This thread could go several places, but since we all have a special place in our hearts for stockers and Texas lakes ...
Have you ever compared the stocking records of Texas Lakes? I thought Ray Roberts had hit the jackpot when I saw they stocked just over 500K bass this year, but then I decided to look at some others.
No wonder Lake Fork is what it is! 2,883,369 fingerlings in the last five years. Ray Roberts ... just that 500k in the last five years. Go all the way back to 2005, and they stocked a whopping 14,839. Before that, 2001 and just about 500K. So Fork stocks 75-percent more fish in five years than Roberts does in ten. There has to be good reason, right?

I sent a email to the biologist in charge of Ray Roberts ( bruce Hysmith sp? )asking the same thing. That was a couple weeks ago. He hasn't answered yet.
I heard that he said RR was at it's caring capacity. If you look at the stocking of fork the size of RR it makes no since.

They don't want the bass messing up a pristine carp fishery

Lol. You probably dont know how close you are.

As chair of the TPWD Freshwater Fisheries Advisory Committee, twice a year I get to hear their plans for stocking in the coming half year. We also hear about their decision process. Lots of factors come into play, including total requests across the state, the current health and capacity of a particular water body, special circumstances like fish kills, new lakes coming online, restocking of lakes that had been dry, creel surveys, fish shocking results, hatchery capacity and issues, etc. All those factors get quantified, then prioritized at the local, regional and state levels. And, since there are always more requests for fish than there is money for fish or hatchery space, they start at the top of each priority list and work down as far as they can. Inevitably, other factors, like weather, golden algae, availability of eggs and fingerlings, etc, play a role as well.

It's not rocket science (it's aquatic science), but sometimes it feels that way.

If you have a specific question about a particular water body or TPWD stocking decision, please let me know, and I can either pass it on or put you in touch with the particular part of TPWD that can answer your question.

One question. What is the number of share a lunker fry stocked in private water since inception and is this policy still ongoing? I look forward to a TRUE public answer.

So, he/she who talks loudest (all other things being equal) gets the most fingerlings? Time to go to work on that "total requests" factor.

Mickfly thanks very much for your reply. What is the thinking behind not making Ray Roberts a better LMB fishery through stocking? LMB fishing is terrible and has been for some time. It's well documented about the lack of bass caught from fisherman and guides onthr lake but we just can't seem to get help to improve the lake. Thanks again for your help.
Shaun

Fork has more pressure than any other lake in the state; more fishermen; more fish caught; thus more needed to maintain the balance(my opinion only)-p-

I was thinking the same thing about Fork...

That's a good point you are making Pearow. So do you think if they stock up Ray Roberts up to what Fork has more people would drive to Ray Roberts? It would also take some of the pressure off fork.
I mean it's kinda like that quote from that 19889 movie field of dreams.
"If you build it, he will come".

Or, like the "Which came first, the chicken or the egg" argument? Really, I don't think pressure in a lake known worldwide for catch-and-release practices is it. In my opinion, there are other forces at work. Now all we have to do is put those forces to work for other lakes as well. The difference in numbers is absolutely staggering if you run them all the way out, and they're hiding in plain sight.

Robin! You're a Excel Spreadsheet guy right? What do those lake stocking numbers tell you?

They tell me that, for many reasons, Fork is a more fertile and productive fishery that continues to produce large fish well beyond the normal boom then bust patterns of new reservoirs as they come on line. It has gained a well deserved national reputation, supports a heavy load of fishermen, and adds to the Texas state reputation as a big bass state.

Just throwing in more fingerlings every year will not make just any lake a trophy bass lake. If it were that easy, there would be lots of them around.

The numbers are still a bit disproportionate though, really. And if that's the case, how does one make their local water "a more fertile and productive fishery?" Which came first, the heavy load of fishermen, or the heavy load of fish? I think we are about to start sliding around on what's called a "slippery slope."

Consider O.H Ivey. Less than 300,000 LMB stocked in the past 10 years but 23 Sharelunkers, compared to only 4 on of RR. By comparison, Fork has 247 Sharelunkers. You might do better trying to get some of the Sam Rayburn allotment for RR. 23 sharelunkers and about 5.5 million LMB stocked since 2005.

Sharelunker entries by reservoir

Slippery slope indeed.

Wow. I see a doctoral dissertation here! Wish I were a numbers person, but then that's why I am a photographer. We can deduce that O.H. Ivey is a better habitat for Sharelunkers per-stock-count then? Someone said something earlier about "sharelunker fry stock" - is that a real stocking subcategory? If yes, then how many of those did O.H.I. get? The plot thickens.

There are already quite a few dissertations on the topic.

O.H. Ivey didn't start getting Sharelunker fry until 2010. The sharelunkers are sprinkled in throughout the state into reservoirs that have produced Sharelunkers & are separated in the stocking numbers under the category "Bass, Sharelunker Largemouth."

See here for stocking records by water body. I'm pretty sure it is the same page you visited before kicking off this thread.

Found it, just a zero (as in none) for Ray Roberts. Oh yeah, 52,789 at Fork in the last five years. And 42,207 at O.H.I. Hmmmm ....

One of the primary aspects of the ShareLunker program is to put more fingerlings in the water bodies that already have been shown they are capable to produce them. So for the most part, the fingerlings go back to the lake where Momma lives.

In the quantities stocked, which is a fraction of the numbers of the Florida strain bass stocked into any lake, the chances of any real number of SL fry making it to adulthood are slim.

I recall one TPWD employee referring to the current stocking of SL fry as being more of a PR project than a serious attempt to have the SL become the dominant strain in any one lake. If TPWD rotated the SL stockings, and put more SL fish in any one lake each year, rather than a few fish in numerous lakes, the chances of the SL genetics influencing the overall size of bass in those lakes would increase.

Mick,
Thanks for your dogged efforts! I will be running the TPWD response in it's entirety on my site - this evening. It's HUGE!

If anyone's interested in looking, here is the reply Mick got from TPWD - http://texasflycaster.com/stocking-largemouth-bass-in-texas-the-scoop/. Makes for some good holiday reading - for conventional and fly fishers.