Seven just might be Wesley Gore’s lucky number on Lake Fork, as he has finished in the number 7 spot both in 2024 and now the 2025 Bassmaster Elite Series event on the iconic fishery in northeast Texas. Gore’s seventh place effort this past weekend was enough to earn him a $3,000 payday from Toyota Bonus Bucks, making an already good week even better.
Gore employed a three-prong approach that focused on an early morning shad spawn, a mid-day pattern targeting offshore schools, and then ended competition days using FFS to locate bedding bass in deep water that couldn’t be seen with the naked eye.
Whether he was boat flipping 8-pound beasts in shallow water or picking off Lake Fork bigguns off the bank, Gore proved having multiple productive patterns to be profitable this week.
“Late April into the first few weeks of May has always been one of my favorite times to fish,” Gore explained. “A lot of guys struggle this time of year because the fish are scattered everywhere, shallow to deep, and most anglers want to key in on one primary thing. Personally, I go into every practice trying to find at least three bite windows to capitalize on. I like to mix it up and have options. That worked to a tee at both Hartwell and Fork.”
Gore’s shallow pattern got stronger each day of the event. The Clanton, Alabama native keyed in on short pockets on the north end of Lake Fork, not major creek arms but small main lake coves, when keying in on the early morning shad spawn bite.
After filling an early limit on a swim jig, Gore would utilize electronics, whether it was FFS or side-scan, to make key culls each afternoon.
“After the morning flurry would subside, usually around 8:30AM, I would go check a few offshore groups of fish I had found,” Gore said. “Those offshore fish were definitely setting up better later in the day, but I could still pick a few off on LiveScope even if they weren’t schooled up. And they’d be good ones. Then the final hour or two I’d spend ‘scoping deeper bed fish. I caught at least one key fish each day that way.”
This approach helped Gore catch more than 107-pounds over the course of four days and notch his second top ten finish in a row. The sophomore Elite Series pro is riding high on momentum and a reliable tow vehicle heading into the MAXAM Tire Elite on the Sabine River.
“Man, I can’t say enough about the reliability of my Tundra,” Gore offered. “I’ve put this thing through the ringer the past few years and it always answers the call. It tows my boat better than any truck I previously owned and most importantly it gets to me the lake, and home, every single time. I’m actually looking for a new Tundra right now, to buy for next year.”
Gore currently drives a 2021 Toyota Tundra but knows this is the final year of his trucks’ eligibility for the popular Bonus Bucks program, which rewards the highest finishing angler driving an eligible tow vehicle in a supported tournament, whether it’s a Bassmaster Elite or one of the over 620 other tournaments Bonus Bucks pays out to.
The Mountain Dew sponsored pro doesn’t want to miss out on free money, therefore he plans to purchase a newer style Tundra this fall before the 2026 season so he can continue to reap the rewards of this contingency program.
If you want to cash in like Wesley Gore, follow this link for more information, a full list of supported events, or to sign up for Toyota Bonus Bucks today: https://www.toyotatrucksbonusbucks.com/overview.
