Lake home-owners = end of Bass fishing

Congratulations to all the folks I read about that are catching fish. Well, for now anyway.
Poor fishing on my area Lakes due to Grass Carp.
Rich home owners backed by the lousy Texas Parks & Wildlife dept are stocking every lake with grass carp and now Tilapia. No cover = no fish.
Even though Bass fisherman account for more equipment tax money and money spent at area businesses, TPW just keeps on destroying the future of Bass fishing. In a few short years, Bass will just be a memory and we'll all be learning to either catfish or loading the boat with dough bait for Carp.
Some of the best lakes in Texas are being ruined and it's the selfish greed of rich lake-side homeowners who want a preety view and could care less for anyone else. Fishermaen are a nusence.
Say goodbye to catchine the greatest game fish ever.

Did you just come back from Colorado ?

Ya I dislike TPWD buttttttttt your little crazy

I dont think we will ever see bass fishing cease to exist due to grass carp and rich home owners. Many lake home owners I know are bass fishermen themselves, with the exception of old retired folk, and to be honest, unless EVERY home owner on a lake decides to stock grass carp, they wont put a dent on bass fishing or vegetation growth. What lake do you live by? How big is it? If its a small private lake then yea, i'd be worried. But if its any lake of any decent size, home owners wont be able to stock enough grass carp to cause any signif loss of vegetation. And to my knowledge, TPWD is still very much supportive of the largie industry, they wont risk losing the species that brings in their greatest profit just cause a FEW homeowners want weedless shorelines.

But if its any lake of any decent size, home owners wont be able to stock enough grass carp to cause any signif loss of vegetation.

You must have never heard about Lake Conroe, its still a good lake with big bass, but back in the day it was really really good and it was full of hydrilla. Enter rich home owners constantly crying to TPWD, then they stocked it with 8247556572112809787654556 grass carp and continually re-up it if anyone even sees something remotely green in the water.

Someone left the foil hat off for a little too long. . .

You are absolutely right. No grass no bass. Fork has very little hydrilla compared to years ago and as a result all the bass are gone. So don't waste your time on fork. Thanks

lake austin is carp rich and grassless. bass fishing not as good either.

Really? So um you must have never heard of lake conroe or lake austin then.

I didn't know grass carp killed fish population. They are stocked in the lake I fish several times a week and have been for years along with tilapia to control grass. I wish they would leave it be,but the poa has voted to keep the grass out. In our tournament saturday more than half the field was over 20lbs. Guess bass can't survive with out grass
Here was my bag 21.95 good enough for 5th place.

I live on the lake and wouldn't consider myself "rich." I do wish we could get more lakefront home owners to stop worrying about hydrilla. 6 or 7 years ago we had good hydrilla on Sandlin and the lake was super clear and healthy. The hydrilla is coming back and our biggest problem right now is alligator weed (an invasive from South America), but they did release beetles a few weeks ago that are supposed to control the alligator weed (thanks Mr. Bister!).

Anyway, all lakefront homeowners aren't destroying the the bass fishing. More of us need to speak up and educate our neighbors. Hydrilla is easy to motor through and you can clear a path with a lake rake if you need to. I would like to see the stocking of grass carp stopped. As to the OP's post ... the sky ain't falling.

Bulkheads are the real problem.

Don't forget about the Frogs

Haha, did you wake up on the wrong side of the bed this morning sir? I live on a lake that has a long history of this issue and yes much of the year the fishing isn't easy, you just have to adapt to the situation, like the fish

You've made four posts and three of them are rants. Your prediction of the imminent demise of bass fishing is ridiculous. Your claim that TPWD is "lousy" is ignorant. By the way, tilapia spawn constantly and produce tons and tons of bass forage in the warm months, while reducing that nasty stuff called filamentous algae (snot grass). I like hydrilla as much as the next guy but the sky ain't falling and bass fishing in this state will only get better, hydrilla or not (assuming we have water). Ever fished Falcon Lake? Lots of tilapia, no hydrilla.

See my sig line.

You hit the nail on the head. Now everybody just take up carp fishin and move right along...

