Lake Fork

Lake Fork is located in East Texas, roughly an hour and a half east of Dallas. Its waters span across Wood, Rains, and Hopkins counties, with primary access hubs centered around Quitman, Emory, and Alba. Formed by impounding Lake Fork Creek, a main tributary of the Sabine River, the reservoir covers approximately 27,264 surface acres with more than 315 miles of shoreline.

Widely celebrated as one of the single greatest trophy bass destinations on Earth, Lake Fork was named the number-one bass fishing lake in the entire United States by Bassmaster Magazine in 2021. Even outside of that top designation, it consistently holds a top-five position on major national rankings from Bassmaster, Major League Fishing, and In-Fisherman due to its uncanny, decades-long track record of producing double-digit largemouth bass.

Lake Fork is the single most dominant fishery in the history of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department’s Toyota ShareLunker Program. It holds the absolute Texas state record largemouth bass, an 18.18-pound giant caught by Barry St. Clair in January 1992. Thirty-six of the top fifty largest largemouth bass ever caught in the state of Texas came directly out of this single reservoir. In terms of elite catches, Lake Fork has produced over 260 Legacy Class Share Lunkers, which are entries weighing 13 pounds or more, a total that is more than double any other body of water in Texas. When including the broader program tiers for fish weighing 8 pounds or more, Lake Fork has logged hundreds of total submissions, including over 100 entries in a single recent season.

Several deliberate management decisions account for this unmatched success. Before the basin was flooded in 1980, state officials intentionally left expansive stands of timber intact, creating vast underwater structure and ideal cover for ambush predators. State biologists also introduced millions of pure Florida-strain largemouth bass during and after impoundment, giving the resident population elite growth potential. Early implementation of strict harvest slot limits protected mature breeding stock, ensuring fish had the years necessary to reach extreme weights. Lake Fork is the premeir destination for Bass fishing in Texas and it is only about an hour from Still Waters Fellowship of Texas front door.