Just some of what I’ve been thinking about limits
I’ve been saying it for years and I feel we really need to do something about it. Limits are huge.
To me it seems simple because of the advances in sonar like SI and livescope for example The fishing has changed tremendously. There are more people are able to find and locate some fish and catch them. Populations of people have grown as well especially here in Texas. With high school/college bass teams fishing popularity has grown and technology and advancements in the sport but yet limits remain the same.

1. anglers know and see more with sonar
2. Online knowledge boomed w internet
3. People population has skyrocketed
4. Limits same forever

No brainer I’d call it
Good luck getting a change I’ve been a guide for 30 years and they won’t listen to me

I really don't know what the criteria they use to dtermine limits but I thought it was based on gill net surveys.
I personnaly would not have a problem with lower limits.
Do you want more smaller average size or do you want less quantity and more larger size?

Crappie and whitebass are really the only fish that I could see them lowering the limit. Stripers and hybrids I don’t think the limit now is too much

I don’t know about Texoma but on most lakes I fish the regs are 5 hybrids/stripers, 5 bass, 25 whites, 25 crappie 25 catfish. If there is a problem it is with the technology. Most anglers do not catch a limit of any species each trip. For me personally I fish for hybrids/stripers and largemouth mostly. I enjoy eating the fish I can legally take home. I seldom fool with keeping white bass and only target crappie in the spring. It is the responsibility of our fisheries biologist to keep the regulations in line with what harvest the population will support. Perhaps we should be thinking about the advances in technology and limit the tech if there is a problem. Just my two cents.

your comments about tech advances make more people able to catch fish and so forth are probably true. On the other hand, I never see that many people keeping their catches to the limits. Now some of the guide can comment on that issue in that in their business many people have the buffet line mental approach, as I paid my money and I am gonna get all I can. But either way there is more fishing pressure now days.

In the overall big picture of fish populations when connected to public participation, the fishing sport is self regulating. Lots of fish, people go fish, people catch fish, When the fish population drops whether from drought, disease or over consumption, fishing participation goes down and no one will go. The limits kind of help regulate things to a normalcy. Many may get all tight about the subject but maybe unnecessarily so.

A consideration: Some guides use the limits as a means of ending their client's fishing trip. I fished with a Texoma guide , and I said as we headed out we didn't want to keep fish. He asked if he could keep them and that was OK with us. But we were still catching overs when we reached our limit and he left and went where he could catch a limit of unders. When we had done that, to our objection, he ended the trip. Since I do catch and release, when I hire a guide for a day, I want to fish for a day, and when I hire one for half a day, I want to fish for half a day. I don't want the trip cut short because we caught a limit. So, if the limits were reduced, some guides would come in even sooner.

I very seldom keep any fish, if I am having a family fish fry, I keep 25 sandbass. I think on most lakes the sandbass population is healthy and a 25 fish limit per man is not going to hurt the sandbass population. Hybrid bass is another story, they do not reproduce at all. They are man made by the state hatchery. I would like to see that limit dropped to 3 fish per man with them still needing to be an 18 inch minimum length. Stripers seem to hold their own with the catch limit we currently have as long as Mother Nature behaves. I know the guides love those table pictures of all the big fish laying out, but simple reason tells me the hybrid population will quickly decline at the catch rate we are currently at.
I agree Chris, the state needs to at least talk about and think about the future of our fisheries.

I see guides on small reservoir's take clients out however many they can book daily and take limits till the lake slows way down on producing and move to a new lake. This is mainly with hybrids and catfish. I know they are trying to make a living, but it sure makes where it's not much fun for a few years if it was your favorite lake or have a house or a home there. Maybe they should be an acre size on reservoirs that can have guides can use or limit the number of guides on the lake. I hate to have more regulations.

Maybe a separate "Guide" limit criteria is needed for those who's customers keep fish.

First hand observation of over harvesting ! Lake Fort Fantom Hybrid population !! Not too many years ago, a good angler could visit Phantom and catch a ten man limit of Hybrids in a day.

My $0.02, obviously there is a small number of non guides who have put in the time and can consistently catch fish, but its not the norm, or even average.
Alot harvest opinions are skewed by the prevalence of guides, with post from guides and clients in forums and social media.
Limits should be base on what the science dictates, not opinion, or conflation on what ifs from advances in technology.
If TPWD really wants the information, surveys at the various ramps will provide the information, not speculation, or keyboard scientist.

In regard to a seperate guide limit, Alaska does this for halibut in some regions, so its not a new concept.

May not be new, but certainly might be worth consideration.

Still can catch limits of hybrids at Phantom. TPWD stocks in annually. The fish are there! Most lakes with hybrid stripers get an annual or biannual stocking. Hybrid stripers are a put grow and take fishery.

TPWD keeps tabs on the fish population. What I would like to see is the minimum length on hybrids and Stripers increase on all the lakes. The average fish length always lands where the minimum legal length is set. You would have a lot of throw backs the first year or two, but after a year or two the average size fish would increase. Increasing the minimum length from 18" to 20" increases a fish's weight tremendously. Those huge fish you see mounted on the wall in bait shops around the lakes are not in the lakes any more because the minimum length is set at 18".

I don’t think it’s an issue. Guides and maybe 5% of the fisherman constantly catch limits, not including white bass. In whole most hybrid/striper fisherman very seldom limit out