According to TPWD website they stocked florida fingerlings in 2019 and adults in 2021.

All I know is the TP&W fishers people have a really good track record of screwing up lakes beyond repair. They seem to forget their mission is to protect wildlife, improve habitat for wildlife, enforce game laws. The mission is not to cater to homeowners that buy a lake house on a lake with grass in it and then bitch about the grass the knew was there. It just like the morons that buy houses next to airports and bitch about the airplanes. GRASS IS GOOD FOR FISH HABITAT.

Get back and focus on your charted mission. Make a couple of hundred homeowners happy and piss off 100,000 fishermen, yea good job there.

Did they develop Cooper? I have not been there in many years.

No.

During the 90’s when Fork was really struggling, Cooper was on fire for a couple of years. Great spinner bait fishing for spawning bass on the logs in the river. I had a regular monthly trip with a Fork guide in those days, starting in the early 80’s and we went to Cooper on a handful of occasions. Different fishing from Fork, but it was a really good lake for a couple of years. Then with the fluctuations in levels it just turned to [censored]. I still go there in the summer for sand bass and small strippers and catching a 100+ of them is the norm.

No conspiracy theory on Cooper. It was impounded on a flat black ground on a muddy creek. It was built for water to the metro mess . I'm afraid Bois dark will be the same.

Cooper was great for bout 6 years then it went to [censored] when they pulled water out for Irving. Like you I think the same thong will happen to Bois d Arc Lake too. They already talking about one that will be built south of Bonham cause that's the only way they can keep bois d arc from flooding Bonham. Been talking bout it for couple years

Bass are tough creatures when it comes to surviving adverse conditions.

Look how many survive in hot summer months in ponds with little oxygen or low water.

Yet many think they cant survive in a lake because of it being low or high ? It is not that ..... they are still many there they just are doing things different than the past.

The biggest shock to the lake was when the TPW pulled many adult bass from in to get Fork back up and running after the fish kill they caused by spraying floating vegetation .

They had to cause Fork was drawing to much money in those days and the resources were gone but a near by lake had them so they brought them from Cooper to Fork for several months in the fall .

They could not afford to lose the money Fork was bringing in so it was a quick fix for them.

There were a few businesses around here that relied on Cooper. They are all gone now. There's one bait store now. They are only open when the gates are open and they are letting water out. That's the only time a lot of people fish anymore. I just fish for Sandbass now. Most of the time I have the whole lake to myself.

I heard they pulled all the hydrilla out of Cooper and transferred it to Fork. I can't remember where I heard that. I'll have to check, maybe I just made that up.

I had some 35 lb sack days with you. Catching some of those spawning females in the tops of the trees. Big fun!

TP&W also has a great track record of making some incredible bass fishing across the state.

Marc don't you mean the "LMV" (wink, wink).

So sad it was possibly the state and not a mysterious new virus

I think that it was actually a virus or something similar but I think the state is the only entity that could’ve spread it around like it did.

I live almost on it and have since 2004, they didn't allow development around it and as bad as it drops during the summer having lake side property on it would be worthless.
The 2006 drought is what did it in, it never was the same after that. There have been one or two more since that one that have brought it pretty low. We've also had some springs where I felt like the fish just didn't get the opportunity to reproduce because the water came down so fast and it probably left existing beds high and dry.
A lot of folks think it's the pumping that drops it so much but from what I've been told by some of the engineers is its the grade of the land its on that causes it to drop so radically. When this lake is full there is probably a third of it that is two feet deep or less. That heats up a lot faster when the sun is bearing down on it and it has an accelerated evaporation rate. The next level is a large area that is three to five feet deep at pool stage (full) and once the two foot depths are gone that comes in to play. A domino effect.
In 2006 the fish were all crammed into an area about a third of the size of the normal pool stage lake, the only thing I can figure is between the predatory birds and the larger catfish, gar, and stripers all the largemouth bass were eaten and like I said, that has happened at least one more time since then.
I went to TP&W's website a while back and looked at stocking data for Cooper. They put 250k fingerlings in it about two or three years ago and that looked like the only time it's been stocked since it's opening the best I could tell..
Since I've gotten my bass boat I spent some time down and side scanning the lake and one of the things I've noticed is this lake has an insane population of shad. If it were as heavily stocked as Fork or even half that it would probably be giving Fork and OH Ivie a run for their money, It easily has the forage to support that.
The other lakes in the area are more of a bowl shape, Cooper is more like a wedge with a lot of taper. Once it gets about 13 feet low or so it hits contour that is more like a bowl and the evaporation slows down but by that time its waters are hundreds of yards to miles from the boat ramps. Probably make for some awesome kayak fishing though.