electricity and energy tingling through my body. Feel really lucky I had the chance to live 15-20 mins away from that lake and fish it 2-3 times a week sometimes the last 3-4 years I lived in Austin. Not sure i’ll ever have that kind of fishing again in my lifetime with an amazing lake that close to my home.

Monticello take 30 # to win. Every time the club fished it we broke another club record. Great smallmouth fishing too.

Fawn Lake was loaded with 8 # plus bass. Until a guy started potting it for his dinner. I'll bet I caught over a hundred of them, but all of mine were catch and release. Or I caught the same 8+ 100 times.
Caught 1 that went 9 on a mechanical scale. At the time the state record was just over 10.
Also saw the biggest alligator snapping turtle in it. Probably went 2-300 pounds. Big as a saltwater turtle. Maybe a 150 years old. That year everything that floated on the water got eaten except the adult swans.

Cypress . Never got skunked on that lake. Just real good fishing except for the sand bass.

Stik Marsh
Fork
Champlain

Great post!

Looking back over the years.....
#1 is Brady, many 32-35lb. 5 fish days
#2 Fayette County when it first opened
#3 A small East Tx city lake that has to remain nameless to save it. Like Brady, many 35lb. days.

Missed Kurth in it’s prime but it’s still plenty good. Biggest fish ever came out of Hubbard Creek and my last thought is “Fork is a great place to meet people”.

Another one I miss was Farfield. Back when you could catch 20 or 30 Redfish and 20 or 30 bass in a day. That was fun too!

Lake Fork mid ‘90’s. In 1994 I was a freshman in college. Over spring break, my friend’s uncle took us on 3 or 4 day trip to lake Fork. It wasn’t the first time we had fished there, but it was our first serious multi-day trip there. We fished hard for the first 2 days in north winds without much action but when the weather warmed up the fishing exploded. This was the first time I learned to sight fish. My buddie’s uncle didn’t believe you could catch fish on the beds and told us we were wasting our time, so he fished out of the back of the boat with a sluggo while we concentrated on the shoreline. We caught a bunch of 2-4 pounders with several fish up to about 5lbs and had a complete blast doing it, but Uncle Doug stole the show with a couple of 7 and 8 pounders.

Lake Pinkston in the ’90’s. I started fishing Pinkston around 1986 or 87 right after the state record was caught there. The lake became well known overnight. We would put in at the upper end ramp and never fire up the big motor. We would troll through the stumps throwing rogues or long A’s along the laydowns and crush the bass from daylight to mid morning. After that we had a couple of creek channel spots where we could sit and catch fish after fish on TX rig worms. We came home from the previously mentioned Fork trip (1994) and went immediately out to Pinkston. After fishing for the pressured Fork bass it was like taking candy from a baby back on our home turf. There were tons of fish in the shallows – some areas had 20 bedding fish to cast at from one boat position. Pinkston’s bass population was like that for about 4 or 5 years and I don’t think it has ever been as good as it was in the mid to late ‘90’s. In spring of 1996, I caught a 9lb 12oz bass there, my personal best at the time. In the summertime, the bass would school in the main lake and it was not uncommon to see almost the entire area in front of the dam churned up with bass chasing shad. The hardest part was deciding which splash to throw toward. A clear topwater would catch plenty but not much size. A weightless bass assassin would catch the big ones if you were patient enough.

I guess looking back, I would say most of the east Texas lakes were great in the ‘90’s. Lake Nacogdoches probably has my other vote. We had some of the best night fishing trips there in the summer, dragging Carolina rigs around the hydrilla edges. You never knew what you were going to set the hook on. We caught lots of 6-8 pounders. Shhh, I’m not so sure its heyday is over….

Fork PB, roadbeds & humps with Zoom Fry crazy good times and night fishing wasn't bad either.
Monticello, had some stellar days 3 to 6 pound range
Gibbons Creek ,great numbers and a few good ones.
Squaw Creek before they closed it .some nice small-mouth too.

