I believe it�s 1500 per day for one 2k for two.

$1K for one angler
$1500 for two
$2K for three

Recent report from Cam Bell this week.

Two guys fished last week all day and had One bite on a bladed jig. It went 13.25.

Couple days later a friend of mine fished all day solo and had One bite on a beaver style bait. It went 10.0

Ed Young fished Wed and had One bite. It was 6#.

If you go you just need to know that it is not a lake where you go catch 30-40 fish in a day. I have done it a couple times but it was at the tail end of the spawn and a bunch of small 2-3# males were up.

My advice is that you book a trip and watch the weather closely. These fish are the Purest form of Florida genetics. If you go a day or 2 after a cold front you will think it is the Dead Sea. Don't ask me how I know. You need stable weather preceding your trip. If there is a massive front approaching the day of your trip you may have a Nuclear Day or Nuculear if you are GW.

He just stocked 6,000 rainbow trout in both lakes last month so the fish are as heavy as ever. The last time he did this was 2/14/16 and we fished 3 days later. Three of us fished hard all day and caught Ten fish but the best five went 56.5. I had 3 bites all day but they were 7#, 9.5# and 12 pounds. My bud had the other 7 fish. He had a 9.5, 10.5, 11.5, and a 13.0 in the group. The third guy was a skilled angler and fished hard all day and never had a bite using the same baits.

I don't know how many years ago the fish were stocked in Camelot Bell, but fish caught in the wild and submitted to the ShareLunker program take an average of about 10 to 13 years to get to 13+ pounds (Falcon can do it in 8 years). At least one 16 pounder has been caught in the wild. The biggest fish out of Camelot appears to be 16 something pounds. So just based on the date of the original stockings and taking into account the fish at Camelot are not lacking for genetics, food, and habitat, and grow very fast, would it be unreasonable to have expected bass bigger than 16 pounds in Camelot Bell by now, or have they not been in the lake long enough?

Good question 786. Multiple generations have been in the original lake more than long enough. Not so with Wolfpack-it�s still growing phase there. I can�t explain it-I can say I had two different fish on but lost that were probably getting 17plus but horseshoes and hand grenades on that. Myself and a few other have caught fish 14.75-16lb on the original lake. I caught a 15.5 that was I�m pretty sure an original stocking. I caught a 15.25 that I believe was a 2nd or 3rd generation fish. Suffice it to say that a true 17pound bass grown in Texas in ANY water is a freaking unicorn. Look at the known records-only super heyday Fork has a fish that big recorded AT ALL. Some very high dollar private waters can say they had fish over 17 but those were not recorded for record books. Bell had a 17 electroshocked fish 2011 I believe. My thought is that without extreme help and luck that Florida strain fish get about 16lb plus in Texas and that�s about it. Not to say it can�t or won�t happen! Records are made to be broken-see the huge Fork floater fish that was bigger than any current Texas record-but still only heyday Fork.

The lake was originally impounded in the late 90's. I tend to agree with Doc. I think Texas summers are just a little too hot and the winters just a little too cold to really optimize bass longevity/growth. One thing that has always made me wonder though.... John Hope's telemetry studies have shown that the biggest bass in most systems are primarily nocturnal feeders. Bell has received very little nighttime pressure. The one time I had a chance to fish it at night the wind blew a full gale. I can't help but wonder if the biggest fish in Bell also turned into nocturnal feeders? If so it's possible their feeding habits just never really line up with when most folks are fishing it.

Good points Dr JL and Jpurdue. I think you are right. In public waterbodies, those 17+ pound fish will be few and far between and are very smart. I think what Camelot does show is that you can increase the number and average size of trophy bass (move the needle) to the 17 pound range compared to less intensively managed waters.

I agree with Doc & Josh above.

I believe there is a ceiling in Texas on how big a bass can grow irregardless of how much money or food you throw at them. Camelot Bell only proves my theory. I know Mr. Frazier may not agree with me but it seems like 16 pounds is at the very upper limits of what can be achieved in this great state. Don't get me wrong - NOTHING would make me prouder than for any TEXAS lake, pond, creek to put out a legitimate 20+ pound fish.

Water temps in the low 90's in the summer and low 40's in the winter are not conducive to the long term health of a bass. Conversely, at Lake Casitas in CA, the water temps never drop below 50 in the winter and never climb above 80 in the summer.

Since the beginning of time several well-heeled men have invested millions of $$ trying to grow a 20# bass in Texas. Hasn't happened yet. I have serious doubts if it ever will. All the stars have to align just right to grow a 16 pound bass. Genetics also play a much bigger role than you might think.

I think a lot of folks believe that if you build a lake and stock it with shad, bluegill, and Florida bass that in 10 years you will have a lake full of double-digit bass. It just doesn't work that way. Without intensive management you will end up with a lake full of stunted small bass. People grossly underestimate how much food it takes to grow ONE 10 pounder much less multiple DD's in any body of water.

So the new lake at CB is called Wolf Pack. This lake started filling in Fall of 2015. It is an experiment where the owner took 74 females all between 10-16 pounds and placed in a smaller 35 acre lake already crammed full of bluegill & shad. To this he added about a dozen giant males. A large number of 5-7# fish were caught last spring that appeared to be two year old fish. Could this lake produce the elusive 20 pounder that has never been caught in Texas?? I sure hope to see it.

