Okay, I've got a question for some Biologists and others out there. I'm a huge advocate of catch and release, huge. I think it's great and I think it's proven. My question is this; Is managing a lake similar to managing a deer lease? I mean, on a deer lease, you need to kill "X" amount of deer off of it every year and manage the heard through hunting to create bigger, better, more healthy and well adapted deer, better the breed if you will. Does that not work in fishing as well? I love Lake Fork, love it, but I've just notice a decline in the numbers of BIG FISH caught the last few years. I know a guy caught a Share Lunker the other day, but for a while 38 out of the top 50 bass caught in Texas were out of Fork, not the case any more. I can't help but think that if we don't take some of the slot fish out of the lake, over time, the food source will go away, leaving the big "trophy" fish with nothing to eat, supply and demand. Now I'm not a guide or a pro or a biologist, I'm just a guy that like to spend some of my free time chasing green fish. I'd just like to see what other folks think too.

The more important aspect of this at fork would be to do away with the "trash fish" the hybrids, gar, etc the bass will eat and the lake is plenty big enough. Don't forget bass eat bass. Strong survive.
There are gargantuan fish that are eating these slot fish you want to get rid of.

Same for the fry of the new hatch.

I'm not a biologist so take this for what it's worth.

Yes, managing property for whitetails and a property for bass is somewhat similar. The habitat will only support so many, called carrying capacity. The typical carrying capacity varies by land or water body, and is determined by the surrounding habitat, the types of plant communities soil quality, etc. This can be stretched in deer through supplemental feeding, but too many animals/acre will destroy habitat, thereby lowering carrying capacity further. The ideal situation is to carry fewer deer than the carrying capacity, and then manage your herd densities and sex ratios accordingly.

As for bass, kind of similar. Again, a water body has a certain carrying capacity. This can be increased by stocking more prey species of the sizes sufficient to grow out each year class of fish to the next level. However, too many of any age-class can cause a break in the food chain, basically wiping out the forage base needed for that age-class of fish to grow to the next level. What results is stunted fish in that age-class. Think about farm ponds with a bunch of stunted bank runners and a few big headed old fish. So the idea is to have a good, cross representation of age classes and forage to produce a healthy fishery. In this instance, removing the bass 13-14" and less seems to be the most desired management tool.

As for Fork, the lake and it's fish seem perfectly healthy to me. Plenty of forage of all sizes for all fish. Those really big fish can eat just about anything that can't eat them. As to a break in the food chain utilized by the slot fish, I just don't see it.

As to why Fork isn't producing as many giant fish as it once did, I dunno. Could be a combination of things like natural aging of the lake, the LMB virus that killed a bunch of fish, the changing habitat and what the fish relate to and fishing pressure. Lake Fork is undoubtedly the most heavily pressured lake in our State. Much more so than "back-in-the-day."

So there's a completely layman's theory on the subject.

I think that even if there wasn't a slot, most Fork fishermen would not keep the bass,..I have fished there for 4 years, granted mostly weekends, and vacations, and have never kept a bass to eat, or stuff, or whatever. To me it's a sport for all sizes, and they all get put back...what would I do with slot bass
eat'em, ??

Good stuff here. I have a question though, Lake Amistad and Falcon are fantastic lakes and they don't have a slot. I don't see how doing away with the slot at this point in time wouldn't hurt the lake. I am a huge catch and release guy too, but I still keep a few now and then in the 2 pound range. My buddy worked to parks and wildlife and now is a game warden. he says in some repsects the slot and catch and release have worked too well in some cases. I understand the slot but I think it was more useful when lake was first impounded.

The lakes you mention are drastically bigger than Lake Fork, and Fork still get 4 times the pressure. Maybe more. Put all of DFW's anglers on those two lakes and see what happens. Heck the locals at Zapata b'd about what 50 elite anglers did in 4 days

We had a bass expert come assess some of the tanks on our property in Coleman County. We used to have fantastic fishing there, pretty regular to catch 5-6 lb bass from these 10 to 15 acre tanks. Then it was like all of a sudden we quit catching them. We had him come out and check things out and he said they didn't have enough to eat. I'm not going to even begin to say this is a problem on lakes like Fork, Ivie, Amistad, etc.... but I do think fishery management is important. We restocked our ponds (both bass and bait fish) and the guy basically told us that if we catch a fish we wouldn't want to catch again, we needed to remove it from the tank. His point was that a body of water can only support X lbs of fish per acre which is why you will end up with stunted, unhealthy fish if there are too many. With the number of offspring bass produce, he pointed out that we could remove all but one male and one female and in another year or two the lake could recover. We've done our best to follow this principle, taking out every 12-14" fish we catch, and have since started catching nice, healthy fish anywhere from 10" up to 5-6 lb.