What’s the bass population going to look like after this year?

So I’ve never been a fan of tournament fishing during the bass spawn. I just don’t think taking big girls off their beds during this time does the bass population any good. I don’t have any scientific evidence to back this up, but I do have common sense. Do y’all think with all these big bass tournaments being cancelled, due to the virus, will help the bass quality and population around our state?

Meh not much different. For every one taken off a bed 100 others are never seen.

I think another year of high water will be much more beneficial than the impact of tournament cancellations.

Won't affect it one bit

The bigger question may be what's the human population going to look like after this year? Gonna call this new batch "Coronians!"

The spawn may be cancelled, everything else has been!!

I trust Texas Parks & Wildlife biologists more than anyone on this forum in regards to setting limits for our lakes based on what they can and can't handle. Currently any Texan with a valid fishing license can keep 1825 fish per year per state laws. I figure a VERY minuscule amount of people do that just as I do not think that fishing during the spawn hurts the lakes enough to make them change it. They know what is best no matter how much any of us try and say different just since we fish.

With people home I think even more people are on the lake this spring. As stated, tournaments are a tiny portion of the spawn. Thousands of fish getting plucked off beds as we speak by bank beaters

They are probably released immediately so they can return to their beds. I believe that will help the spawn.

I agree with this

The bite will be awesome after a couple of weeks of near no pressure they get this time of year. If this stupid stuff the government is pushing on us continues, the fish population will decrease a lot. Try to go to the grocery store now.....fish are about to be ate.

Exactly. The OP forgets that per state regulations technically everyone in those same tournaments are allowed to keep 5 bass! Take home, kill them and eat them. And actually they would be allowed to take home eat, and kill 10 bass per boat since it’s 5 fish per angler. So in a tournament 5 bass get released back alive in the lake. Doesn’t hurt the population.

Mama bass is lying in her bed with an assistant close by to help her in birthing some little ones. Mama grabs a hold of a pest and ends up in a live well bumping her nose and getting bounced around for several hours. She's removed and placed in a bag and carted around and hung up for everyone to pontificate on her impressive belly. Mama is then put back in the water far from her hospital bed and with no assistant and with a tremendous urge to dump this wad of eggs as quickly as possible after suffering the most traumatic experience of her life. Now she must find a new place to unload and an assistant in unfamiliar surroundings and soon. By now she probably doesn't care whether those eggs survive or not, she just needs to get them out and is screaming for an epidural.

Gonna be worse if these dumbarses keep hoarding cause I'm gonna have to start eating them!

I think it will be about the same. During the rigors of the spawning process there is a significant percentage of the mama basses that are very frustrated by their current situation and purposely “take the bait” in hopes that after the weigh in and pictures they are released where the hydrilla is greener on the other side. (JMO).

each spawning bass produces between 2000 and 40,000 fry...far in excess of what the lake can sustain.....plus almost every bass taken during the spring is in some phase of the spawn....

Yep, that's the answer right there. The amount of available food and cover determines the bass population, not the number of fry. Even if you managed to stop 90% of the bass from spawning, the remaining 10% would produce far more fry than the lake could sustain.

Most of us will be around in 16 months to find out.

I guess we will find out but just like global warming I think we have less impact than we think we do.