Simple, start keeping every Bass you catch.

Bill Dance states that 100% pure Catch and Release is fine for big lakes but is death for smaller lakes. He didn't explain why, but that was one of his "facts".

Of course all of the lakes that he and Jimmy Houston have designed have a a slot limit where everything has to be released except fish of a certain length which must be kept. Something like all 14-18 inch fish or something close to that have to be harvested.

The one thing I like about Alan Henry is that you can keep 2 fish per day under 18 inches. I just wish they would make it mandatory to keep all spots for like a year. Nothing like letting a lake get taken over by a fish that will probably never reach 4 pounds...I see all these people on TV saying how much they love spots and I'm like WTF??? Why? If I wanted to catch 2 pound fish all day I'd fish for sandbass. Sorry for getting sidetracked.

Completely the opposite. The fish that need to be removed will now be required to be released. The only thing that will change is the amount of bigger fish being killed.

Aside from that, we don't have near the Florida genetics to break the record. I'll be very surprised if the lake record is broken in the next 10 years.

End the sal program. kill every bass you
Catch. The end.

What if the new record came from a private lake? The company I work for manages thousands of private lakes across the state for trophy bass. We currently have 2 lakes that are showing extremely good growth rates. One lake is in the panhandle and the other is southwest of Houston. The lake in the panhandle has been going for 3 years now and the biggest bass we have shocked up is 9#'s. The other lake has been going for 4 years and we have several fish just over 10#'s. We have the lakes set up for growing big fish and if we can continue to see above average growth I think that we can get the state record and possibly get close to a world record.

I do think that if we want to see a new state record and possibly a world record we need to harvest small bass. Harvesting small fish will do wonders for a lake. It takes 10#'s of forage to put 1# of weight on a bass. By harvesting the small fish you can increase the available forage for the larger bass. It would be interesting if TPWD would set up a smaller public lake with a management plan that basically says keep every bass under size "X" release all bass over that size, keep all other species of fish no matter the size except for forage fish(bluegill,redear,ect...).

Its the Trout that you guys need in my opinion. You have GIANT bass that almost get there, but fall short simply because they don't have an abundance of trout to feed on.

Catch a 10+ female from Fork or anywhere else for that matter. Then have a giant fish tank built two or three times bigger than bass pro then stock a ton of tilapia and gorge her silly!!

I've always been kinda' surprised that some rich dude never tried this.

I have no idea about any of this but I do think the smaller fish are more aggressive and probably take a lot of food from the big ones.

There is a man in Mississippi, I can't think of his name right now, that has been trying to grow the world record bass in a 7 acre pond for several years. He has lost his family and spent an inherited fortune on his obsession.
Glenn Lau tried to raise one in an aquirum tank. Some kids broke in and tried to snag her but she was too heavy to lift and they ripped out her stomach. He gave up after that.

Its a simple formula. XYZ acres of water can support ABC pounds of fish.A 5 acre lake may support 500 one pound fish or 50 ten pound fish.There are other variables sure,but this is the most important one to start with.Without this in mind it is virtually imposible to grow big fish no matter where you are.I wish they would manage a lake the size of Purtis Creek to try and grow nothing but pigs!!I took a five acre lake that I had never caught a fish bigger than 2 and a half pounds from and worked on it for 2 years culling fish of ALL kinds out..On year three I caught numerous four to six pounders from it and the next year a seven and an eight.I was catching up to 40 to 60 a trip but all small.After working it was catching 10 to 15 but most were over three.

Why not stock soley female bass? They can't over populate if they don't have a male...?

You're not thinkin' with your dipstick, Jimmy!

Haven't you seen Jurassic Park? Life always finds a way.

Any older fisherman that you talk to that was around when most of the lakes in Texas were being developed will tell you about how they used to keep fish every time they went out. To keep producing big bass in lakes people have to keep some fish under five lbs so the bigger fish dont have to compete so much for food. leave the tiny fish and the bigger fish and keep the end betweens. Ray Roberts has an emmaculate shad population enough for a bass to get big off of they just cant have so many other fish to compete with. So many people are stuck on the florida strain fish, thinking that they have to be floridas to get really big but i dont think thats the case, and i believe anywhere has the chance of producing a new world record we just need the right circumstances