I grew up on Weiss Lake in AL and that lake was awesome up until it caught on with out-of-towners...mostly from Kentucky. My dad and I could always catch a cooler full in the early 80s, but the totals started dwindling soon after the yankees (dad's term for them) started flocking to the lake in the hundreds.

They would come down in droves, catch a limit, take them back to their hotel, and then do it all over again. I'm not trying to start a fight here, but it seems that 'out of towners' think spending money is a huge deal and gives them every right to come in a pillage a lake. The typical resident of any given lake community will never see any benefits from dollars spent fishing...and any slight benefit (a few extra seasonal waitress jobs, etc.) will never outweigh the damage droves of fishermen (usually yankees) can do to local fisheries.

Now I live just west of Nashville, TN and see the same scenario being played out at Reelfoot and KY Lake. If you want to find any person who is from Indiana or Illinois on any given day, there's a good chance you can find them on Reelfoot. Many of these folks are truly terrible fishermen (confusing drum for crappie, etc), so they aren't all bad due their poor 'creel abilities', but anyone who says out-of-state fishermen don't have a negative impact on the overall fishery quality of Reelfoot - or any other lake they flock to - is lying to themselves.

Grenada Lake in MS will be the next lake to decline due to out of towners...book it.