I discovered some lake surveys on the TPWD site that I've never noticed before. The surveys report on the water and fish quality at most large Texas lakes, and plans for lake management (including stockings and planting additional vegetation, in some cases).

After you click on a lake name, click on the "Survey Report" link in the left margin. (See link in next post.)

Dang it! I just realized that I forgot the link:

http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/publications/pwdpubs/lake_survey/index.phtml

It's interesting to see some of the places where no carp or buffalo were collected via any method.

Granbury comes to mind. Obviously there are carp and buffs in there...just interesting none were collected during the sampling.

Or TPWD didn't bother to report the data. There are often no date on buffalo, gar, or many other rough fish.

granbury has small carp and good size buffs me and kevin did a session a while back and we hauled on carp but they were all about 2 to 5lbs

very cool link, I was looking for it on tpwd site but didn't find squat

Gee, maybe I should have provided the link in my first post.

Yeah, I'm not exactly sure how to find it from the main TPWD page. I only "discovered" those surveys because I emailed TPWD asking for information on fish populations and someone there responded with that link. (I emailed TPWD because I was trying to identify a correlation between carp populations/sizes and bass populations/sizes, but the Lake Surveys don't provide enough data).

maybe an email about electro shock totals of all fish for a particular lake or region? I would be interested in knowing which lake has what but I am far too lazy to actually write a letter to TPWD to get a response.

Cool link!

Bret, well, I can think of a lot of lakes that have produced numerous Share-a-lunkers and have lots of huge carp....coicidence? ...Don't think so! Hehe.

I agree, but it would be nice to have some hard data.

I would like to see more in depth studies done on the relationships between bass & carp. For instance, Lake Austin has both great numbers of bass and carp. People who fish exclusively for bass on that lake catch large fish, and in qty as well. We all know what the carp are like there (Emma). The bass people I have talked to, believe the carp on that lake are beneficial. They provide a food source for the bass. Carp fingerlings. They say that is one reason why the bass get the size they do, and the reason the bass population is many and healthy. Bass fishermen on that lake understand the relationship between these two fish. I believe this theory, and I believe it applies to a lake like Fork as well. I would like to see more studies to back it up. It would be great to find out, that one of the reasons for these two lakes producing great bass, is that they both have healthy carp populations.
That would certainly begin to turn the corner on some of the attitudes about carp people may have.

That's why the carp are large, too. The fingerlings are thinned out, so the carp that are left are able to grow to larger sizes.

Ok so where do we go from here? I agree that studies are needed, but who can do a study and how do we initiate it? Lake Austin and Fork are great examples of a lake in balance. A study on these lakes as well as a couple that are out of balance can go far in disarming those who use out of state studies as ammo. Who do we contact to see if we can get this study, or one like it going here in Texas?

Krista, when you go on these 'shocking' trips, do you guys count the rough fish? If you don't, maybe you can push to count them too! We must remember that we have someone on the 'inside' now!

I emailed the contact address from the survey to request that non-game fish be included in the survey. I explained my reasons and a counter argument to the added cost and time needed to include other species. I mentioned Carp, Buffalo and Gar explicitly. I would ask that anyone else who would like to see this information please do the same. This could possibly put to be the "overpopulated" arguments we hear or bring overpopulation issues to light so that legitimate population control policies can be put in place. also this can give everyone more factual info and a clearer overall picture of how carp, bass and other species coexist. I would thing this info would be beneficial to all fishing enthusiasts.