Fish on ice for 3 days will taste just fine.

When i lived in Louisiana we traveled by boat to our camps. Wed spend several days and you were noy allowed to be in possession of filets while on the water. You had to eat what you fileted at the camp.

Fish kept on ice taste just fine after several days.

I live with in 10 minutes of Toledo & bass fish 2 or 3 times a week on it. pictures like this make me mad but as long as they are legal it ant none of my business.

People see 1 picture and make lots of assumptions.

I personally know several people that make 1 or 2 trips a year to Toledo bend and keep fish for the freezer. However, they do not fish very often and often times it is one of the few times a year they bring fish home to eat.

I typically fish 2-3 times a week and rarely filet a bass. But at the end of the year, who killed more fish? Who knows.

I do think it is possible that some 100% C&R fishermen that chastise these guys are killing more fish than many of these meat fishermen that only get out a handful of times a year.

Now if the same guys are keeping full limits every trip, that would be a different situation. But as long as they are abiding by the laws put in place, it should not be an issue.

Back in the late 60's thru the 70 & 80s, the legal limit for both Texas & LA. was 15 with no length limit. In 1988 it went to 10 plus a 12" limit. It was common for a party of 3 to catch & clean a daily limit. Back then guides never blinked an eye about keeping bass. Times have changed.

I don�t care what they do with them. Double benefit. They got to enjoy catching them and get to enjoy eating them. All legal and according to the �experts� that set the limits it�s sustainable. Arguably even beneficial to the fishery. Me? I�m out! Look closely. Some of those fish definitely do not look very fresh!

I�m all for keeping smaller fish. It�s good for the health of the overall population. Just don�t keep 5 & 6 pounders that�s all I�m saying. Keep as many 2 pounders as the law allows. Go for it.

If Tarzan had been a Cajun Cheetah would have been gumbo!!!

Definitely not beneficial to fishery. A top biologist at tpw told me a couple years ago when Rayburn and Toledo are in good shape he'd actually recommend not keeping anything. The fisheries can support every bass it can produce.

I don't have a problem with anyone keeping some fish, but don't complain why fishing is starting to suck when you're removing huge age classes of females. That picture represents over 50% of people on Toledo. In spring time you can troll past docks and there's filleted bass everywhere on the bottom. I've never seen a keeper bass released on Toledo and never seen one kept on Rayburn.

Come on Jarrett, never seen a keeper bass released on Toledo Bend ? There are many and I mean many guys fishing on Da Bend that release most ,if not all of their bass. I fish almost every day out of Alpine Marina and see guys releasing bass all of the time. Most keep white perch if they want fish to eat. I know you have fished many tournaments over here that released all of their fish. Also I have seen many big bass filleted on Big Sam too.

I was told that the states wanted Toledo Bend and Rayburn to be lakes that people "could" keep fish to eat. I'm just glad that Toledo Bend Lake Asst. stocks fingerling every few years.

I just look at it as an unwritten rule not to eat every bass you catch. I put it in the same category as quail hunters who shoot at a covey running on the ground and knocked down 4 or 5 birds with one shot. Another unwritten rule not to do this. If your an avid quail hunter

Well obviously tournament fish get released. My point more was that when I'm practicing over there, especially up in blue lake in the spring. EVERYTHING gets kept. I've seen guys wade fishing putting 12" bass on the stringer. You just don't see that on Rayburn. I think Driscoll at tpw told me it's something like 25% keepers on Rayburn get kept and up to 70-75% on Toledo. Thats a lot of females each spring. Nobody can tell me that doesn't have an impact on the fishery. You hardly see 4-5lb+ on beds on Toledo anymore compared to 5 years ago. You'd see hundreds a day before the lake got crazy popular.

There is no way 75% of fish are being kept on Toledo. I know plenty of people that haven�t kept a bass in years and back 10 years ago kept everything they caught. I would be willing to bet that guys that do keep bass in the spring don�t keep many either because they only fish in the spring when they are shallow and are easy to catch. And the reason you don�t see the 4-5 lbers I would think because there is probably 75% more people with boats fishing 7 days a week pounding bed fish vs people taking them home.

Fish Toledo and Rayburn both all the time and I see the same thing as Jarrett. During Spring on south end lots of LA boat numbers and everything is going in the cooler. Hardly ever see a fish kept on Rayburn.

Some people just need to get over the fact that not everyone fishes tournaments and only wants to catch big fish. Some people like to fish for food. Apparently there are still lots of fish being caught on the lake and the lake is for everyone. I don�t like seeing 5+ lb bass being filleted like most on here. I won�t even filet a fish over 3 lbs and typically only keep 3 or fish per person once or twice a year for dinner that night, but as long as officials allow people to keep fish it will happen. It�s a public lake and the fish belong to the public, all of the public, not just Tournament Fishermen.

How long have �these people� been keeping fish on this lake? Looks to me the lake is still flourishing. Or is this suddenly a new phenomenon?

I�m not going to crucify the folks that keep bass. I was just sharing that my observations were similar to Jarret�s in regards to the amount of people keeping fish. Yes, they have been keeping fish on Toledo for a long time. But, when it was named number 1 a few years ago traffic increased significantly and the percentage of people keeping fish increased. Now fishing isn�t remotely as good as it was 3-4 years ago. Is that the only reason no, there are other factors that contribute. Doesn�t change the fact that Rayburn doesn�t suffer the same kind of fish harvest and it seems to not have as big ups and downs.