\


I just said it Again.

You may wanna check their pics before typing. I have personally seen these guides on tawakoni clean hundreds of fish a day. Far greater than any trotliners ive ever known, and I have known plenty. The guides are whats ruining the lake. Plain and simple.

Don't know about Waco, but RC is too inferior when compared to Cedar Creek just north of it. LL produce similar blue and chanel cats as RH, but RH is more popular because it's fisheries are more diverse and provide a better fishing experience than it's slotted neighborly lakes. RC LL are much less popular than CC AND RH. The nonslot lakes produce much healthier and fat fish than their slotted counter parts. Slot loose.

There are several lakes within the dfw belt and or closer than Tawakoni, they don't flock to dfw lakes but rather drive 1 to 2 hours to fish tawakoni because more people have seen pictures of tawakoni fish from the Internet. . Population don't grow overnight like the way tawakoni crowd had grown within the last three years. Population growth has little to do with fishing pressure at tawakoni.

This discussion is about keeping trophy size fish, not "box" fish. I challenge you jug and trot liners to show me a single photo of a Twok guide with a group of anglers and their "pile of death" that includes cats of trophy size. Then take a look at the photos of your people and theirs.

My wife is Filipino and has a huge extended family, so I understand very well the need/desire to keep "eating size" fish for the freezer, both for everyday meals and get-togethers, but we never keep fish over five pounds. This is new for me, because I was 99% CPR until we met. I have adjusted, but will never condone keeping trophies of any species, fresh or saltwater.

...and before this discussion goes this way, there is no need to keep trophies for your taxidermist. I have a buddy in Colorado, who does outstanding work with no more than a few quality photos... http://www.echohawktaxidermy.com/gallery.htm I'm sure there are local people who also have this ability.

Let's just ban fishing altogether, then there will be no problems. Guides won't be keeping thousands of fish, trot liners won't be taking all the trophy fish, and our grandkids can only look at pictures in history books.
This discussion is why nothing will come out of any petition. It has turned everyone off. You want your method but want to take mine away.

It is much easier to stock fish to be four to five pounds in a short amount of time than it is to stock 50 pounders. The large fish can also help with the stocking by breeding. Once the big fish are gone it will take an extremely longer amount of time for the population of the "trophy" fish to rebound than it would for the "eater" sized fish. When TPWD puts fish in the lake I don't see them dumping 10,000 fish in that weigh over 40 pounds. That is where the problem lies. Once the big fish are gone it is not right that someone like me who cpr's anything over 20 has to pay the same to fish as someone who is running 100 hooks and kills everything on a hook.

Does anyone have a link to the "hard facts" of the populations of fish in the lake? Can someone post the findings here? If not we have nothing more than someone say awe their aren't as many fish as there used to be.

Not looking for personal catch numbers, accounts, or what granddaddy told you. I want to see scientific large scale study findings.

I really am glad to see guys that realize that we "manage" our fisheries. They are NOT self sustaining with current pressure and fishing laws. All species of fish....not just bass.

If that was posted in response to my post it doesn't mean much without another study to show changes.

No one that I know of wants to stop legal trot lines, jug fishing, bank fishing, guide fishing, etc. The main topic is just about limiting the number of trophy sized fish harvested. This really took a fork in the road with people thinking it's about taking away their favorite way of fishing, or limiting their chance at stuffing a cooler filled with eating sized fish.

This is a line from the petition:

"Even if you do not fish Tawakoni often, we ask that you support our cause and sign our petition to implement a restriction against harvesting large trophy blue catfish."


Read the petition for the first time...or again...if you're not sure what it's about:
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/protect-lake-tawkonis-trophy-blue-catfish/

[/quote]

No one that I know of wants to stop legal trot lines, jug fishing, [/quote]

Allow me to introduce myself.

You will have to take that up with TP&W. That is the only survey posted on their site. And if you knew what you were looking at, you would see the catfish population is doing well and few larger catfish are being retained.

^ x 10000000000