Slow down Flies, it all depends on WHAT they change the limit to. If they move to a 12 inch limit, it will only be a matter of time before we are dealing with the same problem. But, instead of catching nothing but 13 1/2 inch fish, we will be catching 11 1/2 inch fish. If they go to no limit, every Jimmy Joe Bob and his momma will rape it just like they did in Delacroix and Cataouache.
Personally, I'm hoping they go to something like 5 under 14 inches, 5 over 14 inches. Or just 5 per person of any size. Whatever they go to though, people will complain. It's the greedy nature of people. People feel that they have to show something for spending the money and you can't fry a good time...

Very well put, JB. And I agree with every word of it.

i agree with JB on the 5 and 5 i live in the spillway 5 under 14 wouldn't be bad but some will disagree as they do with everything

The LDW&F has done a 19year study on bass in the spillway, and now they are going to ask for opinions from the sportsman on how to manage the bass. You will never get total agreement on what is best. Go with what the study shows and leave it at that.

I think there should be no limit on size or amount kept for bass . Less is best with bass ! The more sacalait the better ...

Yeah...let me guess you're an Obama supporter too...

Only kidding there mr Joshua ! I would stick with the 19 year basin bass study , and see what their ideas are , unless ofcourse your a professional bass fisherman ?? I haven't seen any Joshua's on the bass masters lately .

They have this discussing on another board, BBC. Most are using the term 'meathunter' people going to the spillway to load the boat up if they lift the 14' limit. I don't see the problem with catching your limit and cooking them. They are saying greedy people gonna keep all the fish. Talking about Obama supporter, if the fact don't support your idea.Sell it with fear! If the 14' limit is so great, where are ALL the big fish. I have been fishing the spillway for over 40 years and its not any better now than before Andrew.

I think there should be some sort of regulation because I do argee with the ones that say people will rape them and deplete the area. I lean more toward a slot limit starting out 12'-16' and working its way up to larger sizes. I'm by far from an expert nor have much knowledge on what best for the fishery. I fish the spillway a lot and have had plenty of trips catching 30-50 bass sometimes more averaging 3-5 keepers the most I've ever caught was 8 only once. I always fish with a partner so splitting 5-8 fish 2 ways don't give you much to cook for the family.

Its nice to be a sportsman and throw everything back , and it's nice to bring a few home to cook every now and then . But the main problem is the huge volume of fishermen you have in the spillway nonstop .

The reason your catching 13 1/2 inch fish is because most of the fish larger than that have been caught . And yes JB is right , if they change it to 12 inch then all you will catch is 11 1/2 inch fish , eventually . It's sad but true , too many fishermen !

So ? What you gonna do ? You haven't bass fished in south Louisiana unless you've fished the spillway . Everyone I've ever known fishes the spillway , a lot !

I don't have an answer , but .. Maybe they should make it like some WMAs ?? Have a lottery ?The spillway is huge , but I guarantee most of it gets fished on a regular basis !

I would leave it to the people who have been studying it for 20 years .

Most states look at bass as a sport fish, hang one on your wall throw the rest back, not Louisiana. I lived in MD for a while, people were scared to eat the fish there for a while due to 'contamination'. Even with the snakehead investation, the Potomac fishery has grown into one of the most diverse nice fisheries in the country, look at Falcon, Guntersville, St. Johns River in Florida, each great fisheries with people willing to balance the catch and release with taking home to eat. I've fished VA, NC, MS, AL, and TX. Most people in southern Louisiana eat anything and everything. Studies have shown that catch and release too much is a bad thing, also. Like managing deer, put a year around slug fest on deer and see what happens, don't allow enough to be taken, reverse affect, same thing for bass. Yes I do keep bass to eat, but only enough to feed the family once in a while, I don't stock pile them. While fishing the Potomac I caught the same Yes, the environment affects Louisiana's basin, is a NO BRAINER. Doesn't take a biologist to figure that out. The happy medium in the basin is difficult to figure, but I would like to see the size limit drop to 12' for a year or two and just to see what happens. Usually where I've been fishing that last three weeks I've caught 30-50 each trip, even in the cold front, but takes me catching 5-10 out of the school to get a keeper, and all of those 5-10, are over 12'. I'm no pro, but I can hold my own.

Fished the Spillway out of Bayou Pigeon today. Caught 9 keepers, 4 over 17', 40 to 50 throwbacks. 5 of the smaller keepers are in the freezer. Another great day of catching fish, keeper size or not. 5 over 14', 5 under seems a good compromise. (I personally prefer a 12' to 15' slot).

Thats the deal ... Happy medium , your not going to please everyone .

If you drop the size limit to 12 inches , you'll have less fish , but more larger fish , due to extra food ? If you go up on the size limit , you'll have more fish , but smaller fish , due to less food ?? So , do you want to catch lots of small fish , or a few big fish ?

