Thanks to all who support LTSA!

Is there a local resource that will use unwanted wild life and be happy to share it with the less fortunate?

I do the same- catch and release unless im eating them in the next couple of days. I often wonder what everbody does with the huge amounts of fish they catch after a day on the water. I assume that they just dont keep em to keep em, but do eat them in lue of buying the meat at the store which is alright with me. self sufficiency rules

http://www.laketawakonisportsman.com

A pretty good group Boat Dude. LTSA is the reason you can drive your boat around with your big motor on in 10' of water with BIRDS going NUTS and still catch 1 or 2 nice fish???? The guides just have to go hunt more down........so you can repeat your Big Motor Addiction.........over, and over, and over again!???

I agree with Superduck, the LTSA and RHSA give back more than they take out and the guides at both lakes are heavily involved with these groups at their given lakes. I am a weekend fisherman just like 95% of the people on the forum. When I am on the water I see tons of boats fishing and releasing their fish back. The guides represent a very very small part of captured fish. This is a business for them just like any other business they re invest their time and personal profits back into these organizations to help perpetuate further fishing growth which in time helps them and us including you boatdude. I am also assuming we are only referring to Hybrids also because nature will take care of al the rest of the fish in the lake.

I love catch & release

What Gene said!

I agree...everything in moderation. Applies to life and fishing. Took me a while to apply that one to alcohol...ha!

I apologize if I offended anyone. My thoughts were that a guide license costs about what a tank of fuel cost. I see the pictures of the amount of fish that the guides bring into the marina and throw on the dock for client pictures. This would not be an everyday case for the weekend fisher woman or man. I commend Lakeguide, Joe Read, and Salsa for their work on LTSA. They do return a portion of the fish through this effort, but I suspect it is nowhere near the amount that they harvest for clients.

I have fished TWOK for 30 years and IMHO the fishery is not near what it used to be as far as sand bass go. It may have something to do with adding stripers and hybrids to the lake. Who knows. I do know that the guide fee is ridiculously low. I also know this not the answer to keeping the fishery vibrant and thriving. The guide fee would have to be exhorbant for that to work. I do not know the answer, but I am willing to open my mind up to thoughts. The electrician or road examples don't hold water. Good try though.

Duck, you have shown........ Well never mind. It wouldn't help you.

Salsa, you get it.

Thank you for the prayers. We all need prayer in our lives!

Cant wait till I get a real fishing boat so I don't have to use my Big Motors! I just like to fish! If I do happen to buzz by anyone it's because all I have for now is Big Motors! Seems to me that it would be ignorant for a guide to assume that people want to keep the fish! This can't be the first time it has happened! Some of these people might be the first time out with a guide and don't know how it works. Who's the one without common sense now!!

Boat dude, you will never get it. If you think we clean 100000 fish a year at our dock im honored. That would mean we are the most bad to the bone guides on Earth! Do tbe math. If three of us fished 300 days a year (which is near impossible because of weather, wind, family....) and we each cleaned 50 fish per day each time thats 15000 fish each, times three equals 45000 fish. We stock double that. Basically we are either positive or zero impact on this Lake. The only thing you are contributing is buying a fishing license and only pennies of that will fall into Tawakoni. Our guiding is not taking from any public resource. Our customers pay the same for their license as you do. We are selling a service, not a resource. Just as any motel, gas station, bait shop or anything else situated next to a lake.

I'm sorry if I've make you mad somewhere along the way, but this is how I feed my family. Those pictures are advertising. We always ask our customers if they want to keep fish or catch and release. I do my best to be a good steward of our resources.

Enough said. You are trying to feed your family. You will never hear from me again. Except when I hire you to be my guide on TWOK.

Now you are estimating survival rates of fingerlings. Hehehe

I would think any experienced guide would ask their clients if they want to keep their fish. I can't see a guide keeping fish and having to clean them unless their clients wanted them. Not saying it doesn't happen but most guides Texoma ask their clients about keeping fish. It would not be in their best interest to waste the resource that makes their living and bet they don't clean for fun. I know a good many locals that keep fish they will never eat and for that matter they kill deer that goes to waste as well. I love to eat fish and never waste what I keep so I practice C&R a lot. I hope the majority of fisherman do the same thing so we can continue to enjoy the God given resources we have.

Buckner Orphanage Dallas
http://www.buckner.org/locations/tx-dfw.shtml

Shelters
http://www.genesisshelter.org/
http://ugmdallas.org/

We give left over bar-b-que to charities after corporate dinners. They are always happy to receive. There might be one in your area.

If you raise the license fee (TAX) on the guides it would result in fewer qualified passionate professionals out there like Matt, Smitty, Chris and many others. What we would have is a bunch of Wal Mart funded guides because they would be the only ones that afford the new tax. We would then pay some guy in New York an extra wad of cash to fish with some guy that gets paid $8.00 an hour and doesn't care about our lakes, fish, other anglers, or if we have a good time on our trip.

A license increase wold only cost us more money and jam up all of the great guides we know. We also would have limited availability to have the opportunity to take our family and friends on unforgettable trips with these guides. If the road argument doesn't hold water think about how great an increased tax helps everybody, what happens is we the everyday guy gets @&$ and everything cost more so I guess your reasoning is sound; tax us all to the point we can't afford to go outdoors and we can all be just like the Europeans.

On a side note to my point, the guides provide a service to us we all should be thankful for. They get up everyday rain or shine cold or hot and scout until they find fish for us to enjoy released or not and every one of them work to excess to make sure we have fun. I for one think the guides should get a thank you from us (please no rant on the occasional bad acting guide I am talking about the 99% that are out there doing it right).