I do see the point being made though , cypress springs is probably the best example

I have a lake place also and definitely not rich. I will also bet that lake home owners, not all but a lot, put more cover in the lake that protects bass than anyone that goes to the lake to fish. I can also assure you that on most lakes without lake home owners the banks would be covered with trash from [censored] that blows out of boats or is just plain pitched over the side. We pick up about 20 trash bags of [censored] a year just on our 250 foot stretch.
Yes there are many homeowners that don't fish and don't like hydrilla but usually it is the water municipality that wants the grass gone. The home owners just reinforce that sentiment.
I agree that grass carp are the devil but don't solely blame the home owners. Go out and build some big brush piles to make up for the loss of grass.

man am i glad i saw this post. i was just getting ready to take a couple props to steve to be tuned up and order a bunch of bait blanks to paint. whew! this saves me a bunch of money. i've already ordered a load of potting soil so i can turn the boat into a really unique planter box. i hope our hoa will let me put it in the front yard. let's see. oh yeah, i'm taking all the hooks off our hard baits and turning them into christmas ornaments and i'm going to use all the soft plastics at halloween to scare the living [censored] out of the lake home owners kids. since i dont need fuel anymore i took the gas tanks out. wasn't sure what to do with them so i set them adrift in one of the area lakes. hopefully someone will find them and put them to good use. the gas that was left in them is a freebee. i 'm putting a 20" blade on the trolling motor and gonna use it to keep the garage cool, and i'm going to put a mini home on the trailer for traveling so i can save money on hotels. god bless the lake home owners for looking out for the rest of us who spend way too much on this horrible addiction. i may even consider a little rehab to rid myself of the urge to do the "f" word again. (that's "f" for fish for you deviates)

Guess you young whipper snappers don't remember Cedar Creek in the early days.

.... On a note with some numbers behind it...

All studies have shown that lakes with less than 25% grass coverage will support more pounds of bass per acre....

wish we could vote ppl of the island here lol

Lake Jacksonville USED to be a GREAT lake..............in come grass carp (which TPW admits they overstocked!!). Now it's just an ordinary lake!!!

Grass carp eventually will remove all of the hydrilla from a lake. This means less cover for small bass to hide/survive in. If there is plenty of other cover, then the lake should be fine. In most lakes, especially in drought conditions, a lake lacks good cover for small fish to survive in and the fish numbers will suffer.

Yes, you can catch big stringers on a lot of lakes in the spring when the fish are forced to the bank by nature. What about the rest of the year? The largemouth bass is a creature that prefers relatively shallow, weedy waters...especially the Florida bass. Without grass to hold baitfish and therefore bass the bass become roaming nomads, suspending and following bait throughout the water column. Ask yourselves which fish is easier to catch...a shallow fish hanging out in one area because it has all the food and cover it needs, or a suspending fish in open water.

Besides, hydrilla is by far easier to fish than most of the other vegetation we have in the water now. You can bring a lure through it without fouling the bait and the hook.

The alligator grass on Sandlin and a lot of our other lakes (Tyler, for example) holds fish, but good luck if you hook into a big one on the back side of it. It's like copper wire.

I'm sure the homeowners on Cypress Springs probably wonder why the water is so dingy so much of the time. "Whatever happened to the beautiful clear water we used to have?"

On a scale of 1 to 10, TP&W and local governing bodies assign a value of 9.5 to lakeside homeowners and their desires. Fishermen are about a 2.

Right!! They destroyed the clarity and beauty of the water. TPWD determined the lake to not be beneficial for stocking due to the lack of habitat . Part of their approved destruction of habitat, now they refuse to stock LM in it. Pretty comical seeing the hypocrisy. I'm not a fan of the TPWD, although they have done a few good things over the years.

Sure are a lot of fisheries biologist on this topic.....

All that time I spent tryin' to study up at A&M, then all them years workin' for old guys that spent lifetimes, and I never knew that largemouth bass ate hydrilla! That if there is no grass for a bass to eat, there will be no bass in that water.

Man what an epiphany! Now I don't havta feed fish and crawfish to my bass at my fishin' club, they can jest eat all that grass that grows out there. I'ma gonna be rich!

