Replace "lake" with "woman" and the statement is still true.

hahahahaha!

Let's start a rumor about Lake Bardwell.

Isn't this the lake you need to get into a lottery to fish?

Iam not going to the lake,but where is it?

For the first few weeks it was open only to guys drawn in a lottery format, but it's open to the public now. Has been for almost a month now.

This lake is just northeast of Nacogdoches.

all my big fish come from there

I heard that a guy lsft there with 3 8lbrs...I dont know if that was the same guy or not but I heard that guy was taking them home to his pond. The fishing has really slowed down alot...I have talked to people that have fished out there all day that havn't caught a thing. If they do change the sizer limit out there next year they better restock it again.

Can TPW put special restriction on more than one lake in an area? Seems like I heard that one was all for an area, and Lake Nac is the one for this area

I'd really like to hear the logic behind being able to take 5 fish and they HAVE to be 18. You can't even keep short fish to eat....I vote for a trophy lake regulation. Nothing over 24". Keeping trophy fish is outdated, get a replica. And buy your own fish for your tank, dang...i understand following rules, but I also understand having an opinion when the rules don't make sense. I'd like to hear what tpwd thought process was.

A friend of mine caught (and released) one a little over 9 a few days ago there. Have heard of a few over 7 from the last couple weeks from buddies but haven't heard of anyone keeping any big ones. That sucks. The bite does seem to be slowing sown dramatically but still did pretty good the last time out. Probably put 20-25 in the boat between me and my Dad in few hours slow rolling swimbaits. Love the lake though, I think its going to be a real producer of big fish in the future.

At less than 1000 acres, it will be a grand opening and grand closing if to many big fish are kept. I'm not against keeping fish but common sense as a sportsman tells me that if I want to catch 10 lb fish they need to be there first. It looks like a smoking little lake though.

That big fish at 3 minutes is SAWEEEEEEET!

But I was wondering why they kept her out of the water so long. Sheesh.....

I hope some of these rumors aren't true. The video makes the lake look gorgeous.

. LMAO....

Jaret, the information from your friend is misleading. TPWD is keeping a very close eye on Lake Naconiche, both biologists and game wardens. Bottom line, we are seeing very little bass harvest.



Regarding the surveys, this is not anywhere near the truth. My staff is conducting the TPWD surveys you reference. Here are the facts. We have conducted 8 creel surveys and encountered 292 anglers. From this, we have observed 490 fish caught that were greater than 18 inches, but only 2% of this catch was harvested (12 fish total). Six of these fish were harvested the day the lake was opened (all were just a little over 18 inches). Relative to the other 6 harvested fish, 1 was 18 inches, 4 were 19 inches, and 1 was 20 inches.

I have talked with all three Nacogdoches County game wardens. Regarding bass 6 pounds or greater that they have observed as harvested since Sept. 1, one warden has seen 5 over 6 pounds, another observed 6 or 7 (both wardens observed these only during the first two weeks that the lake was open), and the other warden has not seen any at all over 6 pounds. Also, none of these fish the wardens looked at were 10 pounds or more. Two were estimated to be 8-9 pounds. Since the first two weeks, all three of them have observed very little bass harvest, with none over 6 pounds. And, the game wardens have spent more days there than my staff has.

TPWD fisheries biologists have to formulate a regulation 1.5 years before it is actually implemented. In nearly all cases, TPWD opens new lakes with an 18-inch minimum length limit for largemouth bass, as was the case with Naconiche. This is to ensure that the young, developing population is not open for overharvest. Keep in mind our standard statewide regulation is a more liberal 14-inch length limit. Going back 1.5 years, even though we were monitoring the bass population, we still didn�t know just how productive Naconiche was going to be. If TPWD could have known then what we know now since the lake has opened (i.e., very high abundance of young bass and a high number over 6 pounds), we would have opened it up with a slot limit or our new 16-inch maximum length limit. But this is obviously hindsight we didn�t have back over 1.5 years ago when formulating the opening regulation.

We will conduct an additional creel survey during the March-May period, and we will ask angler opinion questions regarding future management of the bass population. We will also schedule a public hearing during the late-spring/summer to gather additional input. We do expect that most anglers will want it managed as a trophy fishery, as the lake obviously has the potential. Assuming this is the case, TPWD will move as fast as it can to implement a trophy bass regulation (i.e., a 16-inch maximum or a 16-24 inch slot limit).

If anyone has any additional questions, I can be reached at 409-698-9114.