One other thought. LLELA is being stockred with trout by the state. The trout are a "put and take" resource, as they would not survive through the summer. If you were to make this area C&R, you can say bye-bye to the trout stockings.

That would be fine. There are plenty of other species to be caught. It wouldn't bother me if they didn't stock it with trout.

Also, would it be so hard to change the policy when trout are stocked? They could allow people to keep trout, but C&R everything else.

making llela catch and release only is not the solution....

i suspect that some just do not like those that fish there for table food.

like it or not.... this happens everywhere.... so does this mean that we need to make every place catch & release?

hey... i may be wrong..... but i am not. THIS is not the solution.

and for anyone to favor one fishing spot over another.... well, i suspect homerism. unless this petition suggests EVERY FISHING SPOT IN TEXAS catch & release, then it is not going to get one bit of attention.

think it thru.... then flame me. i dont care, cuz i am right.

I believe Bret said in the very first post that he indeed eats some of what he catches. I don't believe this is an issue about people taking what they catch for the dinner table, if what they were taking was LEGAL.

TPWD sets harvest length and limit regulations for a reason. I don't have any problem with people taking fish to eat, as long as what they are taking is legal.

Making the area C & R only will greatly reduce the poaching. I agree with it, and signed the petiiton.

As for the trash, well, in general, poachers do not care about the area in which they are fisihng. Decreasing the number of poachers will decrease the trash in the area.

Well said Fishlady.

Also, for those of you who don't know...

FortWorthBret is very much in touch with UNT and those in charge of LLELA as a park.

Part of the reason that spurred his petition is that those in charge have personally told him that unless the Poaching Situation improves, and unless people stop trashing their park...

UNT is quite prepared to close the gates again and revert it back to use by the university and LAERF only.

It was closed for many years, and has only been open again for the last few. It was nice and pristine for the first year or too, but once word got out, and the place got flooded with poachers unwilling to obey any regulations as far as legal size and bag limit goes, the banks went to hell.

Now what was once pristine bank is littered with minnow bags, yard after yard of 100lb test mono and floro, hook packages, beer cans, beer bottles, half cleaned fish, rotten chicken liver, lure packages, snack bags, etc etc etc.

And let's not forgot lots of cans and bottles with line tied to and wrapped around them lol.

Having witnessed some of these people dropping trash on the ground, AND gotten in their faces about it, AND picked it up from around their feet during our recent clean up, it's quite obvious who is doing it...the poachers.

Yes, we call the Game Warden EVERY time we're out there, but he doesn't always make an appearance, and most of the poachers get away with it by dumping their buckets filled with undersized white bass back in the water and driving off before he's even out of his car.

Again, the Catch-And-Release idea is designed to keep the poachers away, and keep them from trashing what used to be a beautiful park. If they know it's not legal to keep anything, they won't bother showing up because then all the warden has to see is them dumping a bucket with fish in it back into the water, and he knows they kept at least one fish illegally...

A few tickets like that, and they'll stop showing up at all.

Basically, it's come down to the fact that the Current Enforcement is just not doing enough.

It's already a pay-to-use-Park run by UNT, and a Nature Preserve.

It's a very small, very "natural" stretch of river, that is slowly getting ruined by a persistent group of law-breaking idiots.

I have kept MANY fish from there in the past, but would gladly give up that option to see the place remain open, and to see it return to it's formerly pristine condition.

If nothing is changed, UNT WILL close it again, and then NO ONE gets to fish it.

But since most of you guys against the petition have never even fished the area, I guess that doesn't matter to you.

Poachers are going to poach whether it is legal fishing or catch and release.

Call the game warden when you see poachers. Surely they have an observation area where they can catch poachers keeping undersize and oversize fish on film to document the violation. That is what they do at Denison Dam. I have heard of fines over the years of up to $60,000.

They can also document, or you can, the poachers littering the area. Show them putting the trash down and leaving the trash and try to get a film of their vehicle license plate leaving the area.

Maybe the park rangers could force them to do community service trash pickup for several weekends.

Tell people the area will be closed to fishing if they do not start picking up their trash.

I never fish this area nor have I even visited it to my knowledge. I just hate to see good public fishing areas turn into catch and release only.

We have Hagerman Wildlife Refuge and their wildlife rangers patrol a lot for poachers and litterers. Most of the pads have at least one trash barrel. Most people do put their trash in them. A few don't but you will find that anywhere. If they never pick up their trash anywhere else, they are not going to pick it up when they are out fishing.

Unfortunately, no, they don't. They have one single road that leads up to the parking area, and everyone fishing there can see the quite-obvious warden truck driving down the road.