It's state owned waters and I guess the LDWF will ask questions and survey and see what the majority of the bass fishermen want to catch the most of .

I personally would like to see a 12 to 15 inch slot also. Noone needs to keep anything over 15 inches in the first place. If you wanna get it mounted, then take measurements and get a replica, its as easy as that and a replica is 50$ cheaper on average. Everyone knows those 12 inch bass are the best to eat anyways. I want to see what happens in the next two years if we lower the size limit to 12 inches. I too have had over 15 trips out there this summer catching anywhere from 30 to 50 bass and sometimes even more. Out of 50 fish out there, my average is 7 or so keepers. now dont get me wrong ive had days where ive caught my 10 fish limit pretty easily and i caught a 6 pounder out there this year. an earlier post is very right on saying that there is so much fishing pressure in the area that when the limit is lowered it will be a complete meat haul. Honestly there are so many fish out there, a meat haul is needed! i want more 6 pound fish like the one i caught this summer out there. and yes i did release him. took a few pics and let him go. Fishdoctor sounds like you know what you're doing haha i was out there the weekend of the LSU/Florida game at the camp all weekend and only caught 5 small bass total and i fished all over. I also have noticed that every single fish you catch on a worm, spinner bait, or crankbait out there is below the 14 inch limit. Mostly all of my keeper bass are caught on shad color jerk baits.... maybe thats because everyone and their grandma's throw worms, crank baits, and spinnerbaits for bass out there. There are big fish out there, YOU JUST GOTTA FIND THEM AND USE SOMETHING THEY DON'T SEE ALL DAY EVERY DAY

The 'Spillway' is not well suited to grow big bass.

I have almost 20 years of public data to prove that.

Put it at 12', 5 fish per person.

The fish will be just fine.

Flies, slot fish are (never heard of protecting the fish outside the slot) the protected fish. You can keep under or over the slot. As for a 12' to 15' slot or 13' to 16' slot, either I think would be a good choice. And Flies, you know the fish can bite today and be nowhere to be found tomorrow. It's called fishing. I enjoy everyday on the water, fish in the live well or not.

Thats exactly why its called fishing. I got done with class early today and im thinking about heading out to the spillway to see how the bass are biting this afternoon but i might wait til tomorrow because its so windy today. I really wish the sac a lait were still going crazy like they were right after Isaac. everywhere i went sac a lait were very easy to catch. anyone else heading out there this afternoon?

I like JBs first comment. If the 14' minimum would be released, we would have everyone and their momma out there raping the fisheries. So releasing the minimum.. bad idea IMO. Turning the 14' minimum to a 12' minimum is just as bad!

What I think would be a perfect beginning stage to dropping the minimum all together would be a slot range. I cant say what the best one would be, but I'd like to see it somewhere from 13'-16' with a maximum of 5 per person. This would still attract many fisherman to the area at first, because of all of the 12-13' fish, but would keep many of the larger fish in the system because how often do you catch 14' fish for your first five fish? Experienced fisherman definitely can, but we all know the majority of fisherman or your average fisherman. Then as the hype wears off, consider dropping the slot.

Right now though one thing we need to worry about as fisherman is the invasion of Asian Carp. I don't know what kind of damage they can do, but since opening Morganza they are EVERYWHERE in the area I fish.

Jeremy, how many do think will agree to a 5 fish limit, even if there were no size limit. I bet you may be standing alone with that suggestion, especially with the costs associated with going fishing. If that were to pass, you would have individuals bringing several kids, etc, to justify keeping 10, 15, 20 fish, caught by only one.

That is a good point, I was going along the same route as redfish, but redfish are much bigger with more meat. For some reason 10 just sounds like too many, maybe just go with 8 like they have in Chicot. I just feel like 10 would attract extremely large crowds making it unpleasant to fish.

I could live with an 8 fish limit, but the majority, I bet not. I still think a slot would be in the best interest for both the fish and the fishermen.

If they go with an 8 fish limit, I would like to see some sort of size restriction. If they go with a 5 fish limit, then no size restriction. Personally, if they don't do a 5 under, 5 over, I would like to see 5 of any size.
As for the people, there are gonna be jillions of people regardless. There are already tons of people that go out there and they can't catch more than 2-3 keepers. Remove or reduce the size limit and people will come from Alaska to put fish in their freezer...
These people that are complaining about not catching keepers need to remember this! That way, in 15-20 years, when these same people are complaining about not catching 'as many as we used to', they will kknow who to point the blaming finger at...

I'm gonna open up a boat dealership next to the spillway after reading some of these post. Sounds like people are going to have to take turns casting. The 20 year study showed what was most (Local)Tournament fisherman feared it would and now the sky is falling. Now the weekend anglers are going to break all kinds of laws to stock their freezers. I'm calling bull. Yeah it might get a lil more fishing pressurure,but,if you don't like to fish where they have fishing pressure,you must not fish in South Louisiana. Everywhere gets hammered.

