Wow. I'm just coming back to this forum after a couple of years away. I know that this is a place to share ideas, but flaming at each other isn't going to change the law. I'm about to enter old timer status and like Padre, I grew up fishing the Texas coast around Aransas and coming back home with a cooler of filets after every trip. After all it was the ocean, you couldn't fish it out, right. Well, we found out different. Whatever anyone's ideas are about fixing the situation should be run by Parks and Wildlife at their regional meetings. They really do listen, but they also listen to their biologists. In the meantime, we as sportsman should do all we can about educating our comrads. I fish Mansfield early every summer and then fish for freshwater trout in Montana in late summer and early fall. The different attitudes toward the resource in the two locations are amazing. On most blue ribbon trout rivers, the regulations are normally barbless single hooks only. Like specks, freshwater trout have very soft easily torn mouth parts and the barbless hooks slip out with out taking tissue with it. Last year, I started flattening the barbs on the jigheads that I was using at Mansfield and was able to release undersize trout with very little if any damage. By slipping a bogagrip into a trouts mouth and removing the hook, the fish could be released with out touching it. I see so many fisherman treat undersize trout as trash fish. They grab the fish in a death grip sometimes with a towel. rip the hook out and chunk the fish back in. A lot of those fish don't recover. The majority of the specks I've caught the last couple of years are in the 12-14 inch range, and I truly believe that without proper release that an awful lot of fisherman kill 10-15 trout to catch a limit of five. Proper release methods could save a ton of fish every season. Fish that would be legal size the next season. Sorry for the length of this post. Just the ramblings of an aging fisherman.

In 1981, trout and Redfish recieved gamefish status from the state and commercial fishing for them ended. Some commercial fisherman were using croakers but not many recreational fisherman. Since that time, live croakers can be found at bait stands up and down the coast during season and there are a ton of folks using them. Croaker are an incredably effective bait for catching trophy sized trout. Namely the big females we need to replenish stocks.

I don't think we should ban guides. Too many good guides who don't soak croakers and respect the resource.

I don't think we should ban the use of croakers. Way too much added work for the already overworked GW's to deal with.

I think the solution is to ban the sale of the smaller croakers that are used for bait. GW's only have to monitor the bait stands and if a fisherman wants to use them, he can catch them himself. Not many of the croaker guides are going to put forth that kind of effort and when it's no longer easy money, they will fade away.

Thanks Guys,for the answer's concerning Croaker.

I would go for a 7 fish limit on trout. I have a 33" and a 32.5" on my wall. Both hooked too deep to save fishing at night, on the bottom, with cut mullet...fishing for reds on the King Ranch shorelines. I respect the guides that are turning back the big sows. I heard somewhere that it takes 5 years for a trout to achieve 26". Thats a long time in the Laguna. Especially with all the fishing pressure.
Ten years ago I decided to quit chasing eating fish for the table. I met Bucky Vanoy at Flour Bluff. He has 10-12 Drum fishermen running lines for him daily in Baffin. Some of them catch as much as 3,000 lbs a day...all on hooks. Most of you guys know that fried or grilled Drum is the best eating fish in the Sea. I buy 100 lbs of drum...5 to 7 lbs each from Bucky for
$ 1.50 a lb. He fillets them and I take home about 35 lbs. of great eating Fish. Drum is about the best eating fish you can still buy that there is a huge supply of. Next time you need eating fish...buy some drum. They eat better than the Trout Anyway

So it's ok by you to overfish drum? Seems hypocritical to me ... padre, you just lost your credibility with me on the speckled trout.

(not that you'll care)

I'll back that one 100% Zeek!!

well thank goodness its the guides doing it!! for a second I was thinking you were gonna say we have an over-abundance of porpoises eating the big fish too!!! wheh!

RM - now that's funny!

Wonder how many trout are killed by all those trotlines ?

MO

Mo,

Thousands and I'd bet they kill as many reds (red drum) as black drum and untold numbers of trout...buy hey, they aren't "guides" so by padre's logic it is just fine. It is also just fine for everyone to catch 67 specs in a day, or whatever number padre recently bragged about catching on live shrimp.

With live shrimp on a treble hook many(perhaps most depending on how they were handled) of those 67 trout died, but that is ok according to padre, because he didn't use a guide.

It is all about attitudes. We can't afford to hire enough Game Wardens to enforce the regs we have today. If attitudes are changed...changed to be more like our brethren who fish fresh water and other saltwater locations in this country...the problems will be manageable.

It all starts with each of us....each of us who love fishing for specs. We need to stop viewing them as a source of bragging rights at the cleaning table, a source of food, or a source of unending resources.

Specs are no less a sport fish than their counterparts in fresh water...and deserve no less treatment by those who love to fish for them.

It all starts with each of us...Government can't do it, guides aren't the problem...our collective attitude on the Texas coast toward specs is the problem...until that changes, all this guide bashing is just p*ssing up a rope.

well said

He lost all credibility with me when he said that almost everyone knows that drum is the best tasting fish in the sea.

Oh, drum tastes pretty good - and of course everyone has their preferences. Just ridiculous to say that it's ok to overfish one species when he's complaining about overfishing on another.

