Doc, in all your years with fish and deer throughout the industry in Texas, have you ever witnessed any rules violation or law violation or special favor given due to ones political position, TPWD, family connections, or financial contributions?

There seem to be a lot of people on here that are wary and distrustful of the government and all the money that flies around especially dealing with public and private property.

I agree with you. I think this is a win-win for the state. The SAL program will learn a bunch. If they are able to remove fry and place elsewhere, then this could be a great investment for all of us!

However, from Gary's perspective isn't this like a plastic surgeon working on your young wife, but you have to agree only the surgeon can play with her for 15 years, then you get her back when you're 75 maybe with or without the modifications? It is good for the surgeon though!

Maybe not so bad, because Gary can still play with her when the surgeon does and he already has another girlfriend (La Perla).

I am gonna toss in my 12 cents worth here.
I went and read one of the articles, have read all the posts on here and one thing I see missing in most is NO BODY CAN FISH THIS LAKE FOR 15 YRS. so if this is just a study and some of the fry come back to public lakes (is my understanding) then wth is everyones problem with trying to improve our fisheries?

for mr. kirk to give back the mount and be pizzed at sal is ridiculous imo, they took 7000 fry from how many that hatched (he said 150,000) which is a minuscule amount and while they went to a private lake again NO ONE CAN FISH IT. so how is this a problem if it is simply for research?

I moved to fork in jan. and have only managed to catch 2 overs, neither were really all that fat either. like the rest of you I am after BIG fish and that is what I concentrate on so I see this as a positive if in the future public lakes benefit from the study of this private lake.
my personal best came from a private lake in oklahoma and would have been a state record but was not eligible due to being from private waters, this did not diminish my thrill of catching a 14.8 as it is still my pb and gave me a new goal to break this weight. hopefully I manage to do this on fork, maybe some of you will be able to in the future due to the information gathered from this.

back to lurking on this thread but dam man to get upset over 7000 fry being sent to a private lake for a study and no one being able to fish them out is pretty lame in my opinion.

FYI I was messaged that Frank Kirk really posted that, so appears legit. thanks.

The contract looks to me like all the Doc has to do is give TPWD a 24(maybe 48 I can't recall) hour notice before fishing the lake and they can fish whenever they feel the need. Not really any point to that but there seems to be a lot of that on this one.

I'm guessing Mr Kirk is upset because he feels that his contract With SAL program was broken. He agreed to 1% of HIS fry to be donated to "Research"

Think of it this way...If you had donated $150,000 to Purchase Fish to be put in lakes across the state and your contract stated that they could take 1% of that donation ($1500) for research, and instead of taking $1500, they took $7404.00 for "research", wouldn't you be upset??? It was a contract...

was referring to fish stocked by Arms Bait Co at Camelot

I'd be interested to hear if the contract said "1% of Frank Kirks SAL fry can be used for research," or "1% of all SAL fry can be used for research"

The only post that makes sense to me. We will never be able to fish it, this is for research and IF it makes our great state a better fishery - go for it,

This is ridiculous. First off I'll bet Mr.Kirk didn't read one bit of the "contract". He caught a giant fish and called TPWD as fast as possible to get his name in the books and get his free mount.
Also I donate a lot of stuff and no matter how mad I got I could never un-donate it. Once donated it is the receiving parties property.
As far as La Perla lakes, get over it. Maybe this guy will unlock the last secret to growing 20lb bass here in Texas in our warm waters. Maybe he will discover that the prawns he is stocking will the do job and the state can start stocking giant prawns in our lakes and they will reproduce naturally and the SAL program will have to be bumped up from 13lbs to 16lbs because 13lbers will be commonplace. I do know this though, with maybe the exception of the early space program almost every major breakthrough has been at a university or a privately funded lab. I think Mr. Schwartz has as good or better a chance of accomplishing the goal as TPWD.
I now am deleting this silly thread and waiting to hear progress reports on just how giant he can raise a bass.

Not that I care. I think TPWD should do pretty much whatever they want with the fry if they think they can learn something to help fishing in the state of Texas

I don't disagree, but they should change their contract to say that. We need to remember that contributing to the SAL program is an option.

or perhaps grown men should not act like selfish little children over a stupid fish


that Kirk dude is a little worked up over something he can't control, what he can control is mishandling a huge fish and hoisting that beautiful fish around by her lower jaw in his release video

Does any one have a copy of this contract that Kirk signed?

That is an interesting question. It looks like only 2 of the sharelunkers caught this year actually spawned...

From the sharelunker facebook pg:

"Two fish spawned. 552, Randall Claybourne's fish from Lake Fork, spawned once and produced 26,015 fry. 553, Frank Kirk's fish from lake Athens, spawned three times and produced 117,425 fry. Fingerlings will be shared out among all the lakes producing entries this past season."
A total of 143,440