Quote Originally Posted by Handicrappie View Post
The problem last year was the low water....... Then the pressure applied. Be nice to see lakes shut down in extreme conditions like last year. I'm sure there was an unusually high number of keepers taken out of the lake but again....... Lakes go in cycles and Mother Nature played the biggest role in this cycle last year. Without the extreme low water the unusually high harvest would not have occurred. I fished Butla 1 day last year so add me to the group of folks who took advantage of the conditions.
Good point, Handi. Low water was a problem and fish had nowhere to hide. I fished Butla a good bit last year since we were having trouble finding keepers at Sardis and Enid. Was feeing sorta guilty about all of the limits we took out of there during the low water time until I saw what happened in September. The water came up in late summer and the lake spread out. We started getting quick limits in a couple of hours. Then word got out on internet and you couldn't find a parking place for about 4 weeks. We saw 60-80 boats per day when weather allowed us to fish and most of them were hammering the fish. Doing some quick math says that 20,000 to 25,000 keepers were taken out by first week in October when the bite slowed way down. Conservative estimate: 50 boats per day on average X 1.5 people per boat on average X 10 fish per person X 30 days = 22,500 keepers. As ATM shows, the lake is not fished out but I believe that keepers will be hard to come by after the September pounding. We'll see soon what shape the lake is in.