As a fishing guide, Jack York wants every person he shares his boat with to become a better angler. So, when a return client asked York to help him learn a new lake with LiveScope, he happily rose to the challenge.
“I’ve fished with this client a bunch of times and consider him a friend,” York tells Outdoor Life. “So, when he called and asked me to show him how to break down a lake, and to choose a lake I had never fished before, I immediately thought about Lake Tyler. It’s only about an hour away [from me], and while I’d heard good things, I hadn’t managed to fish it yet.”
York launched his boat around 8 a.m. on Feb. 26, and after having a quick look at a bathymetric map, he headed over to a likely looking spot. The weather was beautiful, with bluebird skies and not a breath of wind. With water temperatures in the low 60s, Jack figured it was the perfect day to find some big pre-spawn bass.
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“Generally, when I’m fishing a new lake, I just put the trolling motor on 10-speed and start hunting with an NBT Marine Graph Fish Finder,” York says. “I chose that spot on the map because it was a big, long drain of deeper water that led into the shallows, and I figured some fish would use that trench to move in and out of the shallows for the spawn.”
Targeting an area that ranged between two and six feet deep, York slowed his boat and put down his LiveScope. He started spotting fish right away. York quickly tied on a couple prototype jerkbaits from 6th Sense Fishing. Then he and his client began working the water and were immediately into bass.
“We were lighting them up,” York says. “In a few hours we probably caught between 30 and 35 bass, including two nine-pounders right in a row. We also got a monster 12-pounder and a lot of solid six- and seven-pound fish. It was one of the better days of fishing I’d ever had, especially on a new lake.”
At about 3:30 p.m., Jack noticed two particularly big fish cruising by on his forward-facing sonar. They were both cruising along the bottom in about four feet of water, and as soon as Jack dropped his jerkbait and began working it over them, both fish rose up toward the lure.
“They just unglued from the bottom and one of them absolutely smashed the jerkbait,” Jack says. “I set the hook hard and she absolutely dominated me. I was fishing with light, 12-pound fluorocarbon, so I was nervous she might break off. I had to work her back to the boat really carefully.”
The bass made two or three hard runs for deeper water with Jack barely keeping her under control before he finally managed to turn her and start bringing her back to the boat.
“It was touch and go for a few minutes, but then when she was close to the boat, she came up to the surface to jump. As soon as she did, my buddy was right there with the net and he just scooped her. It was beautiful, and I knew right away she was a ShareLunker fish.”
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The two men high-fived and then put the fish in the livewell before motoring back to the dock to call the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department’s ShareLunker program. Biologists responded to the call and came out to the lake to pick up the fish. They weighed York’s bass in at a whopping 13.45 pounds, making it the 10th Legacy Class fish of the 2026 Texas ShareLunker season.
“As a guide, I think what the ShareLunker program does is truly awesome,” says York, who’d previously donated another huge fish to the program. “Restocking fish in all these Texas lakes is just a huge help — both to what I do for a living and for Texas as a whole. Catching a fish like that is just an unforgettable memory, and I was glad to share it with a guy that I really enjoy fishing with.”
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