If you tell a lot of people about a small area or small body of water and they fish it a lot there is a good chance the extra pressure could shut the fish down.

Smaller lakes that the news gets out someone is whacking them there do this regularly. The exception is a lake like Athens where there are more fish per acre than many lakes. Also having a lake with a good fish population and abundant cover like grass can also weather the storm. With a huge fish population there will be many more schools of fish that move in and out of areas that are fresh and will still bite relatively easily.

Change up what you are doing if you told whomever exactly what you are doing to catch fish and a lot of the time you can start catching them again...

Ok, ya'll have taught me some truisms. Fish eat AND fish move!
Given this added pressure, then Squaw Creek is in trouble. Right?/Wrong?
I've no reason to doubt this, but ya'll's opinion?
God Bless

[quote=Doug R.]

I told you bro, same thing happened to me except I had to confront some guys for using throw nets and literally keeping everything they caught. There seems to be a new generation of fisherman who cant put the concept together that if they take the fish out of a small body of water today there will be less tomorrow....then theyll be back on the forum trying to find new places to ruin.

I went fishing today in my favorite creek. I can always catch 4or5 good sized ones at a minimum. Did not see a single bass there today.... (Very very clear water there.)
I'm guessing a few fellas that I told about it did not catch and release, or opened their mouths and word traveled.....

What would be interesting is to have someone, assuming the data are available, to post the tournament results at Squaw Creek over the past several years. It seems to me that somewhere around winning bags of 30 lbs. is quite common with the top 5 or so always weighing in pretty good bags, too.

Just generally speaking and assuming the food supply is really good, the less bass in the lake, the faster the remaining fish will grow. So, you see private water lakes actively culling fish of a certain size to promote bigger ones.

Aquariums are like this, too: the fish living in them will grow to sizes limited by space and competition. 5 gallon aquariums? Fish stay relatively small; 50 gallon ones? most species will grow larger.

All lakes have an optimal biomass and I suppose the ideal would be to balance big fish (quality) with decent numbers of fish (quantity). Lake management can alter the blend quite a bit.

Brad

Yep, people can't keep quiet, that's why I never say a word. If you want a spot, go find you own spots.

Do people who do that really want to tell 100,000 people to come over and fish their local 1,000 acre lake?