Bassmaster Classic Comes to Texas
Tournament to be held at Lake Ray Roberts in March.
By Morgan O'Hanlon
Fifty-six anglers are heading to Texas this March to compete in the “Super Bowl of Sportfishing.” The 2025 Bassmaster Classic will take place March 21-23 at Lake Ray Roberts north of Fort Worth.
The last time the tournament was hosted in Texas was also at Lake Ray Roberts, in 2021. It will be the fourth time bass fishing's world championship event will be held in the Lone Star State, with previous competitions held at Lake Texoma in 1979 and Lake Conroe in 2017.
“It's an honor that we were chosen to host the Classic,” says Tom Lang of TPWD's Inland Fisheries Division. “The Bassmaster Classic choosing to be in Texas says a lot about what our staff is doing on a day-to-day basis to make Texas fisheries outstanding and our state a great place to recreate.”
All tournament competitors will launch from public boat ramps at Ray Roberts Lake State Park. TPWD will be involved throughout the event by providing care for the fish, and ultimately releasing them back into Lake Ray Roberts after the event. Staff will also conduct outreach and education efforts at the Bassmaster Classic Outdoors Expo at the Fort Worth Convention Center.
Because the 2025 Classic is a pre-spawn event — occurring before the water warms and fish begin to spawn and fertilize eggs — female bass will be heavier than at any other time of year because they're full of unfertilized eggs. Lake Ray Roberts is known for producing 30-pound, five-fish bag limits in March and April.
Ray Roberts has produced six Legacy Class ShareLunker entries (over 13 pounds), including the current lake record largemouth bass of 15.18 pounds, caught in March 2015. Three bass over 10 pounds were reported to Texas' ShareLunker program in 2024.
In total, 4.6 million fingerling Florida-strain largemouth bass have been stocked in Ray Roberts. The fisheries management plan calls for stocking Florida bass at Ray Roberts every two to three years to maintain a trophy bass fishery. In 2024, Ray Roberts received 347,000 Lone Star Bass, which are Texas' selectively bred Florida bass descended from Legacy Class ShareLunkers.
The 29,000-acre Lake Ray Roberts is relatively small compared to Toledo Bend and Sam Rayburn reservoirs, well-known bass hot spots. Nevertheless, it has an abundance of bass-holding areas and, as a Corps of Engineers Lake, there has been minimal development around the 259 miles of shoreline, so most of the shoreline is natural and consists of rocky banks and seasonally flooded shrubs.
During the construction of the lake, TPWD and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers teamed up to help preserve and develop good fish habitat. Approximately 3,000 acres of standing timber was left in the reservoir, located mostly in the upper reaches of the reservoir's major arms. The Corps also built nearly 50 massive brush piles prior to impoundment. Rocky rip-rap can be found along the dam and near bridge crossings, and aquatic vegetation is present along some shorelines. Additional structure is provided by stream channels, flooded main-lake points, inundated pond dams and flooded rocks, boulders and stumps.
