How many times have you heard someone say "The lake is better now than it ever was."? I'm guessing not very many.

My own opinion , it can be done , also in a very short period of time . Any body of water , as long as Humans are around ,

I can unfortunately vouch for that statement. A good friend of mine at work that I am his mentor, he is hispanic. If it's legal he is keeping it. He also thinks the daily bag limit is good till noon and then starts over. We normally fished Lost Creek so I never saw how he truly acted. Lost Creek seems like you catch 100 12-13.99" fish to every 14"er. Well last trip last year was to Bryson. Small lake good fishing. He kept EVERYTHING. Bluegill, warmouth, couple 2lb 3lb and a 6lb bass. I said you got to throw the 3's and 6 back. That started a war. I voiced my displeasure, but he was within his rights to keep them. I personally don't mind keeping some barely legals, but only what you can fry up that day and eat. And certainly not good breeding stock. Fast forward to this year and the first trip was striper fishing after the trout release below PK. Only thing caught was a 1.5lb shad I snagged. He wanted to KEEP IT!
That was the last trip. He has stated he didn't care what size bass he would keep it. Even if it was a record he was going to eat it. He grew up poor and that's how they lived and I guess I can respect that. I grew up that way too, but I am more conservation minded now. I don't like it, but I do try to educate him. That said I won't take him bass fishing again. Stripers ok. Sandbass ok. Crappie ok, Not bass on my boat though.

that's typically because a lake is at it's best a few years after being impounded....the newly flooded cover allows a good spawn and the fish have cover to hide in until they grow up instead of most of them being eaten as fry or mnnows....look at what happened on falcon when the lake rose 30 feet or so and flooded all that brush..after years of low water and average fishing,it became the best lake in the country...all it takes is cover in order to have a few successful spawns......similar thing happened on T-bend and numerous other lakes around the country when grass started growing in the lake....Guntersville and Chickamauga are also prime examples of how important cover such as grass is.....they sprayed both those lakes and ruined the fishing back in late 80's..you had miles and miles of barren mud flats.....when grass came back,both lakes became great fishing lakes....instead of miles of barren mud flats,you had miles of grasslines that were prime fishing spots...

So there lies the problem. I did not realize lakes are only managed for tournament fishermen.

I fish some tourneys, I support catch and release, but I also believe anyone has the right to keep fish within the legal line mits without being bashed.

Tournament fishermen are fooling themselves if they believe they aren�t doing nearly the same damage by giving spawning fish a ride in their boat all day during the spawn.

We all have an effect and none of us are any less guilty than the other and none of us have more rights to the fish than the other.

I bet the fish favor their chances with the live-well over the filet knife. I agree we shouldn't bash folks, but discussion is the headwater of improvement. I'd love to see tournaments that avoided long rides in the livewell just like I'd like to see yearly bag limits.

I think what we all long for is the ability to go out on the water and replicate those magical days many of us recall fondly from our youth.

Problem with yearly bag limits is enforcement.

I know people that make 1 or 2 trips a year to Toledo just to put fish in the freezer.

Went on a white bass trip 1 time with a guide. 3 adults and 2 kids. Was told we should only keep 40-50 fish so we dont deplete the resource.

So we kept under 40. Next week same guide fileted 300 fish for a family fish fry.

That was the only trip I brought fish home for the year.

Only bass I keep are under spots on Alan Henry or occasionally a couple smaller legal 1-2 lb fish for dinner when we are out of town on other lakes.

I agree survival rate with the filet knife is zero, but we all kill fish whether inadvertently or not.

I know several people that keep almost every fish they catch. However, I spend way more time than them on the water and Id imagine I catch significantly more fish than them over the course of a year (I believe). So at the end of the day if I release 99% of the bass I catch and they kill 100% of the bass they catch, we may be killing the same number of fish.

All I'm trying to say is neither group is more guilty than the other.

Whats funny is Louisiana fisherman used to complain about the TX fishermen going to Louisiana and keeping Trophy trout in Big Lake. Most people seem to always believe it is the other guy.

I think all these big lakes ate cyclical. There will be good years followed by bad years, and then great years following the bad years.

