What would you think a good slot limit size be for areas. I would like to see some slot limits to help out the bass I just do the catch and release thing now fish for fun I think a 16" to 20" limit would be great on cherokee and a 13" to 18" on douglas and leave smallies at 20" but allow 1 more to be kept for a total of 2 smallies these are the two main lakes I fish but I'll probably just fish cherokee for now on for bass.

I have always been in favor of Slot limits but I want the slot to be the same statewide and I only believe slot limits need to be in place from March 1 through May 15 because and slot limit of 16 -20 Inches during that period of time would stop all sight fishing and big sows from being removed from spawn beds and dragged to weighins 10 miles from the beds. Everytime that happens that spawn is lost and thousands of bass never get born. People wonder why our bass populations are dwindling, well that is why. If you catch a slot fish off a bed all you can do is release her back so she can complete the spawning cycle. When you remove a big Female from her bed and take here 5 or 10 miles from it and release her she does not go back to the bed. It is proven fact and has been discussed by fish biologsts for years. They proved it in 1990 when they shocked up and tag 100 5 plus pound fish and tagged them. Then they went back a week later when the big female was locked on the bed but had not spawned and they caught her and hauled her 5 miles and released her. They tracked her for 24 hours and she didn't move but about a 100 yards and with under water cameras they realized just what she was doing. She was rubbing up and down a log banging her sides against the log and forcing the eggs out of her body and all of that spawn of that bass was wasted. They said she probably produced about 150,000 eggs that they could see with the camera being forced out and Bluegills we eating them as fast as she forced them out. Now that would be prevented with a state wide slot limit because no tournament angler would be able to weigh in a fish in a tournament that fell in the slot so it would not be in their best interest to hunt and fish for bedding fish. It would make life Hell for the Pro's because guys like KVD and IKE live and die by the spawns each year. If folks would leave the spawning fish alone all of our lakes would have plenty of nice Bass in them in 3 to 5 years. So yes I would embrace slot limits.......

Dont make much difference to me dont keep any anyway.If they will enforce it, i think you will be able to tell a diffrence before long.

I agree with BassHunter.

Softy makes a good point too

Since I don't tournament fish much anymore, I'm good either way. However, the key here is enforcement... It doesn't matter what you make the limit, if no one enforces it... what good does it do? I've fished for the past 25 years and I can count on one hand the number of times I have been stopped, checked or even looked at by a TWRA Officer. Don't get me wrong... I'm not knocking the officers, most of them do a fine job. What I am knocking is the lack of man or woman power the TWRA has out on all of the area lakes to enforce the laws that are already in place. Unless they enforce it, the only people who feel the impact of the change are the tournament fisherman.

Enforcement will be the problem,not enough TWRA officers to do it.

I'm with the crew on this one. I'm 100% catch and release! A slot limit will help IF there was wardens around to monitor the limits. Kinda hard to do when there is only about 4-5 wardens to cover 4 or 5 lakes

We do need more TWRA to enforce all the regulations.

I like the idea of slot limits also. I really wish they would do it up here on Laurel for the SM, I don't tournament fish and rarely keep fish unless it's walleye or crappie to eat, maybe an occasional bass. But, like you all said with no enforcement it's irrelevalant. Some guys are going to keep 6inches to 6lbs regardless.

Id rather seem em patrol the parking lots and catch the stupid thieves......plus, they could also check livewells while they were there.....

You are all very correct about enforcement of the laws. They are designed to only effect the Tournaments. That is the whole object behind the new size limits to begin with. They have come to the conclusion that if they pick certain lakes with the biggest populations being smallmouth bass then Smallmouth bass would be the dominate bass weighed in. If you make it hard to catch limits of keeper fish to weigh in, tournaments with any size or boat entries of 25 boats or more quit fishing those lakes. Only the Die Hard Smallmouth anglers that are capable of catching the bigger ones will fish the lake. Mission accomplished, big tournaments are driven out. Those tournaments will seek out lakes with bigger largemouth populations and smaller size limits. I have seen this move coming from the TWRA for about 10 years now. They have been slowly moving in that direction at driving the big tournaments out of the state. They did it on Tims Fords Lake 4 years ago and it drove several big tournaments away that had been fishing that lake for over 20 years. The TWRA has a logical reason behind this and it is to take some of the pressure off our lakes to give them a rest. To be honest I don't see a problem with it. I would like our lakes to not look so attractive to the bigger 250 and 300 boat events to come here. I remember 5 years ago during the SMBCBT Classic we had 175 boats going out of Bulls Creek and take into consideration all of them folks are local Tennessee residents in it. Down lake 11 miles on the same morning Super Bass has their Classic going out at daylight, all out of state anglers. The lake is fogged in at daylight but in an attempt to beat us out the director of Super Bass releases 350 boats in the fog. Another tournament down at the dam also released and it had 100 boats in it. Well we got released as the fog began to lift. I cleared the opening to the creek and put my boat in a secondary channel and got over by the main lake bank in about 300 yards down stream and 300 yards off the main channel and I almost got run over by about 9 or 10 boats running wide open in the fog in 2 to 3 feet of water not having any idea where they were. I found a small pocket and hid for almost another hour till the fog lifted completely. Now it is 11 miles from Bulls Creek to the dam. So in between the dam and Bulls creek and three creeks except for the few boats that ran for the river up stream from Bulls Creek there was 625 Bass boats fishing Old Hickory Lake which means 56 boats per mile. Now you want to say CROWDED? You want to say PRESSURED? These lakes down here are pounded 7 days a week 24 hours a day from March 1 through November 1 every year by out of state tournaments.
Now back to the idea of TWRA patrols , I don't think your gonna see that any time soon. If they drive away the out of state tournaments it will be even longer because that will mean lost license revenue to the state. In 2003 over 400,000 fishing licenses where sold in Tennessee and 86% of them were sold to Bass fisherman and of those 39% were sold to out of state bass anglers. So if you drive out 39% of your revenue you cut your nose off to spite your face but the TWRA is to stupid to see that part............

i agree that more officers are needed. no money should not be an excuse as many fishermen and women that pays for thier license every year they should be able to take some of that money and hire a bunch more officers. have any of you checked out what it cost for an out of state license? i would say they could just use that money and get all the officers that is needed.

They can't hire more TWRA rangers and build a 19 Million dollar bunker at the governors mansion here in Tennessee which has already been approved so I don't care what they say about how tight our budget is. When they can waste that kind of money I don't want to hear them complain about not having any money. Our fishing license money is probably going to furnish the darn thing.

there should be slots, just the thought of a ticket will keep many from taking Slot fish and the people it dosen't would probably take the fish anyway. The price of doing nothing is depleating our fisheries where no one wins.