Much of the recent drought centered on West Texas watersheds, and so led to severe water losses at Amistad Reservoir, lying on the Rio Grande west of Del Rio, and Falcon International Reservoir, which straddles the river downstream from Del Rio. "Falcon was down to where it looked like a river channel," Farquhar said. "Amistad still looked like a lake, but at one time, it was 40 or 50 feet low."

Thanks to heavy, tropically induced rainfall, both border lakes are pretty much full again, and that bodes well for these two desert-country giants. Amistad covers 64,900 acres, Falcon 83,654 -- and those waters, according to Farquhar, contain a very high percentage of bass carrying genes from the Florida strain of largemouths. "Our samples show that as many as 90 percent of the fish are pure Floridas or have some influence," he said.

Combine the vastly improved water levels, recently inundated cover, a solid gene pool, and outpost-like locations, and it's easy to see why Durocher is bullish on these two South Texas waters for the months to come. "Falcon in the next three or four years will become as good as it's ever been," Durocher said of the lake with six total ShareLunker bass, including one a year ago.

Mind you, things aren't too shabby at Amistad. While the reservoir has produced only two ShareLunker bass to date -- the last in February 2000 -- that figure could change soon. Amistad had a lot of brush that was flooded, and so it's going to be good too.

"BASS is going to have a tournament down there," Durocher said, "and I think those guys will be absolutely amazed at what is caught."

That tournament, "the Battle on the Border" (slated for March 9-12 as of press time), will feature bass angling's top pro anglers fishing what will be for many of them a more or less unfamiliar venue. "It's so far away and it doesn't get a lot of pressure like a Sam Rayburn or a Lake Fork," Durocher said. "And you know how those pros are: They'll catch them. In fact, the ShareLunker season will be well under way then, so I would not be surprised to have a couple of 13-pounders come out of that lake during that tournament."

Amistad and Falcon could be hot angling stops this year; 25,670-acre Choke Canyon Reservoir northwest of Corpus Christi already is. "It's probably the hottest lake in the state of Texas right now in terms of going out and catching numbers of fish," Durocher remarked. "It filled about four years ago when there was a considerable amount of flooding in that country."

Such rains proved to be timely for the reservoir's bass population. "The lake was down for a lot of years and there was a lot of brush that had grown up and flooded," Durocher said, noting that such flooding inundated plenty of nursery cover needed to protect young bass fingerlings. "Plus, there was a tremendous influx of nutrients from the vegetation and the stuff that washed down in the flood."