Sheesh. Bass eat live food, lakes and ponds, that are weed choked produce far less food and therefor far lower standing crops of bass, than those where the energy that may have been lost to weeds went into plankton and ultimately fish.

Now saying that, I certainly do understand the need for appropriate habitat, which may or may not include aquatic plants. Each case is unique.

In my area, too aggressive a weed control program, say overstocking grass carp or using a powerful herbicide such as "Sonar," may indeed result in a muddy lake that is all but useless as a bass fishery.

My saying for the large, shallow, windblown lakes in my area is, "You can bass fish a weedy lake, but you cannot bass fish a muddy one."

A balanced program of habitat management, especially if a fishery development program, which may include either controlling, or in some cases even establishing, various aquatic plants is the path to better fishing and aesthetics in lakes with homes around them.

Just outright saying carp kills bass is somewhat misleading at best, an out an out untruth at worst.

You with the facts, get out of here now! LMAO!

Now now..no need in ruining a good rambling with facts and common sense!

I do believe the OP has sumpin against rich folk too.

Home owners with the right property pay thousands of dollars in property tax on a yearly basis. The right homes can maybe 50-60k in property taxes every year. Trust me.. I definitely fall on the side of the angler in this argument, but to act like the tax money collected on lake houses isn't significant is silly.

Fishingking, yes Cedar Creek had a line of thick coontail moss all the way around the lake.

Lakes becoming choked with grass is bad, I agree, but turning it into a barren wasteland with chemicals and grass carp (ie Lake Tyler and Lake Jacksonville) is equally bad. There has to be a better way and I don't think anyone is working very hard to solve it.

I've actually had a pretty successful 4 years in my neighborhood and we have grass carp. I think as long as you have a good ecosystem of multiple types of fish to satisfy the food chain, some grass carp won't decimate like regular carp will. So far I have caught, LMB (up to 7lbs so far), Crappie, Blue cats, silver drum (one that was 13 pounds), 2 sunfish, a 24 inch bowfin and I have seen large alligator gar, shad and big japanese grass carp. Some neighborhood lakes all they have is catfish of regular size and bass which are significantly smaller than what I have caught. I tend to think its the whole ecosystem that's responsible for this. I pull up some green slimy algae stuff now and again on my hooks but no weeds per say so I wouldn't say we have an abundance of "weeds" anywhere in my lakes. I will say I've seen a boat out at night once shocking fish along the shore of one of the bodies of water, possibly keeping the carp numbers in check or making note of their abundance?

Since I can't work the hydrilla, milfoil, cattails, etc.... on Austin, I now work docks throwing a wacky Senko with a mudless hook.

No, no...lakes fish just as well when the grass is gone as they did with plenty of hydrilla. That's why lakes like Martin Creek, Cypress Springs, Conroe, and Tyler are still cranking out tournament bags year 'round like they used to, and why Fork is still producing as many ShareLunkers as it did in the 80s and 90s.

I posted on a thread about a month ago and another TFF'er from the area said they are in communication about that and they were trying to fix that. Let's hope they get it right and get Lake Austin back to where it was.

I very much would rather see grass than not. I see the point he is ranting about but the homeowner has his say also about his property. Lets not forget that the lakes were not put there for fisherman in most cases. They are there for water so our needs may not be priority or thought about at all. All I can say is just do what you can with what you got and be thankful for that. On a side note, I agree with the guy about no hydrilla in Fork so might as well stay away. If you do happen to see a silver Skeeter out there dont pay any attention I am just crappie fishing.

No Grass carp in Tyler...

Now that I am more informed my only question now is......When do you think we will see 60-70K dollar Carp Boats

So what do I do with all my bass fishing gear?

Nonsense.

If you had your location in your profile,this post might have some relevance!

Then you have Purtis Creek, ruined by carp!

water up over the three year lack of water "grass line" - watching carp eat it like cattle. not a biologist but pretty clear to me that there are more carp than bass. not sure what the landowner argument was, but i am watching carp destroy what i have been waiting for three years to try to get back.

i agree with you except that not all land owners are supporting carp AT ALL - i live by the TPW freshwater fishery at athens location (i am on cedar creek and have trained my dog to chase carp) and complain to them every time i visit about the carp - of course never get an answer - have not read the rest of this post but your initial analysis in terms of carp mistakes is accurate. I am sure there will be different opinions.