Tawakoni
Cedar Creek
Fork
Gibbons creek
Mill creek

Grew up fishing Cypress Springs, got to fish it while it was full of grass and had many great days out there. Even after the grass first started to disappear we had them dialed in on brush piles for a few years. Now its tough to catch 5+s out there, but back in the late 90s early 2000s it seemed like we would catch a couple every trip. Did get to fish fork until later on but when i first got out there it was still covered in grass and had some great days throwing the frog and swiming a skinny dipper along and through the hydrilla. Seems like both had one thing in common... Grass. If TPWD want to grow monster bass they need to make sure aquatic vegetation is healthy in the lakes

never saw a smallie at monti.

7 pages and none of you fools has got to the REAL DEAL yet. Fork would’ve never been Fork, or any of the rest of ‘em for that matter, without Lake Echo. It’s pointless to tell y’all, you wouldn’t even believe it.

Echo
Echo
Echo

Beyond words!

West Texas guy here. 1. E.V. Spence 2. Lake Kemp. 3. Hubbard Creek

What ever happened to this lake?....Is it still there? Wasn't it a private lake?

Think it depends on where you live. I fished Rayburn, Toledo and Fayette mostly. Those would be my top 3. Spent alot of time on Livingston growing up.

1. Fork
2. Monticello
3. Cypress Springs

Oh yeah; and you and me unless you're native. Of course, even Native Americans came here only 10,000 years ago.

Yep Believe it or not Livingston, from what I was told is the first lake in Texas that had hydrilla. You could go into any cove or pocket and it was crystal clear. You could literally see 4-5lbs fish swimming around like a fish tank. Great lake at the time for numbers.
Rayburn was also unbelieveable in the early to late 80's. My mom would drop off me and a friend at Tiger Creek in the morning and we would wade fish all day and catch 20lbs sacks.
Caught the end of the good fishing at Choke and Falcon about 2008 to 12. If you didn't catch a couple of 7-8 lbs bass it was considered a bad trip.
Dunlap was on fire when we first moved to New Braunfels pumping out 8-10 lbs fish weekly, until word got out on a few forums. Until about 2015 I had my boat close to Dunlap so I could fish after work.
Still can't believe it's gone! SMDH

My glory days were a few years back:

Thomas Hill - best warm water lake ever. Colder it got, the better the fishing.
Shelbyville - new lake effect, could catch over 100 per day easy. No monsters though.
Stockton - new lake effect. could make 3 casts gong down a bank, catch a 4 lb LM, a 6 lb walleye and a 10 lb northern.
Kinkaid - new lake effect. Honorable mention. Huge northerns mixed in with the LM.

Originally a Yankee.

Monticello, Fork, Purtis Creek

Lake Nacogdoches around 2000. Little grass but acres of pads and 4-7lbers that had never seen a frog before. Neither had we....found some snag proof and the rest is history. It was as good as frog fishing can get.

Kurth 1999-2010....early 2000's was the best sight fishing that's possible on a body of water. 35-50lbs literally every day nearly the entire spawn. Almost hard to believe looking back. It truly was a peaked out unpressured fishery. I know of atleast 3 fish over 13 caught and a 15+ found floating. It was nuts. Some days you'd see 5-10 dd's in several hundred yards of bank.

Of course falcon 2011 ... easiest 40lb bags ive ever caught cranking. 25lb fluorocarbon and dd22's. We didn't know just how good it was. Should've stayed a couple months.

Holbrook in the early 90's.
Fork in the 90's

Ray Roberts

joe pool before they killed the grass

Amon G Carter use to spit out DD’s on the regular. Especially on the old cemetery road bed.

Amistad during spring break in HS you could sight fish 100 bass a day. I learned a ton looking at that many.

Hubbard Creek on a Shad spawn with a square bill is some of my best memories. I had 2 9lbers & a 10lber in an hour one April morning. It was incredible!

100%

Guerrero in the late 70s
Seminole in the 70s, 80s and early 90s
Fork in the 80s and early 90s

Runner ups
Caney in the 90s
Big O in the 80s and 90s
Toledo Bend in the 60s, 70s and 80s
Falcon in the 70s at 28 feet low
Rayburn is still my favorite of all time tho!

