For proof, Storey pointed to recent numbers in the TPWD's ongoing Lake Fork Trophy Bass Survey -- in which anglers, guides and marinas on the lake voluntarily report bass weighing 7 pounds or more -- that show the big-bass fishing at Fork to be about as good as it's ever been.

As of press time, a total of 4,696 bass had been reported since the survey began in March 2003. That includes a staggering 1,381 such bass reported by anglers from January 2005 to August 2005 alone.

Even more encouraging: last summer's big-bass catches including 162 fish weighing 7 pounds or more caught in June, 166 in July, and a surprising 83 in August. Amazingly, because August is the hottest month of the year, that last figure includes eight bass that weighed more than 10-pounds!

Keep in mind as you read this that those big bass have been sacking away the groceries over the fall and winter months. On top of that, the lake's big females are currently putting on weight as this year's spawning peak approaches. Add it all up, and Fork appears primed for another great year.

Of course, Fork isn't the only big-bass water that can turn heads in East Texas. Sam Rayburn Reservoir -- the 114,500-acre bass factory near Jasper known informally as "Big Sam" -- appears to be on the comeback trail heading into 2006.

"Sam Rayburn fell on hard times with the virus," said Durocher, who added that declining water levels didn't help matters either. "But things appear to have stabilized now, and we've had a couple of good years of stable water and spawns. We're getting a large number of good fish back into the fishery."

That seems accurate, given Big Sam's two ShareLunker bass of a year ago: Mark A. LeBlanc's 13.59-pounder of March 5, and Nick Brinlee's 13.36 bass of April 20. Amazingly, those two fish were Big Sam's first such ShareLunker entries since 2002, and only the fourth since 1998 -- proof that a lake with 22 overall SL entries was indeed going through a rough patch at that point.

And don't forget that East Texas has plenty of other small-, medium-, and large-sized bass waters as well. According to Durocher, spots like Bob Sandlin, Caddo, Murvaul, Lake O' the Pines, and Toledo Bend (among others) could produce solid bass fishing as well this year.

SOUTH TEXAS
A year ago, West Texas stole the statewide big-bass headlines as Alan Henry outdueled Lake Fork for Lone Star supremacy. This year, don't be surprised if that battle shifts south, perhaps all the way to the Texas-Mexico border on the Rio Grande River.

Thanks to recent abundant rainfall, three South Texas lakes can be looked to specifically to turn out great bass action this year. "Choke Canyon, Amistad, and Falcon -- they all caught significant amounts of water in recent years," said Bob Farquhar, TPWD's inland fisheries biologist in charge of West and South Texas waters. Such positive precipitation trends have helped to erase drought conditions that the San Angelo-based biologist said were among the worst experienced in those portions of the state since the dry 1950s.