Livingston has a silt problem. The spraying was temporary. Toledo starting about 2014-2015 guys came from all over to fill coolers. It took it's toll. You can't sustain the removal of so many females for 4 years and not see an impact

Loose lips sink ships.

This, and BASSMASTER ranking it #1 two years straight. That lake has been pounded like never before I truly believe. Everyone has a bass boat these days and aren�t afraid to travel. We have a camp in 6 mile, and I have seen boats from so many different states over the last few years, it�s crazy. But I honestly still see more LA tags than anything.

This....We fished the big SETX tournament in February last year in the rain. Still saw more LA boats on the Texas side than TX.

The herbicides do not directly poison fish at the doses used to treat aquatic plants. The manufacturers' multi-million dollar, near decade-long pursuit to get the chemical approved by the EPA would not be successful if they were harmful to wildlife. If there are sub-lethal or lethal affects from the application it is more likely from applicator error; treating too large an area at once causing an oxygen depletion from too much plant material decomposing at once.

https://plants.ifas.ufl.edu/manage/contr...a-registration/
https://aquaplant.tamu.edu/faq/#q1

I am an authority on this, it is not a lie.

Fake news!

Dude.... does dying plant material deplete oxygen in the water? Rapidly?

I know at one local lake that the fish will move as soon as the grass changes colors and starts to die so there is merit to this argument.

It's not really an argument.... it's a fact.... large scale it can wreck some [censored].... ever hear of the LMBV on Fork in the 90's? Bull [censored]....large scale spraying killed all plant material which rapidly depleted disolved oxygen all over the lake....which killed the larger bass. I was there. You don't think TPW will lie when they [censored] up?? Please!

I'm on your side. Pretty basic biology that when you have grass die off, it depletes 02. Been a long time but I'm thinking it was 5th grade biology...
And, TPW has never screwed up, just ask them. lol

+1000

Not only that, but they went over to Cooper and shocked up big fish to put back in Fork.

Im not catching on.. what do they spray?

Supposed to be Salvania but they get everything.

When the plants are treated with a contact herbicide they will begin dying and breaking down immediately. Oxygen levels can be affected within a couple days of the initial treatment. It usually takes about two weeks for oxygen to get back into roughly normal cycles. If they treat too much, you absolutely can cause fish kills from the oxygen depletion. If that's the case, it's applicator error, not the herbicide's fault. Oxygen depletion affects the largest individuals of each species more than the small ones. I'm not saying that large fish didn't die after the herbicide treatment, I'm saying it was oxygen depletion (due to user error), not herbicide toxicity, that caused it.

Largemouth bass virus is also not bull [censored]. The first confirmed fish kill associated with LMBV was in Santee-Cooper South Carolina in 1995 and it spread across the southeast. There are unique internal lesions associated with LMBV and cell cultures were used to identify the presence of the virus in the mid-late 90's. The virus was identified and defined by one of the leading fish health specialists in the United States, not some slappy that drives the fish stocking truck (1). A general DNA detection protocol for LMBV was developed around 1999 and a highly specific DNA detection protocol was developed around 2003 (2). Largemouth populations exposed to the virus still carry it with them, but they appear to have developed immunity after the initial outbreaks.

I'm not saying that there were not mortalities of large largemouth bass after herbicide treatments on Fork. I'm saying that toxicity from the herbicide was not what killed them. If any died from the application, it was because the applicators treated too much at one time and caused an oxygen depletion. I'm also confirming that Largemouth Bass Virus is a real thing; my major professor during grad school was the fish health specialist AGFC sent their fish to for examination in the early 2000's. These are PhD researchers at reputable universities doing these studies and health examinations, not the state agencies.

(1) https://afspubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1577/1548-8667%281996%29008%3C0265%3AAIIFWL%3E2.3.CO%3B2
(2) https://www.researchgate.net/publication/10785332_PCR_method_for_detection_of_largemouth_bass_virus

Livingston has had a silt problem since is was built, the hydrilla and coontail were helping to keep it clear in areas that were not directly affected by flooding on the Trinity. When I would fish Rayburn and Toledo I would bring back hydrilla and plant it. Even ten years later the soil was so toxic the plants wouldn't take. There are a couple of creeks that have some grass in the back that hold fish, but it never came back in the coves and pockets.