Over the last few decades I have witnessed many prime fisheries destroyed by over fishing and lack of conservation. The most recent being Lake Fork for a particular species my wife and I targeted and posted regularly about on this forum. When we found that some who did not value this fish were going to the spots we frequented and were butchering them then leaving them on the bank, we sat back and revised our way of looking at things... never again will we post a quality report with details on this forum.

I should have learned that lesson many years ago in the Rocky Mountains, where another very large forum exists. Over and over again fishing quality on bodies of water were destroyed because reports of great success were posted, and literally an hour later the banks were lined with anglers. Fact is most of these people did not have licenses or give a damn about laws. They kept everything they caught and, in short order, once fine fisheries were gutted. This happened at lakes in metro areas, as well as those in the mountains.

The issue became so extreme that the better anglers stopped posting reports on that forum, and eventually a group of us started an "invitation only" forum for quality anglers who believed wholeheartedly in preserving a quickly disappearing resource...

Any resource can be destroyed by abuse and overuse, including Lake Tawakoni.

He is Not the only one obviously.I only fish from bank but I sure would like some trophies to be left behind for me in 3 years.lacks restrictions did not work very well for the dodo bird either.

I want to say thanks to all who have posted on this thread. Even those who do not agree w/ catch n' release...we need your feedback too. Everyone has a voice and in my opinion it should be heard.

Couple of suggestions tho...if you disagree w/ what someone says that perfectly fine. When you disagree here on the TFF...do it civil, and with tact.

These kinds of threads get locked when name calling starts happening. This is obviously a HOT topic w/ the previous thread having over 7,000 views and this one getting close to that. I'd like to see it go the distance and continue receiving feedback from Texas anglers.

Catch n' Release (self-imposed) will go farther than ANY OTHER form of restriction. And, that is something we don't have to wait on TPW to enforce. There are other lakes in Texas that have the genetics and bait fish to produce 100+ class fish. One thing is for sure tho...the fish cannot get that big if they are harvested.

Here are a few clips from this year on Teri's boat...my favorite one is the clip of Kathy. Kathy is a breast cancer survivor who prob late 40's. She isn't a big fisherman but got the chance to catch trophy blues on rod n' reel. Check out what she says about her experience...pretty darn cool. the clip is @ 5:30 on the reel...

+1 on the editorial and thank you for your leadership on this important issue. Its not only important to the fish and fishery but the local economy as well.

Really want something done????? Remember how fast noodling got passed remember it takes greasing some palms MONEY BOYS MONEY IN THE RIGHT HANDS YOU GET SLOTS ON ALL LAKES IN TX

Cut the limits back to 10 on ALL FISH and that will help your future in #'s of fish in your lake

The problem with my lake are too many large catfish and no small ones. TP&W lake survey proves it. The biologists sat too many bass. Catch and release has worked too well. A lake managed for trophy bass since 1980 and still not a single share a lunker caught. Lots of 3 to 4 pound bass.

Our #'s are super low here according them

My point is that each lake presents different management problems. Changing the limits across the board may not be the answer for all lakes. Each lake needs to be studied and appropriate limits established. But blanket changes are usually bad, for fish and fishermen.

I do support a strict limit on trophy catfish.

. B. B.

Large mouth bass vigilantes? Is that why there are no large blue catfish in Fork?

War on species?

Thank you Mr Tiny

I'm very impressed by the details and clearly shows your passion for the blue catfish. What's more you practice what you preach, for example when you understand the impact of your reports you stop including the location name of Lake to minimize the fishing pressure on your lake. I have great respect for older generation of fishing guides like you. Sadly, what is happening in tawakoni is quite different than your generation. Lake Tawakoni is such a great fishing for many species not just blue catfish but also for striped and hybrid bass as well, so much so it makes area lakes a lot less attractive to guide clientele. Increasing number of guides here openly use LAKE TAWAKONI as their business logo and openly advertising their LAKE TAWAKONI SERVICES to the world with very sophisticated broad spectrum advertise on radio, tv, Facebook, YouTube, and very attractive website design with hundreds of big fish some of those pictures were skillfully taken to make the fish look much much bigger on screen. So the crowd that were attracted to tawakoni grew exponentially for the last two three years. So you can understand the pressures on this lake, an on this account I blame those guides just as much as those few "greedy" large fish harvesters and "bad" jugs and trotlineers. What these two groups have in common is everything they do are perfectly legal under the current laws. Two fingers point forward three fingers point back to himself. Some laws need to be changed for guides as well. I am afraid my last sentence will get my post deleted. Oh well, I did try.

I am not a guide. But...I've called, emailed quite a few the past year or so and none of them pushed keeping any of the large fish. Do you know of any guide that promotes, advertises the keeping of large fish at Twok?

I have fished with many guides during my lifetime, and not one promoted keeping trophies, in fact most provided an education regarding the need for conservation. Every lake has its own personality, and special needs. Fork, for example is overrun with small channel cats, and has very few monsters of any type of cat. It wouldn't bother me a bit to see the limit on channels increased to thin out the numbers a bit.

Dmuncie, highcountry,

Read my post again, I was talking about THE FISHING PRESSURE brought to tawakoni by the crowd. Go back and reread tiny post where he said large fish are in lake with low fishing pressure. If you fish long enough you'd know what a sustained fishing pressure do to the fisheries. Amongst the crowd are are the harvesters of fish of all sizes.

I am for banning guides using lake name as part of their trade mark (they can't use the word TAWAKONI )and only pictures of fish from their last 3 trips are allowed to displayed any where on the Internet. That would be a good start.