I do know that another lake in Southeast Texas was stocked with 500 CB fingerlings just five years ago and produced a legit 12.1 last spring. A fish that went in as a fingerling grew to this in five years. Think about that for a minute.

I have delivered packages out there in the past, Mike is a down to earth dude.....I hope to fish both lakes at some point in the near future.....

Ok Ken, I've thought about it, more than a minute too.. . So almost 2.5 lbs/year growth on those fish. I would imagine that rate tails off at some point, but for arguments sake, an 8 year old fish is probagly going to make news. I wonder if Mike has data out there on how long those fish in CB are living on average?

It sounds like Wolfpack fish are a "best of the best" genetic wise, I know you or Fouzman posted about some 2 or 3 year old Wolfpack fish that were growing at some crazy rate. Does the accelerated growth rate cut down on life expectancy? Regardless, I guess we'll all know in about 3-4 years. It's sounding like the shot at a World Record in Texas is going to have to be one of these fast growers in the perfect environment.

In theory growth doesn't have to trail off, but in practice it often does. A bass needs 5-7lbs of forage per year to maintain every 1lb of body weight. It also needs roughly 10lbs of additional forage to pack on an extra pound. So to grow a 2lb fish to a 4.5 lb fish in a single year, it would need something like 35-40lbs of forage for weight maintenance and growth. To grow a 12 lb bass to a 14.5lb bass you'd need close to 100lbs of forage. If the water is too cold a bass will not have the metabolic desire to feed at that rate. If the water is too warm the bass will have the desire to eat, but will be "running" so hot it'll burn off much of the caloric intake. Not to mention the warmer the water the shorter the life of a bass. So you have to strike this perfect balance between genetics, forage, and water temp.


If I had unlimited funds and wanted to try and grow a world record, here's what I'd do. I'd build a small lake from scratch and have the water heated in the winter and cooled in the summer geothermally. I'd try and hold as close to 75 degree water as possible year round. I'd add in oxygenators for good measure. No weeds in the lake, plenty of gravel. I'd go at least 18 feet deep in a spot. Ideally the lake would be spring fed. I'd grow forage in the lake for a year or two to give them a head start. Then I'd add in a few dozen females from the very best genetics I could possibly buy. Zero males in the lake. No other predators in the lake. Supplement liberally with trout, prawns, and shad. Obviously the lake would have to be managed and fertilized for ideal pH and peak biomass carrying capacity. Can you tell I've thought about this a time or two?

I love reading about these lakes listed in this post. I also respect what each have had to say. However, being a life long deer hunter, how many trail cam pics AT NIGHT are of bucks not one person on that lease/ranch or neighboring ones has ever seen live? I also strongly agree with the nocturnal feeding theory. Standing record caught by a crappie fisherman, who ate a big crappie ( no one fishes crappie size lures that I know) , a true anomaly as they know that aint a lure!! I think a lot of the bigger ones and there have been several over 10 in recent pro tourneys have never seen a lure and live beyond most anglers reach. That being said, I need to focus on fishing deep. I am near conroe, the hammers on that lake ALL fish deep and win all the tourneys.

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Ok Ken, I've thought about it, more than a minute too.. . So almost 2.5 lbs/year growth on those fish. I would imagine that rate tails off at some point, but for arguments sake, an 8 year old fish is probagly going to make news. I wonder if Mike has data out there on how long those fish in CB are living on average?

It sounds like Wolfpack fish are a "best of the best" genetic wise, I know you or Fouzman posted about some 2 or 3 year old Wolfpack fish that were growing at some crazy rate. Does the accelerated growth rate cut down on life expectancy? Regardless, I guess we'll all know in about 3-4 years. It's sounding like the shot at a World Record in Texas is going to have to be one of these fast growers in the perfect environment.[/quote]

I don't think Mike keeps any data on the age of his fish. You can get an estimate of how old a fish is from the annular rings on the scales but the only way to accurately determine how old a fish truly is is to kill the fish and remove the otolith bone from its head. Yes, Mike believes some of the fish in the Wolf Pack have attained close to 9 pounds in 2.5 years but there is no way of knowing for sure.

I would think three pounds per year the first three years is attainable but after that I believe it would have to taper off. Plus I also believe that once a bass hits a certain age it stops growing. Otherwise we would have a bunch of 25-30# bass in the original lake at CB. Once again my theory is that there is a ceiling around 16 pounds that our fish hit, even with OPTIMAL conditions.

I have landed numerous bass at CB that have huge heads with bodies that taper off. You can tell they look like old fish, like maybe at one time in their prime they were 12-14# fish but they have lost body mass for whatever reason.

The 10.07 my godson caught with me last April had the head of a 13-14 pounder but she had no body mass. This is very uncharacteristic of the fish at CB. Granted his fish had most likely already spawned but she just looked old. Most of them have girth that carries WAY down their bodies past their belly. This typically adds two pounds to the fish and that is one of the main reasons he has produced so many DD's from his original lake. The first two 12 pounders I caught here I called Tens before I hung them on a scale. They were that deceiving in their weight.

The 15.0 I caught in Jan '12 had the head and mouth of a 9-10# fish. She was not even what I would call fat, her girth just carried all the way down her body to her tail fin.