Aww well, we will have to agree to disagree. You really can't compare a fish brain to a deer brain or even most reptiles. Fish brains are simply less advanced.

Sure, the pressure has some impact but with as many more anglers on the water these days if the giants in the high teens were still there they'd be showing up and they simply haven't been in several years. There might be a few left and odds are they might be in Fork, that's what keeps me coming back!

NO!!!! Im right and your wrong!!!!!!!!! Ha j/k. You do have a point there. Crappie fishermen still fish every day and still no big girls. All this thread does is rejuvenate my need for x-ray vision. And i like to give bass way more credit than they deserve because I cant help but feel like they outsmarted me.

pretty simple in my mind when you talk about Fork, the lake has already had its "glory" years in terms of habitat. It is pretty much void of grass (the kind that really counts), it had a HUGE fish die off ( for all those who think taking 1 SAL bass out hurts the genepool just think about taking 50% of your brood big bass out) and now the sandbass are getting magnum size and that puts more competition for food. It takes a special mix to grow bass to record size and In My Opinion Fork is no longer a place that can contain that special mix.

The best thing to happen to lakes like fork happened last summer. Lakes were down and new cover had a chance to grow, kind of like what happened at falcon. Its been said here already, the reservoir ages and cover disappears. If new cover isn't acquired (grass, trees, etc) it makes it tough to grow the big fish.

Losing all your aquatic vegetation isn't good for a lake.

Two things come to mind on this subject. I was really beating the heck out of Fork when the LMB virus took the lake down, it had to have an effect on the larger specimens swimming the lake. Even though I didn't see any floaters in the double digit range. I saw all the dead fish along the shore and most all of them were slot sized, never saw anything above the slot, some of those fish had to be genetically capable of growing into the 20+ pound monsters we all dream about though, so I figure we lost the capbility of having those fish for a while on Fork until the younger fish that survived reached maturity enough to develop to that end. That being said there ought to be fish old enough to be in the super sized range @ Fork.
The other thing I feel plays into this lack of larger big fish is the fact that they aren't real agressive eaters and you have to see fish this size feed on a daily basis to understand what I am talking about.
My classroom was Brown's Landing on Caney Lake just east of Jonesboro, La. They had an aquarium in the store in the late 80's and early 90's that held three state record LMB's all around the 15 pound mark. They also kept a few younger fish, around 3 pounds in there as well. We had a camp there and I used to stay there and go eat supper at Browns in the evening just so I could watch the fish being fed to see why I wasn't boating one of these monsters. When they were fed the 3 big fish sat in the corners of the tank and waited on the gold fish they were being fed to swim literally to their lips before they would attempt to eat them, the younger fish buzzed the goldfish like dogfighting fighter jets. The one thing I learned from this is a presentation on one of these fish would have to be in their face and extremely slow moving, a lot slower than what most of us are acustomed to moving a lure so if Fork is hiding some of these supersized monsters, presentation may be a factor in why they are still swimming around undisturbed and why crappie fisherman seem to have a knack for catching them. Caney quit producing these monsters a long time ago but that was due to the LDWF putting way to many sterile grass carp in the lake to control the hydrilla and completley wiping out the vegetation. The good news is those carp are quickly reaching the end of their life span and the vegetation is slowly making a come back so I expect this lake; even though it may see fishing pressure equal to that of Fork per acre, will start producing these fish again, especially because of all the nutrient run off from all the chicken houses that surround it. Fork on the other hand doesn't have a resource for nutrients like this so I'm not sure what will happen in the future......my two cents.......

The study you are talking about has nothing to do with 'learned' behavior. It's simply looking at the fish population as a whole and saying some bass are more lure aggressive and some are more lure shy by nature. We've all seen this first hand when you catch a bass that has a cull ring mark or past hook mark. I had a buddy that had a boathouse, we could catch one certain bass daily.

'Learned' behavior is a fish becoming accustomed to crank baits and no longer hitting them, or topwaters and no longer hitting them. Every study I've read show's they may stop hitting that particular lure for a certain number of days and that's it. Some lures they forget quicker than others, i.e. plastic worm.

There is a great book that deals alot with bass and their instincts vs. intelligence. It's called - Knowing Bass: The Scientific Approach to Catching More Fish

The reasons are unknown. The fact is, there ain't no 20 pound LMBB swimming in Texas public waters.period.

[/quote] The reasons are unknown. The fact is, there ain't no 20 pound LMBB swimming in Texas public waters.period. [/quote]

Optimism!!!

He's the reason for everything!!!

How do you know that the record had NEVER been caught before? How do you know that she didn't go after lures constantly but also constantly broke anglers off? You don't.

And Ron (BigLeslie) nice article from 1986

I saw this quote once that went something like, "Fishing is a series of occasions for hope." Part of the allure is that we don't know exactly what's swimming down there. We should protect our resources to the best of our abilities, and be optimistic of the result. What a great sport!

I absolutely LOVE the hatred of the SAL program. My take is its a total marketing monster and thats about it.

That stated the 10-12 big fish MAX that are coming out of any one lake in a year are not the deciding factors on decimating the growth of large fish. If anyone can honestly prove to me that those few fish are that large of a population sample then I will back off.

I think MANY of these lakes have monsters in them that never see less than 20ft of water even during the spawn. It is blind foolishness to think that we as anglers even see a fraction of the populations that are in these lakes.

Amistad to me is a prime example, those fish swim around suspended for 90ft of water and I am willing to be these megabass your looking for are doing it for the majority of their life cycles. They follow the stripers or whites and eat under em and thats about it transitioning up and down deep ledges out of harms way through the majority of their life cycles.

After living in a few states and fishing 30 or so states now has shown me a few things. Fish that are in drought riddled resevoirs adapt and learn to become nomadic. They move to stability. I experienced this in Colorado to a T and its very easy to experience and see this on SMALL impoundments.

The level of lake pueblo changed over 45 vertical feet in the time I was there. Each year it came up you had a shot of fish up in the shallows that were thought to be gone for years. Weights increased for short windows by 20% or more, why because the nomadic fish explored their new water for short periods of time.

They are there but we arent getting baits infront of them. I would be willing to bet if some guys spent time to downrig some of these deep water lakes and learn how to do it like the trout and salmon guys on the great lakes do it that you would find these fish now and again. But its like probing the abyss looking for roving suspended fish.

IMO the only thing SAL hurts is over pressuring lakes that are putting out fish, this in turn brings out the table fare brigades and hurts the accessible fish...and then everyone cries that the lake is dead or over pressured. Fish though simple creatures are not completely oblivious to their environment. They will adapt and change to meet their needs of survival. And the realization that they are in more danger sitting in traditional haunts has to be realized at some point.

But then again this could just be my incessant ramblings.
thats my 4C for inflation

What's declining?
Mega-giants of 17lb or more have only been caught at Fork and I believe no where else in Texas-right? We know Fork is not at its peak now, so at least one of all the other lakes in Texas still need to somehow produce fish 17lb or more. we see several 16lb fish from different lakes so hopefully soon 17 plus will show up.
Hoping for a 20lb fish in Texas is a big jump but not impossible I guess.
My guess is 17plus will be from a less pressured lake with less shoreline development and ample stockings, vegetation, and forage--deeper slightly clearer water I think as well. and we may all be surprised if and when it happens.

Have I seen this movie before??