Another thing before I get off my soap box. I’m sure almost every guy in here is guilty of this including myself. When you hire a guide to take you fishing your not required to keep every fish or fill your limit. I know you think cuz someone else is cleaning them and your spending so much money on the trip you might as well keep them all but 90% of the fish that people bring home from a guided trip is still in the bottom of the freezer a year later. It’s hard to eat 25-30 lbs of fish and a huge number of those end up in the trash. Every time I’ve been on a trip with a guide, my buddy that I’m with will keep the fish. I hear em say fish fry fish fry. I love a good fish fry as much as the next guy but when I’m fishing for a fish fry the fish fry is already planned. When I ask my buddy the next year how the fish fry went and what happened to all those filets, nearly every time most of those fish were still in the bottom of the freezer. Catfish are best cooked fresh and after being in the bottom of the freezer for a year most people just throw em out. If your keeping fish it’s best to keep what your going to eat in 1 or 2 meals and when you want more for another meal then go catch some fresh ones.

Rant complete.

Chris, I you put frozen fish beside fresh fish, I can pick the fresh out of a blind taste test 100 times out of 100. There is no comparison. When I go striper fishing with a guide up on Texoma, I don't always keep them. Sometimes I do. My daughter likes striper better than catfish (strange girl) so I keep some for her but a lot of times I wont keep any. I don't need a freezer full of fish. If I want some, I'll go catch em.

I grew up the same way..uncles and parents born in the 20s and 30s you learn quickly not
to throw anything away. I still trotline and will til i can't no more plus fish with rod and reel.
Usually set liners or us atleast do it just a few weeks out of the yr. and catch enough for family
reunions and to have some thru out the yr. Rod and reel fisherman have never liked set liners mainly
because of snagging it with there line and set liners don't like rod reel fisherman because they cut
there line or steal it. Noodles seem to be popular with this generation and seem like it would be
fun but you got to keep up with them and don't cause trash. Trotliners need to take there lines
out when they are thru for the season. As far as fish population i would be willing to bet my life savings with all
the guides now days pulling in 4 person limits sometimes twice a day over a whole yr. and making a nice paycheck
doing it has caused more damage than set liners. Trophy catfishing has turned into a big business
for guides and are changing the rules. I have no problem with the rules because 25 a day is plenty
for everyone and 5 over 20 inches at Tawakoni is more than we ever catch.

Funny ya'll talk about those old timers like there are so many of them out there still loading their freezers every week.
I guess those old timers must be in their fifties by now?

Those clients have big smiles on their faces as they stand around the cleaning table watching the guides clean that big pile of fish!
Now what guide doesn't want his clients to have smiles on their faces?
If they can't make their clients happy there is always several other guides working the same lake that will!
I just believe what my own eyes have seen time and again over the years!
Even they complain that the fishing isn't what it used to be!....Duh!
Plenty of reasons, and when we point fingers there is always three more pointing back at you, and I'm all for the new restrictions, and maybe they don't go far enough!

The reason I brought up old timers is because the ones I fish with complain when we release big fish or any fish for that matter and the young anglers do not.

I don’t know what lake you fish but here in Lewisville there are still a ton of older anglers fishing. Most young and middle aged anglers are working their jobs during the week but the retired guys I know are at the lake fishing quite a bit more than us working guys. I knock off work early a lot to fish and over the years I’ve made a ton of friendships with some of the old timers at my lake.

I’m 47 and I grew up watching Jimmy Houston outdoors. I think he had a huge impact on my generation in educating us on the importance of conservation and catch and release. My brother is the generation before me and his fishing style was more influence by my dad and my uncles. My dad is 85 and he is an old timer. My uncles are all in their 60-80s and they are all old timers that continue to fish. Their friends are mostly old timers as well. Many of them are life long catfisherman and still fish often and keep all their fish.

Old timer can have several meaning. That can mean a seasoned veteran, an antique, or just someone who follows the old time way of doing things. My brother is a perfect example. He is 50 and follows the old ways of the keep em all mentality. I call him an old timer all the time. We don’t fish much together cuz we don’t see eye to eye.

I knew this thread would ruffle a few feathers but judging from the majority of comments it looks like peoples ways are rapidly changing and there is a paradigm shift that is happening before our very eyes. The old ways of over harvest and keeping everything you catch seems like it is finally beginning to subside.

Hey Jimbo, I resemble that remark! I'm 57 and I am not an old timer, some days I might feel like one but I'm not. Chris, change happens slow but I think you are right there is an awakening to the fact that this is a limited resource and if we want to keep it, we need to manage it and not just mindlessly use it up.

I've said it before here but it's worth saying again I think. I had a guide tell me his fisheries buddy said the striper population on Texoma is about 5 million. They estimate that all the guides pulling limits every day, sometimes twice a day, only takes a million fish out of the lake. At the rate those fish grow, that is sustainable. Catfish are much slower at growing and the same equation would not work out with the blue cat's growth rate.

I am more and more in favor of limiting the harvest of blue cats. The more popular the sport becomes, the more important the regulations are. If it takes money for the TPWD to notice and see value in regulating them, tell me where to send the check.

Any of us that had parents or relatives grow up during the Great Depression have seen this mentality. My mom grew up dirt poor on a Nebraska farm and you can bet she knew how to stretch the available food in the pantry and stockpiled on certain things when they were on sale. I once counted 20, yes 20, cans of tuna in the pantry.

Just like when they were begging anglers to keep small bass on Fork. Too many fish competing for the available food sources. Trying to protect the trophy fish means some of the youngsters need to be culled from the population.

Train em up right. Wyatt is 4. I want to make sure the next generation is in good hands...

Not sure why anyone would but it says no minimum on some.

They need to have a minimum size of 12 in.

I come from that generation, and you hit the nail on the head ! When I had a houseful of kids, trying to pay bills and make ends meet, I wouldn’t throw back any legal fish. We also ate squirrels and ducks (I don’t even like duck I cleaned and fried many a bass in my younger days too. These days it’s a different ballgame. I don’t pull enough limits of crappie to hurt the population, or catfish either. I enjoy a fish fry as much as the next guy, but I recognize the resource needs to be protected too.

If TPWD cares about the breeders, why in the world did they make noodling legal ?

They made it legal because of $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ in the right pocket