Hope ya'll had a few bad trips at Gilmer because that used to be one of my favorite lakes because of the average fish size being so good, I thought i had a bad day if i didn't boat at least 3 over 6 lb
need to get back over that way and check it out

My livewell has been checked by the authorities "zero" times in the last 25 years, average 80 days a year on the lake.

Tournaments have almost no impact on a lake like Toledo and Rayburn, that's straight from a top biologist mouth at tpw. The reason being that even the most crowded of tournaments like McDonald's, guys only catch a small % of the bass in the lake over that period of time. Small being less than 10%. Basschamps and TTT may only catch 1-3%. Now you take thousands of boats keeping everything over a few years, especially larger females, and you start to lose generations of fish that you can't simply replace.

First let me say that I rarely keep bass to eat these days. If I do, it's only enough for a meal for my family in the next 2-3 days. I never freeze them. That's just my preference. However, Toledo Bend not being the lake it was 4-5 years ago has nothing to do with people eating fish and everything to do with the lack of hydrilla and other vegetation. The amount of hydrilla that TB has lost over the past few years represents a huge percentage of habitat for baitfish and the bass that feed on them. Sam Rayburn has been great the last few years because of the abundance of hydrilla. It appears that the hydrilla is slowly coming back to places in TB where it hasn't been seen for the last few years. If that happens, you will see the fishing pick up there again over the next few years.

The huge amount of fishing pressure on these lakes does make it make harder to catch bass than back in the early '70's but I think that has much more to do with the bass being educated and terrorized by a bass boat over their head every 10 minutes than by how many fish have been eaten.

Also, I'd really like to know where you got the keep rate statistics for Toledo Bend and Rayburn. I really doubt those numbers but am open minded enough to change my mind if there is some validity to them.

Unless there are a LARGE number of people keeping huge numbers of fish (way over the legal limit), I really don't think lakes like Rayburn and Toledo Bend can be hurt by people keeping fish (within the legal limit) to eat. I have no problem with others keeping what the regulations allow them to keep. Having said that, I hate to see folks keep large fish for the frying pan. Fry up a mess of 1 1/2 to 2 pounders and let the big girls go.

I�d listen to Jaret he has allot of experience on Toledo and Rayburn

You must not be fishing some of the east Texas lakes much. In the last 5 years, I have been checked a few times. Including 3 times in one day on lake Cypress Springs.

I never keep fish, because I don�t eat fish. I hate it when I have to keep because of a deep hooked bass or livewell issue. But I do as I am required!

22 years of that I lived 10 Minutes from Lake Palestine and Lake Tyler, by my calculations that's over 2000 trips without a single check, the numbers are what they are.

Any science or studies that you could reference or is this just an opinion? I'm open minded to the theory that fish harvest has nothing to do with fish catching success.



This theory I can agree with. Great habitat improves fish numbers, including mature fish, thus improving angling success. But, on your theory of this, wouldn't it make sense if hundreds of boats taking limits out of a body of water on a routine basis (daily to weekly) the overall population is going to be affected thus decreasing angler success. Can't have it both ways as both conditions affect overall fish populations. We're talking average anglers when talking fishing success but even the Elites (in 2017) and other high level skill level tours have said the fishing has declined.








TPW




Why if keeping fish has zero effects of fish populations. If that is the cast then we should strive to keep the larger fish so more meat is harvested. Right? Why do you keep them little fish?


I want to add the war on Giant Salvinia is affecting the aquatic plant growth (hydrilla) especially on the north end. It's literally wiping it out and adding to water turbidity. Fishing has suffered. I think TB's issues are a combination of no respect for the resources by a significant number of those fishing black bass by taking all they can combined with habitat destruction. Their self worth is measured by ziplock bags full of bass fillets. This is a predominant attitude in Louisiana.

Best I can find the La. BB record is a hair under 16lbs. I had to research this but it's not surprising considering attitudes there. La. has more nutrient rich waters (probably the best in the US) and the temperate climate to grow a world record yet the state's waters underperform. Texas has 27 fish from 9 different bodies of water larger. Hmmmmm .... I see a pattern and maybe some evidence here.