Indeed, carp are magnificent creatures, far more adaptable than any bass, and the common carp is both the most highly evolved and widely distributed freshwater fish on planet Earth. The Cyprinid family, which includes both carp and (true)minnows, is among the most diverse and useful to humanity of all the fish' families. Even the ubiquitous tilapia has not overtaken the carp in popularity as a high quality protein source for people.

A largemouth bass is an inherently unmanageable animal, is extremely dependent upon specific environmental conditions, and contributes almost zero to the world food supply. They are only valuable to wealthy sport fishermen who have the time and resources to spend "playing" at fishing (as opposed to fishing for subsistence).

I love both bass and carp, but I also assure you the two ARE NOT mutually exclusive in the environment. There are plenty of good bass fiehries that have carp in them.

Of course, wealthy lake lot owners often have pristine green lawns and that means fertilizer. Phosphorus is one of the naturally least abundant elements in lake waters so fertilizers leaching out of the soils and into the lakes contribute to algae blooms and most lake grasses and weeds.

Score one for lakeside homeowners . . . if you want vegetation.

Squaw Creek fishes well, has almost no homeowners around its perimeter, has literally thousands of blue tilapia originally stocked because they are omnivorous. They operate a heavy tournament schedule there and the winning bags are almost always in the 25/30 lbs. range. So, at least as regards a non-indigenous species, tilapia fry likely provide a food source for bass and don't seem to be limiting bass populations, size and health.

If you want to get rid of tilapia, turn off the power plant over the winter (homeowners might yelp a bit!) for repairs or something; if the water dips below 45 degrees, we'd see a giant fish kill. I suppose that is why they were selected to control vegetation over carp since it is a power plant lake and they can use this species because the water is warm over the winter months.

Is there any evidence that lakes with heavy residential development around their perimeters have less grass and less bass? Athens has lots of fish and lots of homeowners; Benbrook has few homes around it. Not sure about which lakes have carp and which ones don't.

It would seem to me that the answer might be to introduce triploid carp.

Is this being done? Is it feasible on a large scale? I don't know.

But, they could use carp or another species to "mow the lawn" on occasion to keep lakes from becoming over-vegetated.

I am not totally sold on the idea that we have a catastrophe, at all, but an interesting discussion for sure.

Brad

Brad I think you're missing the point tpw doesn't control grass it eradicates it. I don't think anyone would complain if they stocked just enough to control it but they just go nuclear everytime.

If a little is good...a whole lot is better. That seems to be the mindset. They will tell you they learned from Conroe while at the same time engaging in a "control" program that does exactly the same thing they did to Conroe. That is...total eradication.

Cypress used to take 27-30 pound sacks to win. Now it's 14-23. And they come from man made brush piles. The hydrilla eradication decimated a huge piece of that 4-6 pound fish range. I catch a few 4 pounders, otherwise it's 6.75-7 pound fish . And that's rare and off the same brushpiles. Docks spit out 1-3 pounders. 5-7 pound fish used to be a common daily occurrence when the hydrilla was abundant.

No doubt the absence of hydrilla has greatly diminished the quality of bass on Cypress. Back in the late 90's it had the cleanest water in the state of texas. Hydrilla was abundant and the lake was healthy. It was also one of the very best bass fisheries anywhere. While I feel the OP is exaggerating a little there is merit to his frustrations. The rich homeowners had everything to do with the eradication of hydrilla and the diminished quality of bass fishing on Cypress. 15 years later it is nothing what it used to be.

Hydrilla is still considered an invasive non native plant in the state of Texas. Instead of continuing to rant about the homeowners around the lakes perhaps one should focus that energy on trying to get Hydrilla reclassified with TPWD. Bottom line is as long as its listed as an invasive plant the homeowners will ALWAYS win the battle. Other states do a great job of managing the grass, I dont see why Texas couldnt figure it out as well. The bass are still there when the grass is gone, fishing just isnt as easy for those that dont savy deep structure fishing and electronics.

