With all due respect sir, I am not calling you anti tournament but you are very much clueless about them. Roberts has less than 15 tournaments a year, only 2-3 of those are big ones. Roberts is far from over run with tournaments.

Let’s talk Worth for a minute since it was brought up. Ray Bob is 29,350 acres, lake Worth is 3489 acres. (Joe Pool 7,470). Imagine putting 250 boats in Johnson branch, that’s a little smaller but comparable in size to LW. Worth has 26 weeknight tournaments, 3 media bass tournaments, bassaholics tournament, 8 weekend opens this year, plus bass clubs, plus a 2 day championship, plus kings of Cowtown qualifiers, and kings of Cowtown tournament. All of this on a water body 8 times smaller than Ray Bob.

Fish per acre is the problem not tournaments per year or minimum length. Let’s not forget about the giant group of pelicans that won’t freaking leave...watched one gulp down a solid 3 lb bass last week.. how many are those 100 pelicans eating per day while the bass are moving shallow? I feel sure that number is higher than the tournament mortality because those darn things have been there for 2 months!

You are correct in that I don't fish 2-3 tournaments a week like many do. I fish more like 2-3 per year. I threw out the names of those two lakes because they are close to the city like Roberts is. Sounds like they get their share of pounding too, again more reason to limit the number of events held based on heath of the fishery. My opinion and source of irritation with the fishing on Roberts is simply the fact that I have been fishing it as my home lake since 1994 +/- shortly after getting out of the military. My observation is as tournaments have steadily increased in popularity, the fishing at Roberts has gotten steadily worse. You are correct in that there are many other factors such as nature and TPWD that also effect the fishing. I live toward the back of Wolf creek and there are probably a dozen or more heron nests within view of my little landing. Not to mention as you say the pelicans and all of the stinking cormorants. Having said that you can't nor do I believe should attempt to control nature. Where I do think we have a responsibility and a stewardship is to police ourselves and show a little restraint. There may only be 2-5 big tournaments a year but for each of those there is constant prefishing. There are also a bunch of club tournaments as well as weekly jack pots. You are out there frequently, how often have you seen pros practicing for the classic, what about getting ready for champs, or HS events, or the BPS event? All of those draw tons of people to the lake which = more pressure. Stocking sounds great if it would work, lets try that, and a slot limit, and limiting numbers of tournaments, lets try it all until the lake recovers and then try to do a better job of managing the resource. Anyway, I recognize some of my ideas may be off the wall but some real conversations about some real attempts to improve the fishery would be awesome!

Here is a good read regarding TPWD plans and the 2019 survey

https://tpwd.texas.gov/publications/pwdpubs/media/lake_survey/pwd_rp_t3200_1368_2019.pdf

Here is a good read regarding TPWD plans and the 2019 survey

https://tpwd.texas.gov/publications/pwdpubs/media/lake_survey/pwd_rp_t3200_1368_2019.pdf

Thanks, I'm reading through this now. One question I have in general (not for anyone specifically) is if the lake is man-made in 1986, how is the distinction made between native and non-native aquatic vegetation. Impoundments themselves are inherently non-native. What are we trying to accomplish by only permitting native aquatic vegetation? It seems to me that the blanket labeling of hydrilla as a non-native/invasive species neglects its benefits..

Giant Salvania is a real problem and it destroys habitats. Hydrilla, not so much (from my understanding). I know it outcompetes native vegetation... but again... we're talking about a man-made lake where native vegetation wouldn't exist if humans didn't build a lake in the first place. I feel like a calculated decision to allow certain non-native plants (e.g., hydrilla) that benefit fish and wildlife as a whole would be win/win. Might just be my ignorance.

You are correct in that I don't fish 2-3 tournaments a week like many do. I fish more like 2-3 per year. I threw out the names of those two lakes because they are close to the city like Roberts is. Sounds like they get their share of pounding too, again more reason to limit the number of events held based on heath of the fishery. My opinion and source of irritation with the fishing on Roberts is simply the fact that I have been fishing it as my home lake since 1994 +/- shortly after getting out of the military. My observation is as tournaments have steadily increased in popularity, the fishing at Roberts has gotten steadily worse. You are correct in that there are many other factors such as nature and TPWD that also effect the fishing. I live toward the back of Wolf creek and there are probably a dozen or more heron nests within view of my little landing. Not to mention as you say the pelicans and all of the stinking cormorants. Having said that you can't nor do I believe should attempt to control nature. Where I do think we have a responsibility and a stewardship is to police ourselves and show a little restraint. There may only be 2-5 big tournaments a year but for each of those there is constant prefishing. There are also a bunch of club tournaments as well as weekly jack pots. You are out there frequently, how often have you seen pros practicing for the classic, what about getting ready for champs, or HS events, or the BPS event? All of those draw tons of people to the lake which = more pressure. Stocking sounds great if it would work, lets try that, and a slot limit, and limiting numbers of tournaments, lets try it all until the lake recovers and then try to do a better job of managing the resource. Anyway, I recognize some of my ideas may be off the wall but some real conversations about some real attempts to improve the fishery would be awesome!