Guys Im am truely not smart enough to give a logical answer on this. I may have opinions but mine are just like belly buttons.. everyones got one
I have been fortunate
enough to know both the biologist that work Texoma from the Tx side and the okie side and both are very aware of whats going on here.
In my opinion the limits that are now in place have done wonders for this lake over the last 10 years. i remember just 8-10 years ago you could fish for a week and never catch anything over 20 inches. many have thories as to why that was.. most of them revolve around the floods of 1991....
i have seen a huge noticable increase in the overall size of our fish in the last 8 years...now many months of the year its hard to keep a limit of 10 cuz your catching all over 20" rs
I have not thought yet enough about trevors proposal.. but my first instinct would be that it would sway the balance of small vs big fish. Over time (short term) it may increase the numbers of trohpy fish but over the long term would probably hurt since the depletion of smaller box fish based on trevors idea would the decrease the bigger fish....i dunno....i bet many people could argue strongly one way or another.. but my real opinion is that the biologists have set the limit right where it needs
to be to contiue to keep this one of the best striper lake in the country. Some say we will never have a big population of 20+ lb fish due to the warm water temps in the summer months. the lakes that produce numerous 20+lbrs are typically cold water lakes that dont reach the high summer temps we do. that seems to be our only negative in producing lots of 20+ lbrs.
I used to be very torn about catching 30-50 fish everyday and knowing that many many others were catching that many as well. I thought that couldnt be good for the future of the lake.. When I got to know the biologists and talked to them about my concerns, they assured
me that they were aware of the pressure on the lake and that that many fish both box fish and overs needed to be harvested inorder to keep the lake healthy.
man im getting typers cramps
So i guess the bottom line is .. until somone smarter
than me convinces me that another variation of the current limit is best for the future I aggreee with the current limits of 8 unders and 2 overs.
One other thng you have to consider when having a slot and trying to release fish is the mortality rate of stripers....most in the know say its not good even when done properly and especially when done in the hot months