I agree Zeek.

You cannot denigrate guides, then describe how you support commercials, and still expect anyone to take you seriously.

I expected this kind of rhetoric from novice Laguna fishermen...You guys ask questions on how to bait your hooks. You don't need advice, you need another hobby. Who said Drum are overfished?...One of you experts? I'm laughing. Think I'll look for a more "Educated" bunch to chat with.

You know I've caught one of your commercial trotlines that your friend has and you seem to support at a mouth near Pringle Lake. They used some kind of piece of wood painted red for bait. Their were probably 50 or so hooks on it. It was full of fish, and it had about a 50/50 mixture or Reds and black drum. I don't know how you can support that and then blame the
guides.

Although I do agree with you to some extent about the guides. I'm just tired of hearing them cry about the resource and trying to place regulations on just us as recreational fisherman, yet some are making 2 trips a day and catching limits both times. Then they post the pics of all the fish on thier websites to market themselves.

Padre, sounds to me like you are eating from and supporting people who are far worse than the guides you're complaining about. Your buddies are hurting the entire fishery, including the trout, probably killing at least as many and very likely more trout and other fish than you are blaming the guides for, and you love them. They are apparently are either too stupid or arrogant to realize the damage they are doing. So, where does that put you?

Mr. Padre likes Math and also likes to say we can't do math...well, just for fun, let's compare the effects of Bucky Vanoy's gang of fish killers to Padre's hated guides (hated only by Padre)....using Padre's own data.

First, Padre says the guides with clients take 52,000 trout a week. To compare "apples to apples" we need to convert this to pounds. Let's say that is equal to 100,000 pounds of trout per week...or use your own conversion.

Now, Bucky Vanoy and his band of fish killers, according to Padre, take about 36,000 pounds of fish every day, seven days a week (that's 12 * 3000 for Padre) which amounts to 252,000 pounds for Bucky and his friends per week, every week. I submit that Bucky's gang catches at least, at least, as many trout and reds as they do black drum on their continuous hooking process. Hence Bucky and his friends are taking about double the amount just themselves, that the guides are taking...using Padres own numbers. Now, how many "Bucky's" are there operating out there? You pick a number. Probably dozens, maybe hundreds....you can see, perhaps even padre can see, that the effects of Bucky and those like him are simply profound and far outweigh the impact of guides.

Further, Bucky's gang has 12 guys who are reaping all the benefit of the fishery....the guides are probably benefiting on the order of 10,000 to 13,000 people per week ( that's 600 guides * average of 3 clients per trip* 7 days a week). So, who is getting the most benefit out of the resource? Bucky and his gang of fish killers or the general public fishing with guides?

Who, Mr. Padre, is hurting the fishery the most? All of those people fishing with guides pay for a license which helps with conservation programs, pay for other ammentities on the trip. What does Bucky's gang of fish killers pay to help conserve and repopulate (such as the redfish stocking program) the resource and add $ to the local economy?

Want to argue the numbers aren't fair, even though they are Padres own numbers, then cut the amount of fish taken by Bucky and his gang of 12 in half and you still end up with the same conclusion....a small handfull of commercial guys can do far more damage to the fishery than hundreds, even thousands of paying public fishing folks.

Ban the guides? Who would that benefit the most? I submit it would benefit Bucky and his gang the most, far more than the rest of us average folks.

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Traded messages with a couple people on here, & it seems like the 'optimum' way to protect the big trout on this issue (live croakers bait) is to ban the SALE of live croaker; e.g. bait camps. You want to use them, go catch your own.

The good guides will likely be able to procure their own, as will experienced recreational anglers. I'm applying the real-life experiences I have with live shad catching for stripers & blue cats, as well as other live bait fishing offshore.

Just food for thought - and Meadowlark, I couldn't have put the argument any more succinctly than you did. Bravo and well spoken.

I'll say that at least Padre is speaking his mind. A forum should be used for folks to do just that. No personal attacks, just differences in opinions.

I don't agree with everything he says, but I do understand the decline in our fishery, for whatever reasons, and that Parks and Wildlife cannot keep up with the stocking programs. That bothers me, cause I want to be able to keep taking my kids and someday, grandkids fishing on the beautiful Texas coast. I fish artificials most of the time, but when the wife and kids go, its shrimp, mullet, and yes, CROAKER at times.

Enough soap box for me......I appreciate some of you guys being honest and staying civil.

I gave Padre a bad time about the guides, but after thinking about it, I also agree with him that some guides do exactly as he says. I happen to fish with those who don't load up on fish to try to show off. Others though do definitly harm the fishery and trout population.

On trotlining the coastal flats, bays and tributaries, I don't agree with him or the person doing that, because, as we have said here, that must damages our fish resources at least as much as irresponsible guides.

I think fishing with croaker should be outlawed and don't understand why that practice hasn't already been stopped. Fishing for trout with a croaker is no better than than using a telephone or any other illegal pratice. A person using croaker as bait is not a fisherman, but a wannabe that can't make it any other way.

I also do not agree with the TPWD using nets for their surveys. It seems to me that is also totally wasteful of a great resource. There should be a better way, one that doesn't kill the species we want to save.

i agree.