He has to be talking about a different Monticello

Ivie in 2009-2011 I caught multiple 8 pounders those years

JB Thomas 2017-2018 I could catch 10-40 bass a day in the 1-5 pound range

OH Ivie, was killer and is coming back big time.
Cooper, Loved that lake back in the day. Miss staying at the Fishermans lodge, great people and great SOS in the mornings. Lots of great memories there.
Amistad

Pick any three. They were all glory days before the onslaught of Covid boats.

Guerrero
Falcon
Champlain

until I fished

Picachos
El Salto
Comedero

and those three lakes are unbelievable....

Lake Pauline near Quanah
Lake Kemp near Seymour
ant no mo' near Crowell

If Texas Parks and Wildlife would allow Hydrilla to grow, there wouldn't be a lake in Texas that wasn't a dream.

EVERY lake, before they killed the grass.

Fairfield.......back in the Redfish days! Loved going out there and catching about 30 Redfish and 30 bass in one day!

Fork back in the late 80's and 90's.

Cooper Lake in the 90's

I went to High School in Quanah (Class of 83). Lake Pauline was a good one. We lived between Medicine Mound and the Pease River and had about a 60 acre lake on the ranch that was insane! I'm originally from Big Sandy/Hawkins area and had the good fortune of watching Fork fill up. My Uncle would carry my twin brother and me to Fork, Palestine, Tawakoni and Texoma all the time back then. Those were the days!

Conroe
Taylor Lake
Toledo
all in the 70's

Whoever said any lake before they killed the hydrilla is spot on

That is what I am thinking. Never seen or heard of a smallie caught out of there..

Cedar Creek
Benbrook
Possum Kingdom

“Smallies”. The new term for DINKS.

I couldn't narrow it down to just 3 lakes.

The glory days were the 60's, 70's & 80's up to the early 90's.
Comparing to that time frame, there isn't a decent fishery still in existence in the state.

Lake St. Clair
Lake Erie
Sam Rayburn
And the Big O

Gotta do some major traveling to have memorable days... Dan

Man I really need to get out more. I'm so jealous of the fishing from the 80's-90's!
#1 for me is Houston County Lake. Tiny little lake but I started going there back in '09 and had some amazing days before they sprayed the grass.
#2 is Falcon. Only went there one time with a guide but my dad and I had 42 lbs for our best 5 and probably 30-40 total
#3 I'd hate to say Lake Arlington but I think I'd have to because I've had my best personal day there and have caught two DD's there as well.

Yeah, no kidding. Don't know if I ever heard of any of those.

Fork. Fork, Fork
OK Rayburn and Cypress

I lived the first 28 years of my life in Louisiana. Caught a ton of bass over 4 lbs, but never broke the 5 lb mark. Came close several times, hit the 4-15 mark a few times, but never had one 5 or over.

So these days are my glory days.

Quality Wise my top 3 lakes are:

1. O.H. Ivie
2. J.B. Thomas (which will be history soon)
3. Oak Creek

My favorite lakes to fish for a mix of Numbers/Quality are:
1. O.H. Ivie
2. Amistad
3. Champion Creek

Cedar Creek in late 70 to early 80 win it was lined with grass.
Amistad
Hubbard Creek before it went dry we fished a Media Bass out there had 5 for I think 19 something and didn't get a check.

Baylor lake at Childress Tx. Most of the bass guys practiced catch and release. It was a small lake but produced numerous 10# plus bass thru the years. Sad to say the golden algae wiped it out for the second time.

Fork,Purtis Creek and Cooper

Toledo Bend 80's
Lake Fork. 80-90's
Gibbons Creek in the dead of winter up in the hotwater discharge throwing DB3's by the wing dams.

Didn’t they use to ban fishing during the spawn?

Toledo before 2016
Rayburn
Lake Austin before wake boats. They need to ban those.

I caught a bunch of Kentucky Spotted bass there up to 4.75# in the late 80's & early 90's but never a smallmouth.

Keep one tied on all year!

+1. If I could vote for 4, number 4 would be Cypress Springs when it had grass. And a number 5 would be Bob Sandlin when it had grass. It still has fish but it was better with grass.

Fork, Toledo Bend, Rayburn

Fork,Aquilla,purtis creek, cooper