What if Lake Fork didn't exist? Take a trip through the past, present and future; the answers may well surprise you.
By Don Zaidle

It is a place that all serious bass fishermen aspire to fish at least once in their lifetime. It is the undisputed Mecca of Texas fisheries, the cream of the cream, a spawning ground of piscatorial titans that has yielded two state record largemouths, and nearly three-fourths of the Top 50 bass ever caught in the state. If you are a good angler, read your moon charts faithfully and tell as few lies as possible, you just might go there when you die.

If you haven't already guessed, we are talking about Lake Fork, where all bass-related conversation is punctuated with superlatives.

No sane person would argue against the fact that Lake Fork has impacted bass fishing in ways we've only begun to explore. It has literally influenced the nation, drawing anglers from far and wide with a siren song of promise and hope for the fish of a lifetime.

Indeed, Fork's reach is long and of formidable strength. But what if this mighty bass factory had never been built? Would life as we know it still exist? Would the stars still shine? Would outdoor writers still wax poetic and spew purple metaphors? Texas Fish & Game wanted to find out.

Guess who got assigned to the job?

It was not an angel named Clarence but an editor named Bozka who suggested taking a "Back to the Future" look at what the world would be like if Lake Fork had never been born. I think he got the idea after watching that Jimmy Stuart Christmas movie for the 86th time. Whatever the inspiration, the idea of a Forkless Texas bassery was and is an intriguing proposition. Though not all of the potential ramifications can be anticipated, some things are absolute.

Starting with the most obvious, the state record would be 16.90 pounds, not 18.18, and most likely the name Barry St. Clair would mean nothing to anyone except his family and acquaintances. Earl H. Crawford would be the name, and Pinkston the lake. The Pinkston fish held the top slot from February until November 1986, and remains the lake's only entry on the official Top 50 list.

Speaking of the Top 50 list, that venerable document would be very different, indeed. No longer would a single lake dominate the list-Fork currently has 34 entries. The maximum number posted for any one lake would be four. And some of those lakes are not the ones you'd expect.

Gibbons Creek and Murvaul would be strong dark horse contenders with four entries each. Murvaul's entries span a weight range of 14.21 to 14.87 pounds, the largest entry posted in February, 1993. At one time this 3,800-acre lake was regarded as one of the premier bass fisheries in the state. In the early 1970s, the Texas Parks & Wildlife Department conducted an experimental breeding effort prototypical of the ShareLunker program, utilizing Murvaul brood fish.

Gibbons Creek's entries range from 14.56 to 16.17 pounds, the latest entry posted in January, 1995. This lake was the first to have a slot limit in place when opened to recreational fishing, and is today one of the few Texas lakes with a mandatory catch-and-release-only regulation.

Mill Creek, at 364 acres, is another small lake with three entries in the Forkless Top 50 ranging from 14.4 to 14.68 pounds. At one time it was considered one of the best trophy bass lakes in the state, annually producing several lunkers in the 12- to 15-pound class.

The performance of these small lakes suggests that without Fork, trophy bass fishing in Texas might go the way of California. In that state, small lakes of only a few hundred acres have been producing 20-pound-class fish for a number of years. Most recently, Paul Duclos allegedly caught and released a possible new world record weighing 24 pounds from a 75-acre California lake.

The most prolific Left Coast mega-bass lake is 2,230-acre Lake Castaic, which has produced three of the top five largemouth bass in the world, and seven of the top 25. And, no, our state record is not on the list; it cuts off at 18.9 pounds.

So influential is the Castaic mystique that several companies make lures targeted specifically for this lake. One outfit, the Castaic Lure Co., makes super-sized baits designed exclusively for this and other California lakes.

The original bait was the Castaic Trout lure, a life-sized knock-off intended to capitalize on the resident lunkers' predilection for annually-stocked rainbows, the consumption of which is credited for the bass' gargantuan proportions.

The point of the foregoing out-of-state digression is to lay some groundwork for comparison and introduce another difference in a Forkless world: Your tackle box, or more accurately the contents thereof, would be quite different.

Quite a few lure designs were created at the behest of Lake Fork guides and anglers. The Gene Larew "Hawg Craw," for instance. And Pradco's recent intro duction, the "Lake Fork Bar Fish" crankbait.

Like the trout-eating California super bass, Fork lunkers follow a special diet plan that didn't come from Weight Watchers. A number of pro and amateur anglers alike have observed that Fork's bass show a definite predilection for yellow bass, locally called "bar fish" for their dark horizontal striping. They resemble sand bass, do not grow to much over a pound and display a characteristic yellow or golden hue, from whence the name is derived. So strong is the yellow bass-largemouth connection that tackle giant Pradco recognized it as a profitable market niche-one that would not exist if there was no Lake Fork.