ShareLunker Program - For or Against

Neutral here. I don't see that it helps or hurts

+ 1

neutral as well. There are both sides of the program. I did have the pleasure of getting a close up tour of the TPWD sharealunker in Athens a few years ago. The workers take a great amount of care for the fish. Including getting the lighting just right so it seems as natural as possible to spring like conditions. The biggest positive I see is those off-spring can be at least raised to where there is slightly higher chance of survival when released. The negative is one of fish we saw I believe came from Falcon looked pretty beat up. Not sure if it was just from prespawning, fish was old, being kept in a livewell or the travel from falcon to athens.

Ditto

the old fish spawns in the lake for years so its genetics are already in the lake, seems pointless. as for sharing the offspring to other lakes i doubt it matters much. some lakes support monsters some dont.

If I ever catch one I won't turn it in. I'll go get a skin mount. It's just as beneficial.

I want the jacket and the potential for a life time fishing license. But I am neutral on the program and it's effectiveness.

Okay, let's recap:

The whole purpose of the SAL is to preserve the Pure FLA genetics. When a bass spawns in the wild there is a high probability that it will cross breed with a native TX fish. It has been proven time & time again that pure Floridas grow faster & get Bigger than native fish.

I'd also wonder what our Lake Fork guides think regarding what percentage of 13+ pound fish have a successful spawn each year (on Fork).

I bet it's lower than many think.

I vote "keep it". Lol. But, lower the weight standards so we can complain about SAL handling everyday.

How is it paid for, including employees? Portion of fishing license? Tax payers? Toyota pays for it all?
Guess I'm neutral until I understand the financial/cost details.

Nothing is perfect
I'd guess that lakes/fishermen that are closer Athens are more likely to donate SALs to the program. Thus lakes that are closer to Athens will benefit more from the program. Do we really want pure Florida strains that far north? I can definitely see pure Florida LMB thriving in Falcon, Amistad, and lakes as far north as Austin; but some hybridization/mixed genetics further north might be beneficial.
Some fish will die
Spraying and other eradication methods of grass/vegetation seems to be counterproductive to SALs goal (a fisherman catching a state record)
Pure Florida strain bass might not be the best choice in waters that drop below 45 degrees.
When humans try for genetic purity in a species, this can lead to disease susceptibility

The program certainly advances the science of bass/fish reproduction and behavior and is great advertising.

How effective is the program is the big question?
If the goal is to produce a state record, I'd say it's ineffective. Spawning a few bass over 13lbs a year is just a drop in the bucket compared to the power of natural selection in every body of water across the sate.
However, the secondary benefits of the program may be worthwhile.

If you think it doesn't help or hurt then why even have the program and the
costs of the program and all the time spent on it.

LOL! OMG!

x2

https://tpwd.texas.gov/spdest/visitorcenters/tffc/sharelunker/faq/

Some good information.....maybe change some minds.....or not.

Thanks Mulholland!

this was intended to be a casual poll, not a he said/she said thread

and what's up with all the neutral people, it's like watching Switzerland in a political debate

I could take it or leave it. Makes no matter to me.

I am firmly and tenaciously on the fence...

you've been around long enough to know "polls" don't stay polls. lol

this is a true statement

I am all for it! I remember when state record was 14 pounds and a 6 pound was considered a real good fish.

Don't let anybody tell you any different now. A 6lber is still a great fish and 5 of em makes a great 30lb sack. But nowadays you just catch em all on one cast with your A-rig on a billion pound test braid with a reel that weighs 4 grams, in your finest jersey, form the deck of a $100k boat, otherwise you're just a poser.

When I moved to Texas I learned of the big Bass in Texas. First research was where the largest fish were caught. Lake Fork. Now I fish Fork for about 5 days every spring with my brother and brother in law. We have released every fish. We take pictures, measure and maybe weigh the fish. The Share Lunker program is a personal goal for me. I think it brings awareness to catch and release. It creates a talking point about protecting wildlife resources.

^^^ Is that a Lewisville Lunker cought on a chartreuse slab?

By far the most abundant species in Lew!

I vote to start a new subject , how many threads can we have about this ? Have you written or called anyone to change the program? I doubt it, so go outside the tff and tell people that can change it .

you just sound jealous.

I like it.

meh

Start a SAL Crappie- I wanna catch 8lbers

Against it. Marketing tool and nothing more IMO.

But you could only catch the 8 lb crappie if you were bass fishing

I say kill that program !

Too many are dead because of this program. I have never understood what the benefit is. Kill Bill Volume 7.

Let's just remove all bass with any degree of Florida strain and go back to the days when an 8 pounder made the papers.

Keep it Pure Texas.

Who's in???

Supported. Better than doing nothing.........

Works for me, you ever try to catch a Florida bass in the cold? Not happening.

Actually the Northern Bass grow faster and will reach the 5lb area faster than s Pure Florida bass, but from that point on the FL bass will grow bigger most of the time.

I'm all for C&R, but I also think it has been overdone. I think folks need to take some of the smaller bass out every now and then. Now days thought you are looked at like a parent who left their kid in the car on a July day if you are seen cleaning 5 2lb bass. We know that folks aren't going to keep fish every time they go, so it sure wouldn't hurt if folks did it every now and then.

its a cool idea, but i seriously doubt the cost = or approaches the benefit, and no way to tell. promoting and rewarding catching a huge bass and successfully releasing it is a good idea. like a lot of other things, rather that it was handled by a private organization than with tax funds. my two cents.

I thought the SAL program is funded mostly by private donation/sponsorship?

And how many 2lb bass are killed when they sit in a livewell for 5hrs in the dead of summer and are banged all over the place as the boat goes 60mph all over the lake? You know how many of these die because it makes the news (fishing news). When you finish weighing in, how often to you keep up with your fish for days to see if they made it?

I want to change my vote, can we start another thread on this topic?

If you are neutral then really you vote against it because if you don't care enough about the program then obviously you won't be contributing to it either. For all the trash talkers about SAL it's crazy how many are for it.

Quite a bit of research that says the contrary.

Overall, I'm sure the program has it's advantages. One thing I noticed over the life of SAL program, is the actual number of SALs that spawn while in captivity. It's very low. But isn't that one of the primary functions of the program? Yet less than 20% of the females actually spawn in the program.....interesting.

I don't care what it is. If you take something out of its natural environment it will not thrive like it would naturally

Like Florida bass over to the deep clear lakes of California.

No reason not to.

i usually take overs home and eat anyways

Trophy catch in Florida seems to be working just fine

They need to scrap tournaments that kill all the fish.

So 72% survive, 37% breed, and less than 10% of the fry make it to one inch... I'd choose not killing 144 13+lb fish rather than try to breed them in captivity.

Good points! I have done a lot of research on the program, and believe it (and Stevenson's fish) have done a lot for our sport.

With the millions of bass in Texas waters, I don't see how a few removed for research is doing the overall fish population any harm. I think we are talking about 10 fish or less per year. I believe the research being done trying to figure out why these few sample fish get so big far out weighs any negative aspect of the program.