Quick Trip to Big M- day after thanksgiving

[176champion]

Just curious ...what does a tournament permit cost to have a tournament on Table Rock or any other lake in Missouri?

[fozzype]

14 hours ago, Royal Blue said:

The simple answer is to raise license prices and supplement the population on these lakes with largemouth, period.

They have all the money they need to do stock fish with no license increase.  I am 100% not a fan of MDC and they have an exorbitant amount of budget they throw away every year on, in my mind, worthless efforts that are not in the overall good of the public. 

Just request an annual budget from the MDC and judge for yourself.  They are a rogue agency with large coffers that go unchecked by the people

I am not saying they are bad people or are hiding anything.  I just don't agree with there overall management of wildlife and use of taxpayer's money.

[Devan S.]

14 hours ago, Royal Blue said:

The simple answer is to raise license prices and supplement the population on these lakes with largemouth, period.

Your right its the simple answer and the easy one and it may fix the problem in the short term. Ask yourself this....If the bass fishing is so bad and pressure is so bad why is this place continually pounded like it is? Stockton 2 hours north, Bull is 30 minutes east, Grand is 2 hours west, and Beaver is 30 minutes SW. One could argue that everyone of them roughly on par or better than TRL for bass fishing so why do all these people pass up those lakes to come to TRL to fish if they are better lakes and/or less crowded?

Do you all really think supplemental stocking if it had a measured impact is going to do ANYTHING other than increase the pressure and publicity? What happens if it gets so good that......GASP MLF or BASS(not so much a concern now) held their biggest event of the year out of long creek and it was televised all the 5+ pound fish caught?

Everyone wants to go back to the catch rates and results of the 80's or 90's and sure the lake can certainly support the predator population but its not going to support the increase in pressure/publicity that will come as a result.

What do you do then? Stock more? 

Throwing money and fish at it is the easy answer.

You know whats hard? Telling people no tournaments during the spawn(or closed seasons completely during the spawn), limiting tournaments throughout the year, holding tournaments accountable for dead fish, and stopping summertime tournaments where delayed fish kills can and do happen, and forcing smaller tournaments which outnumber the big names by 100's to 1 to adopt different scoring systems.. Then when all the surrounding small business owners crow about a loss in business not caving in.

There will likely be 600+ people fish the BIG BASS tourney right in the ball park of the spawn. They likely have at this time the best format available. Imagine if 100 spawning fish are weighed in and their spawn is disrupted to the point their recruitment is 0 vs an opportunity of 2,000 eggs minimum per fish. Imagine that impact scaled throughout a 1 to 2 month window of tournaments and ask yourself how much stocking would have to take place to make that impact alone. 

Stocking likely has its place in times of poor recruitment and after an event like the LMBV but don't think for a second that dumping fish into TRL like they do Taney isn't going to create a bunch of other problems. 

[snagged in outlet 3]

2 hours ago, Devan S. said:

If the bass fishing is so bad and pressure is so bad why is this place continually pounded like it is? 

Could it be all the available rooms to stay in at TRL relative the others mentioned???

[176champion]

Accommodations, restaurants, things to do and see all equate in the attraction to TRL...

[Devan S.]

35 minutes ago, snagged in outlet 3 said:

Could it be all the available rooms to stay in at TRL relative the others mentioned???

Sure it plays a part. A significant part in tourist season and for families coming in for a yearly vacation. Would be interesting to know the split between those numbers of people coming just to fish or tournament anglers. I could certainly see from April to September being a high traffic for the vacationer with the available accommodations. Obviously there is a large number of people on this board that don't live right on Table Rock and those people often pass up some of those other lakes or are equal distance from the other lakes so what motivates those people to come to Table Rock instead of Bull or Beaver or Stockton? 

For some of you guys that have the ability to fish say Grand, Toledo bend, Fork, Sam Rayburn, Guntersville or any other popular destination bass fishery frequently. Is there the same explosion in pressure happening on those locations? Those lakes that come up when I google "best bass fishing" or in the Bassmaster top 10 consistently are they seeing the same pressure? 

[Royal Blue]

40 minutes ago, Devan S. said:

Sure it plays a part. A significant part in tourist season and for families coming in for a yearly vacation. Would be interesting to know the split between those numbers of people coming just to fish or tournament anglers. I could certainly see from April to September being a high traffic for the vacationer with the available accommodations. Obviously there is a large number of people on this board that don't live right on Table Rock and those people often pass up some of those other lakes or are equal distance from the other lakes so what motivates those people to come to Table Rock instead of Bull or Beaver or Stockton? 

For some of you guys that have the ability to fish say Grand, Toledo bend, Fork, Sam Rayburn, Guntersville or any other popular destination bass fishery frequently. Is there the same explosion in pressure happening on those locations? Those lakes that come up when I google "best bass fishing" or in the Bassmaster top 10 consistently are they seeing the same pressure? 

I'm not sure if it's the same at Grand, but it does get hammered.  Just look at the facilities there.  Wolf Creek is the nicest boat launch facility I've maybe ever seen.  It's there to attract tournaments.  They do have a lower length limit on Grand at 14 inches, but I'm also under the impression that they stock Florida strain LMB there.  I wasn't just suggesting stocking LMB on Table Rock alone either.  It needs to be done on all lakes.  It's only a matter of time before boat traffic increases on Bull.

[Quillback]

I can tell you Grand sees equal if not more pressure.  Beaver gets quite a bit of pressure but I would call it mostly local pressure except for people traveling in to fish stripers.  Funny thing for me personally is that though I have caught far fewer bass on Beaver than I have on Table Rock, I have caught more big bass > 5 lbs. on Beaver, but overall TR fished better than Beaver for black bass for me for numbers, though Beaver has been fishing well the last couple of years.

Swepco, which is a warm water power plant lake, gets hammered during the winter, I won't go near that place on a winter weekend day.  But it fishes well, has good average size bass.  It is a fertile lake and has Florida strain LM's.  

[DavidB]

Our group from Louisiana (Toledo Bend) has come to Table Rock in April for 35 years.  We primarily fish Long Creek, from the Arkansas line to the dam area.  We love Table rock and look forward to coming back again this coming April.  Several of us are avid readers of this forum which, in my opinion, is the best of its kind.  The discussion about fishing pressure has caught my attention.  We have never felt crowded on Table Rock, although the wakes from the pleasure boats are a major annoyance.  In our view, the pressure on Toledo Bend far exceeds that which we've seen on Table Rock.  Major thanks to Bill for moderating this forum, and to all of you who contribute to it.

[Devan S.]

37 minutes ago, Royal Blue said:

I'm not sure if it's the same at Grand, but it does get hammered.  Just look at the facilities there.  Wolf Creek is the nicest boat launch facility I've maybe ever seen.  It's there to attract tournaments.  They do have a lower length limit on Grand at 14 inches, but I'm also under the impression that they stock Florida strain LMB there.  I wasn't just suggesting stocking LMB on Table Rock alone either.  It needs to be done on all lakes.  It's only a matter of time before boat traffic increases on Bull.

So it seems to some degree its not a localized trend. It appears fishing as a sport(or the economy) has grown to the point that most have access and desire to part take in the sport fairly often. Doesn't that absolutely lend itself to protecting the resource in a way that allows it to attempt to sustain itself instead of stocking? If it cant or wont then maybe stocking is the answer?

Should we begin to stock all fish in all bodies of water that they have a reasonable chance of survival?