One from Alan Henry was caught 3 times and turned into the SAL program.

It would be interesting to know how much of the total cost of the program is paid by sponsorship and how much is paid for by the state.

I have always been under the impression that it is entirely funded by sponsorship

I seriously doubt it. I bet at the very least employees that participate in the program are paid by the State. Also guess that vehicles and equipment and facilities used by the program are paid for and maintained by the State.

i agree, if i ever catch a SAL, it will not be making that trip to the hatchery, its goin right back where it got caught from... will take lots of pictures though!

Money Pit.

Anyone consider the research of fish genetics to be a worthwhile cause?

I think the SAL program is a big reason yankees like me come down to fish TX. (the results of the program that is)

There isn't anyone in the business (centered around bass fishing revenue) that can argue with the financial impact the sharelunker program has.

And the chance to get a free replica of one of our giants. I've always said take that away and you wouldn't see as many donations. If the goal of the SAL program is to produce a world record fish how can it be a good idea to remove 13-16lb, potential 16-20lb fish from their home. It doesn't seem like a good ideal to stress a giant fish for a couple weeks of its life whehter it lives or not.

If the goal is to bring attention to the amount of really nice fish we have in this state then we probably should keep yanking them out of their natural enviroment and putting them up for everyone to see.

How many trophy deer do you guys kill every year? And we seem to have plenty more each year and they keep getting bigger. I doubt we would have as many as we do without human intervention. Same goes for trophy bass.

Man there are a lot of haters around here.

has anyone ever considered the possibility that catch and release is the reason the we will never break the world record in the u.s.. dont get me wrong, i very rarely keep a bass of any size, but i truly believe that alot of middleweight bass have to be removed for the big to get bigger. sharelunker is not the problem. why does it make perfect sense to most everyone when it comes to deer hunting, but not in the bass world. most of u will say that u cant compare the two, but i think its the exact same thing! there are simply to many fish in most of these lakes for them to get above a certain size

Most Texas bass fisherman do not want a true trophy type fishing situation. They say they want giant bass but when they dont get many bites they start complaining about not having enough numbers. Truth is most Texas lakes are overpopulated for that to happen. Harvest isn't hurting anything in Texas.

I could care less for a free replica. I'm increasing my chances of catching a double digit without having to go to CA and dropshot or throw a swimbait all day for 1 bite. You don't hear about all these big fish coming from OK or LA, I think its because they don't have the SAL program.