I am pretty sure all of the net caster are keeping them. Get them off of the lake and I will bet you see an improvement over time. They have personally laid waste to several of my spots.

I do know the number of fish between 5 and 8 pounds being brought to weigh in has gone down. I am not sure if they are mostly dead and gone (killed by poor handling or old age) or if they have been enlightened by the number of baits they have bit and seen and just harder to catch. When it first reopened big ones were easy to catch shallow, then they were in 15 ft and now hard to catch in over 30.

There has been only two days since Oct. that there were more than 110 boats and one of them was Fish N Chips (Local Charity Tournament). Most weekends 40-50 of the people with a reservation do not show up. Media is only having one tournament and TTO is only good sized one that I have heard of this year. BLT is done. The opens are down and most only seem to have 25 boats or so in them. Some of them have gone to 3 fish and most of those guys are regulars and know how to fizz a fish. They would probably be out there fishing anyway. Blaming Pros and tournaments for the bigger bass not being caught and not including all the just for fun fisherman seems like a stretch. I have not heard of that on Rayburn, Toledo, Falcon and such. Speaking mainly to large fish dying in weigh-in from not being fizzed.

As to the fee to reduce tournaments. I think the tournaments have reduced themselves already. Does not seem fair to small clubs to have to pay a big fee to fish a warm water lake in winter. Still lots of keepers being caught. Only a couple of lakes in the state where most of fisherman have a limit at weigh in Jan. We got spoiled because of the lake not being fished for several years.

I think all lakes cycle. The bait fish grow good some years; the bass have good spawn other years. Fishing gets good, pressure comes, fishing gets bad pressure leaves. Starts over. Lots of variables. On Squaw these thing happen faster due to the year round warm water. Tilapia are a big issue in my opinion. They have helped some bass lakes like Falcon and wrecked others like Lake Calaveras. I like to blame them for reduction but it is all speculation.

I am curious to know how few tournaments a year the lake should have to bring back the larger bass and how that would be determined. Most clubs or opens do not check in with the park so I am not sure if anyone even knows how many have occurred over last few years.
Sorry cjbles we have gotten a little off topic on your post. I will shoot you a pm to answer that.

I agree 100%