Its simple. The reason there are not very many huge bass in the spillway is because the area simply has too many fish. If you want the spillway to produce bigger bass then you would almost certainly need some sort of slot like 13'-17' where each person can keep 10 bass but only one bass over the slot ... and pray that every bass caught 13' and under will be kept.

JB...no offense but,you're a bit uptight,dont worry you will get your share!!! I agree with you that there will be a goldrush on the bass if they lower the 14''size limit.With the fishing pressure the basin gets from all sides,the bass wont have a chance! Keep the old 12'' minimum lower the limit to 5 or 8...put a slot from 13 to 15 @ 8 fish...either way I knew the backyard biologist would announce their all knowing theories...The basin never did produce Florida wall hangers,if i had to guess without looking at the 20yr study data, LDWF screwed the place up when they invaded our waters with those Florida fish. Yall keep in mind,the basin is constantly silting in,we're to far north for the water to stay at a constant high temp needed to grow big fish,TOO damn many people keeping everything they catch. Just my simple little 30yr observation with recreational and commercial fishing catching studies !! Oh yeah,who cares what the majority thinks,the law is the law.

Lets be honest the fishing is just plain bad. Gar fish plague Henderson. Every time I go I lose 20 bucks in lures to them and I'm happy to catch 5 fish total for a days fishing. I always feel bad keeping fish from there mostly because I feel like if I am only catching 5 fish 1 or 2 of which are keepers then whats going to be left next year? Personally I would like to see the fishery return to the days my father tells me about pulling out 5lb bass and such.
These days I only go if I cant afford to go to Toledo bend or somewhere my dream bass is lurking. But then again Ill just take a pic and get a replica wall mount of him anyway so ah well all in fun for me. Cheers.

sparky - HUH???? Get my share?? Did you read my posts? As for my share, I caught more than my share this year. Had 2 trips where I caught 20+ keepers. One morning me and my dad had 26 keepers before 10 in the morning. Had one trip where my brother and I had 15 keepers. There were several trips where I don't know how many keepers I had because I rarely keep bass. The only reason I know about the mentioned trips was because those trips were tournaments.
I have no problem with them lowering the limit to 12 inches as long as they lower the 10 per person limit. With all the people that fish the spillway and as easy as it is to catch fish, everybody and their momma will rape the spillway in less then 2 years...book it!
To me, my share is the enjoyment of catching bass. My enjoyment is not dictated by how full my freezer is with filets. If they lower the limit, thats fine with me. I will just have to drive a little bit farther. With the people that will be in the spillway, I will almost certainly have St John, Concordia, Larto, Bayou Black, BOTH Old Rivers and Black Lake to myself...

Sparky, I have been fishing for over 40 years and I don't ever remember a 12' size limit on bass in south Louisiana (or the state for that matter) outside bass club tournaments, etc. There was a 15 creel limit at one time (before Andrew) with no size limit. When Andrew came along the 14' was implemented along with a 10 fish creel limit. And the WL&F never said the 14' size limit was meant to produce large (trophy) bass, just numbers, which it has. Florida bass WERE introduced in hopes of producing trophy bass (or so I was told back when they were first stocked).

'

Its clear that what ever the LDW&F decides,it will not please all. When are they going to make a decision on the study? If the Spillway and Verrett are so good,then why everytime they have a big tournament out of Segnett most go to Catawatchie or Venice where they don't have a size limit? How much did it cost for the LDW&F to do a 20 year study? Now they are talking about doing a survey to see what the fisherman want. Just go with what the study showed and we will have to live with it.

I read over the studies that they released and I am pretty excited about the outcome. LDWF more or less wanted to prove that the spillway is incapable of being a big bass haven that people want it to be.

They proved that there aren't many bass in the basin that are over 5 years old and also that basin bass grow at a slower rate than other bass across the state. Meaning that 14 inch fish are roughly 3 1/2 years old and are nearing the end of their life span in that area.

I think that the current regulation actually makes the situation in the basin worse. Big bass get caught and kept but there are hundreds and hundreds of 11-13 inch fish fighting over food. I fish Lake Verret and I quit fishing for bass there because I got tired of catching 30 fish and only being able to keep one. Whereas I can fish sacaulait or catfish or bream and be able to have a meal.

I think that the studies prove that something different needs to be done. I'm especially not saying that there should be no size regulations and 10 fish a person, but I do believe that the regulations need to be changed to something more enjoyable for all fishermen in the area.

Huntard, fished Henderson today, first time in maybe a year, caught 10 keepers. 5 fish made it to the house, at least 5 still swimming in the Big H. Find the bait fish, find the bass. Crankbaits.

Eh Maybe you can give me some tips, I fish there pretty often and often catch little to nothing.