The red ear population is not near what it was years ago .
Modern depthfinder with side scan has hurt the population enormously , In pryor days people had to work at finding the beds and most gave up before they did to much damage, now days they just drive down the bank and when they find the beds they fish them to death untill they have caught almost all the bedding fish and then that colony is gone . It kills me to see people posting about how many they caught in a short amount of time ,
If they only understood the damage they were doing ,
They are fun to catch but only take what you need and through the rest back . Its the only way the population will return . 15 years ago they were abundant .