The Problem I see with Everyone that wants to Change or Eradicate the Program is they are assuming that there were no fingerlings hatched or released in the early years of SAL before the Numbers were available. DON'T ASSUME!

The Fingerlings and Fry have been released for a Long time, but the Lakes that received them remained unnamed to keep the flood of anglers from Pressuring them.

The only reason they post it now is too shut up the folks that were saying "there hasn't ever been any Fry produced we should shut it down".

More of those Sal Fish die beceause of improper Handling by the angler than die from the trip. These same fish would have more than likely died anyway even if released.

Being a fisheries biologist these last 30+ years myself, I gotta agree strongly with the above post. When I need help with fishing tackle, I go to the tackle shop for help (not Wal-Mart). When my truck is broken I go to a mechanic. If I'm sick I see a doctor.

But....everybody knows more about how to manage a fishing lake than I do, just ask them. I can only begin to imagine the problems a state fisheries biologist has with the user group, his/her cohorts and most especially with the lay people that are on the commission making up the rules as they go along.

Just a few of the very common misconceptions I deal with every day...

"My water (from the well) is good to drink so it has to be good for my fish." Many wells that produce fine drinking water would kill a fish as soon as you put it in that water. Things like nitrogen gas supersaturation, no dissolved oxygen, dissolved salts, heavy metals, even pesticides that come out of the ground and go through a person relatively harmless will kill a fish

And...."A bass can't grow in a lake without grass in it." Bass do not eat grass. Grass MIGHT make a good habitat in some cases, in others it actually detracts from the ability of the bass in the lake to thrive.

Now, with such simple things as "drinking water is always good for fish," and "Bass must have grass in order to thrive," being totally misconcepted, imagine something as complex as the SAL program trying to be analyzed by the same folks.

I'll add this....when I want to know more about how to catch fish, I go to a fisherman. A fisheries biologist and a fisherman can be and usually are, very different things. I love to fish, and I'm pretty good at it, but I do not need to look very far at all to find plenty of folks that are not biologists and are much better fishermen than I am.

The FUnniest thing about the sharealunker program is that if you take the free replica out of the deal the program would be non existent today.

Folks would still turn them in but they would be a skin mount when they got them back.

Marine Creek by Fort Worth got them stocked. Its Called Operation World Record


"Marine Creek Lake is participating in the Operation World Record program. ShareLunker largemouth bass were stocked in the lake in November of 2006. Fish are tagged to monitor growth. The minimum length limit was changed in September of 2006 to protect these fish from harvest. If you observe regulation violations occurring please call Operation Game Thief at 1-800-792-4263."

http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/fishboat/fish/recreational/lakes/marine_creek/

that has crossed my mind too lol..

May 8, 2006

First Operation World Record Results Encouraging
ATHENS, Texas � Texas Parks and Wildlife Department Inland Fisheries biologists were pleasantly surprised recently when they went electrofishing for tagged Budweiser ShareLunker offspring in three research lakes.

They found fish�lots of fish. �The most exciting thing from these preliminary samples is that ShareLunker offspring were collected at high rates,� said Inland Fisheries biologist Michael Baird. �This bodes well for the age-4 sample slated to be completed in the spring of 2009.�

TPWD fisheries biologists are monitoring the growth rate of stocked Budweiser ShareLunker offspring as compared to resident �wild� fish in the reservoirs. The average ShareLunker offspring was 7.1 inches long and weighed 2.7 ounces. The average wild fish averaged 5.3 inches long and weighed 1.2 ounces.

�Because the ShareLunker offspring were raised at the hatchery, their initial size was larger,� pointed out Tim Bister, one of the project biologists. �We�ll have to consider this difference when we make growth comparisons in the future.�

The fish were sampled from Lake Raven, in Huntsville State Park; Mill Creek Reservoir, in Canton; and Meridian State Park Lake. The valuable Budweiser ShareLunker offspring were produced from female largemouth bass contributed by anglers to the program in 2005 and were spawned and reared at the Texas Freshwater Fisheries Center in Athens, home of the ShareLunker program.

Operation World Record is an attempt to produce the next world record largemouth bass through a program of selective breeding using Budweiser ShareLunkers with pure Florida largemouth genes. Research to evaluate the growth rates of these selectively bred fish is ongoing.

The Budweiser ShareLunker program is made possible through support from Anheuser-Busch, Inc. Since 1991, Anheuser-Busch, in partnership with the Texas Parks and Wildlife Foundation, has contributed millions of dollars in funding to support conservation causes and fishing, hunting and outdoor recreation programs in Texas.

http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/newsmedia/releases/?req=20060508f

Back in the early days they gave everyone a lifetime fishing licenses for turning one in.

Now I think the largest fish per year the angler gets a lifetime fishing licenses

Dan, I believe James would agree that the guys in Athens have seen more 13+ fish than he has. I would bet most of the guides on Falcon have seen more 13+ fish than James. James does a great job of protecting and promoting the care of fish, but ask him how many dead fish over 10 lbs he has seen at tournaments on Falcon. SAL fish donated from Falcon which later died is not even a drop in the bucket! Not to mention the locals which cut the meat off and throw the rest back in the water. James is not the expert on the SAL program and neither am I, but it doesn't bother me to see someone trying to better the genetic offspring of our bass in "our" lakes and educating and promoting better care of large fish which is what TP&W and the SAL program have done. They can't make a 13+ fish bite our hooks, we have to go out and catch them ourselves.

The roots of the ShareLunker program can be traced to the drought of the 1950s. That 10-year dry spell brought home to Texans the fact that the state�s burgeoning population had outgrown its water supply. A few reservoirs had been built previously, but the 1960s and 1970s witnessed the completion of many more. Texas had only one natural lake � Caddo � and the native species of Texas bass, the northern, was adapted to live in streams.

Fish adapted to live in large lakes were needed to take advantage of the new reservoirs, and in 1971 TPWD brought the first Florida strain largemouth bass to Texas. They were housed at the Tyler Fish Hatchery (now closed), and the first Florida strain bass were stocked into Texas waters the following year.

Over the next several years bass from Florida, California and Cuba were brought to Texas to improve the genetics of the Texas bass population. The Cuban fish were obtained by sheer daring. Joe Bob Wells, a Levelland resident who fished in Cuba frequently, flew to Cuba in December 1984 and brought bass back to Texas via Mexico, since travel between the United States and Cuba was prohibited.

As the Florida strain genes worked their way into the bass population, fish grew bigger. In 1980 a 14.1-pound bass broke the state record of 13.5 pounds that had stood for 43 years. The record increased again and again, to the current 18.18-pound fish caught in 1992. Interest in bass fishing burgeoned along with the size of the fish.

+1

I believe you are correct.

I just have 1 question. Where's the fish??????

The SL program sucks and kill's big fish populations, the FREE replica's arent worth keeping, and Cormorants need to be exterminated.

Oh, and we need to stock more bluegill.

Agreed.......