No, I get the point. And, I wasn't intending to take sides, since I don't have one, not a very well developed one anyway.

I was just commenting and thinking out loud on the general things that influence grass growth, like fertilizer run-off (+); and, things that diminish it, like tilapia (-) and carp (-).

To that, I was simply searching for sort of a cause and effect: looking at lakes with no homeowners versus those with lots of perimeter homes . . . if the issue is homeowner influence.

I'm not sure there are many cases where "central planning" hasn't created unintended consequences. Kudzu comes to mind.

One has to be super careful tinkering with nature.

Brad

You ever caught a carp?

Pull like a train.

We'll just switch to carp fishing tournaments.

I actually agree with you.

FMJ nailed it. Not only do they chemically eradicate it, they stock grass carp after to make sure nothing grows back, even native vegetation.

Well if there was ever a doubt about how killing the grass off affects bass and there growth and populations look at lake livingston. Most of the year 12-15# will win. And the lack of grass is why the fish all stay in very shallow water year around usually 4' or less.

what out for the zombies maaaaaaaaaaan - its bad out there.

Chuck, Livingston's too muddy to support much grass long-term isn't it?

Start Bowfishin

Well it is at this point but at one time it had as much grass as any lake in the state, but do to the heavy poising it got back in the 80's it has never recovered nor will it ever at this point.

bowfishin, yeah! I've framed up a platform on the front of my Nitro and hung a few lights but when I stuck my trolling motor up there the prop doesn't hit the water anymore.

Do you have any suggestions? I'm kinda thinkiing we need some a those flying asian carp in our lakes so we can wing shoot too

TPWD needs to learn to use the Carp to CONTROL THE GRASS AND NOT ELIMINATE IT,,,,AND bASS fishermen need to learn to catch Bass in open water. We caught lots of Bass before Hydrilla was introduced in Texas waters.

Just my two cents for whatever it's worth.

Government program management influenced by outside money usually results in unfavorable outcomes for the majority.

Castaic lake in California, one of the most productive big bass lakes in the WORLD, has no grass. The water is gin clear. I love to fish grass for bass, cause I love flipping and pitching. But bass will adapt, no matter where they live.

Maybe TPW will stock thousands of pounds of trout every year like they do at Castaic. The fish will adapt but the trophy sized fish will decline. Austin put out 6 sal in a year and who knows how many DD then they killed the grass and the number of giants is in steady decline, this year zero sal and I haven't heard of many fish over 9 being caught.

Actually, that sounds kinda fun!

How many bass do anglers typically catch in a day on those California lakes with no vegetation?

Oh yes, the trout do make trophies. I fished Castaic for many years. Had a lot of 20 or 30 fish days. Of course if you dedicated your time to fishing for trophies then you were fishing for one or two bites a day. I always saw more bait and fish on the graph at Castaic than any of the other area lakes that I fished. I don't get a chance to fish as much here in Texas but it seems to me that I see more bait, and fish on the graph on Grapevine, a lake with no grass that I can find, than Joe Pool, a lake with some grass. I usually do pretty well on Joe Pool. I wouldn't say I'm expert at it but I really love fishing that grass.

You're trying to compare apples to oranges.


Our highland resivoirs are mud bottom and are 30-80 Feet deep. Castaic is 330 feet deep with a bottom composition that's hard and rocky. Plus it's only 2300 acres and gets a very healthy amount of stockings of fish and forage.

No real way to make a reasonable comparison between the two...

Yea Doug R. Castaic is solid rock, almost no mud. Also the water is generally cooler than these Texas lakes.

I think some of the point is missed here.

On lakes with lots of grass, the Eco system is able to support larger quantities of bait thereby allowing for more forage for fish to eat and grow big.

In California they artificially supplement the forage with trout, for trout fishermen but the bass eat them.

Without trout stockings I'm sure the fishbowl lakes in Cali would fish similar to canyon lake here.

Where do I find the TX P&WL bulletin stating their plans on this ?

You might start here.

http://tpwd.texas.gov/