Everyone blames it on disappearing grass or over harvest. Sure maybe. Nobody wants to point to the obvious though, vast, vast, fishing pressure. Finite acres of water and an ever increasing population. Also... and I know this won't be popular... Tournaments.

I like the idea of issuing a fixed number of tournament boat slots for each lake per year, set by the TPWD based on facts. Sell the tournament slots to the highest bidders. Use the proceeds to restock the lake.

These constant and massive tournaments on our lakes do huge amounts of harm in my opinion. Thousands of boats keeping thousands of fish in live wells for long periods. Every weekend, almost every day on some lakes. It's relentless and we are burring our heads in the sand if we think it isn't causing harm.

This system sounds like a bureaucratic nightmare. I'm all for investing more money in our fisheries. Create a largemouth tag on fishing licenses that you have to buy in order to put one in a livewell, up license fees, etc. We most certainly need to invest in the future of our fisheries, but personally I'm not for more government bureaucracy and rules.