I mean it quite literally that by the time he's pulled in and gotten out of his truck, 20+ buckets/coolers have already gone back into the water. At least on the worst days, it's not as bad when it gets colder.

It just REALLY bugs me to have seen this place get more and more trash-mammal poachers start fishing it this spring and summer, and watch the conditions go more and more downhill.

I also like the Membership idea, hopefully raising the fee a good deal to make up for the loss of some revenue from the poachers who won't want to be identified as fishing there.

As for telling them the place will get closed, they will A ) Not care, B ) Tell me too F-off, or C ) look at me in confusion because they don't know what I'm saying.

I have also seen people there fishing with LIVE White Bass...called it in, but the Warden never showed up...typical.

As for closing a Public Fishing area, keep in mind this is a TINY place, less then 1/10th the size of Denison Dam by comparison. ( Not literally or in terms of acreage ) but it is a very small water release point, a very small section of river that is pretty easy to trash to hell.

I suppose I'm also a little bitter that when someone makes a petition like this, we get plenty of people saying "Oh you just need to organize clean ups not try and pass regulations to stop some of the poachers"...

And when we DID organize a clean up, and when we DID post about it for a MONTH...

NO ONE SHOWED.

Thanks, guys lol.

Which is also part of the reason Bret decided that maybe something else had to be done, I guess lol.

Also, keep in mind this spot is right in the middle of DFW. It's not as if it's the only area to fish around lol. There are many, many, MANY more spots to go and catch limits all around DFW all within a few miles of this spot.

I've kept plenty of fish from LLELA before but as I said, I'd happily give up that option and drive the extra couple miles to another spot when I wanted to take some fish home, if it would help keep LLELA open, and clean.

my point exactly.

Well, at least they won't be able to poach there once they get it closed down again.

And since you're clearly very passionate about a spot I'm not sure you've ever fished...I'm sure we'll see you at the next clean up, right?

Having fished many C&R only waters across this country, that is not the case.

For starters, the park itself can enforce this as it would be a park rule, and violators can be forced to leave. The park cannot enforce actual laws (short of calling a warden, they didn't show up today when called, BTW).

Secondly, and I've seen this myself, as I've actually been to these places.. the large sign that goes up at the gates *before* entry fee is taken stating that no fish can be kept, deters the activity.

As the law states, a person could easily take a kayak or small boat upstream from another park and do as wanted (navigable waters). The poachers, and the litterbugs (largely the same group) would not be going this route.

Have you fished in a C&R relegated park? And seen the numbers of poachers remain the same?

Unfortunately, the game wardens are stretched far too thin to make an impact in enforcement. Plus, from a poacher's point of view, it would be an advantage to fish a place where one could see the warden coming from a good distance away, so you could dump your cooler before he showed up to write a ticket.

With so many places to fish around the area, I don't understand the opposition to making llela C&R. The arguements don't logically add up to me. This is a wildlife refuge we're talking about, not just another city park. The trash left on the ground affects the wildlife in the area, too.

Think about it...if you were someone that took fish home to eat, legal or not, would you bother fishing a place that didn't allow you to take those fish? I wouldn't. THAT IS THE POINT OF THE PETITION. The poachers aren't going to bother with fishing llela if they know they can't take any fish at all. There are plenty of other places in DFW to fish for food. The problem with a lot of those places, though, is that the wardens can sneak up on you. If you're throwing trash all over the bank, those city cops can sneak up on you, too.

As responsible anglers, we should do what we can do protect our fisheries. If these people keep taking undersized fish (which is my biggest issue, personally), then that will hurt a great fishery. I hear stories all the time about how people used to take sturgeon after sturgeon from below Denison. Now, you're hard pressed to find one in the Red. What we do, and allow, will have an effect on those fisheries in the future.

probably wont be at the cleanup..... i dont feel welcome there since i like to eat some of my catches.

Do you even bother reading the other posts

I didn't thinks so.

-RME-

i dont know if anybody mentioned this but i said on the other post why not make people show there fishing lisense and if they dont have one they cant enter but im sure somebody will get around it. iv never been there but iv heard whats going on and it a shame to here.

If enforcement of existing rules is so lax at this place do you actually believe that the people who poach the fish, trash the place up, and generally don't care about the law are going to stop poaching, trashing, and breaking t he law because yo make it catch and release?
You are exhibiting the same attitude that anti gun law makers exhibit--make laws for law abiding citizens that the scofflaws laugh at.
If you make an area catch and release all you do is drive the legitimate catchem and eatem fishermen away. Your trash will still be there and and the handlines and snaggers will still be filling their coolers.