Live in Dallas area since 1985. Never live in California.

Those lakes where live baits are not allowed do have lots huge bass and stripers. That's what my friends told me.

Totally agree with you. I net baits myself. I do use live baits to catch big stripers.

The purpose of this post is to prove that any proposal to change regulations will be bad idea. Leave the regulations as they are. All we have to do is to follow them, abey them.

theres catfisherman out there that take fishing for those cats more serious than you would have ever thought. they might have been getting ready for a catfish tourney on a river where bait source is hard to find. they may have bait tanks. as a catfisherman myself I net only what ill need and throw the rest back. if im going to the river where I know ill catch 100 or more fish threw out the weekend. ill load coolers fool of shad. not going to waste. this world relys on food chain. fish eat shad and bream, I go catch those use them for bait for food in my freezer. by the looks of your thread. I would probably guess your a anti hunter?

Moonriver made several type-Os. He should have typed in GAME FISH, which IS ILLEGAL. He should have typed in NO MORE PRIVLEDGES TO FISH, FOR A LIFETIME when caught doing it. Is'nt that what you meant to type in Moonriver?

No. I am not hunter, but i am not against hunting at all. I use to hunt when i was young.

Any proposal to change regulations is not a good idea. I am trying to prove my point by posting this thread.

But on the other hand, i am all for proposal to raise private funding to stock Hybrids in Lake Lewisville.

You know me well, brother. Lol.

I think it is very possible that the small percentage of bait fish that are removed by fisherman may be beneficial to the overall health of the schools.

Okay I can tell you from experience that the lakes ability to produce bait fish will not be affected by cast nets. We have shad population issues at Elephant Butte and the striper stockings were out of proportion because of one factor. Water. The drought caused the lake to recede and the plankton that bait fish eat was drastically reduced and the fish were starving, we could catch stripers that were skinny easily at these times. How do I know this I talked to our Fish and Game Biologist Casey Hawthorne in New Mexico. The drought plan is working with a good population of crappie, bass and striper stocking/fishing is well managed. The striper fishing is not as great as it was, but it is working.

When the lake comes up in the spring the water covers green plants the plankton bloom the bait fish eat, reproduce and so on. You have many variables and you need to have the background in biology to figure it out.

So I will leave it to those Biologist guys, but it is an interesting topic. Texas is blessed with many fertile lakes.

the good news brother ....them there gizzard shad is biting pretty good right now

Sounds like a liberal democrats thinking to me. Next they will want to either tax or outlaw fishing altogether.

You got me DW, yep, my bad!
BUT, as this thread progressed, it got me to thinking. This zebra mussel thing could become a problem. As I understand it they do eat mostly the shad fry and take in the planton that they eat. Could this become a problem for us? I don't know but, it could well be.

I also recall reading an article, a few years back and it might have been in the Bass magazine. It told about a lake in either Minnesota or Wisconsin that was a huge walleye factory. A town had grown up around it that was based on revenue from walleye fishermen. The comorants got so thick they depleted the shad population to the point that the walleye starved and as a result the town died.
I'm wondering is this could happen as a result of the zebra's? just sayin...

Did you frequent the outlet of the power plant at Sooner Lake? My friend told me that striper fishing is much slower now than before. A group of fish men went there fishing for stripers, they caught lots of them, and shoot a video, post the video on line, and that place was flooded with million fish men.

The zebra mussels can do serious damage to shad population. They do deplete the planton that shads eat. The drought that we have for last few years do help killing those zebra mussels. The water lever of our lakes went down so much that the rocks with zebra mussels expose to TX/OK heat, which killed lots of them. The serious damages are done to our water facilities: water lines, pumps, power plants, etc.

Sounds like something Obama would propose.