Bass population density is not the factor that determines top end bass size. I don't mean to be insulting, but if you don't get this it's because you haven't seen a diverse enough set of lakes. Some lakes in CA that produced giant bass like San Pablo Dam or Don Pedro have a very low population density. Other lakes like Castaic Lagoon or Poway had an incredible population density.

It's not about how many fish are in the lake, it's about the 4 factors I pointed out in my first post. I think people like to feel justified when they kill stuff. We want to feel like really we are doing the population of fish a favor by eating some of them. If you keep fish (I keep plenty of fish besides bass that taste good to me) just keep them because you like to eat fish. Don't keep them and try to rationalize it like you are helping the fish population.

Try out this thinking as well... All throughout history there are examples where the largest top end fish sizes were achieved in an environment with no harvesting. As soon as people came along and started killing the fish, what happened? The top end size of that fish species was never the same again. Lahontan cutthroat trout in Lake Tahoe, Bluefin tuna near Catalina island, Orangemouth Corvina in she Salton Sea, Black seabass, and so on. None of these fish needed any human intervention to allow the largest ones to get very large.

Share a Lunker is a cool program. It's great to see a state that cares about growing big bass. I just find it strange that the approach doesn't include all the variables that so clearly work in California. The biggest fish in Texas since 1999 is a 16lber. Barni's used to catch 16 to 18lbers in San Pablo dam on powerbait and it barely made the fishing paper.

The smartest thing Texas fishermen could do to get truly big bass is demand catch and release only regs on the lakes that have the right factors in place, and encourage TPWD to introduce large forage fish. Preferably dumb forage fish like trout that are easy for bass to catch.

No offense, but what you are saying flies in the face of what hundreds of years of fisheries biology has accomplished. These variables that you mention that "so clearly work in California" simply aren't possible here. We do not have the climate or topography to compare to the west coast and never will. Overpopulating and depleting a forage base are real problems that exist and large bass simply can't compete with the smaller, more aggressive bass.

Your other post mentioned that superior genetics probably aren't a factor. So you think black bass are different than every other avenue of animal husbandry? Funny how academia hasn't grasped on to that yet.

The biologists that frequent this site likely won't be commenting on this thread because they end up saying the same thing that they have been saying for years which is just reiterating the principles required to grow trophy bass.

These ShareLunker threads are getting to be too common....

Yet here I am commenting.... Again....

Because animal husbandry is different in warm blooded creatures vs. cold blooded. This comparison comes up every time SAL is discussed. The whitetail deer argument comes up. It's apples and oranges.... Environment is much more critical for a cold blooded creature...