Over the course of more than two years, the TPWD (Texas Parks and Wildlife Department) conducted a study on two lakes, Lake Fork and Toledo Bend, to understand the behavior of largemouth bass.
Without going into too tremendous detail, the study ultimately found that anglers may not even be getting their baits in front of as many as 41% of catchable fish in a given body of water. I don’t know about any of y’all, but that’s a sizeable margin of fish that are left untouched.
Credit: Texas Parks and Wildlife
Until about 2016, Toledo Bend reservoir was a major destination for trophy bass hunters; but from 2016 on, catch rates began to decrease significantly from about 1-1.5 fish per angler, per hour to 0.7 fish per hour per person in 2019.
Todd Driscoll of Texas Parks and Wildlife set out to conduct this groundbreaking study. The study focused on the fish’s habitat use, movements, home range, and their correlation with angling activity, boat motor noise, and seasonal movements. Each fish will had a small radio transmitter implanted in its abdomen and the researchers used GPS, sonar, and traditional angling methods to collect data on the fish’s behavior and habitat.
For more details, we’d suggest giving a listen and watch to several YouTube channels that did an excellent breakdown on the results of the study.
BassfishingHQ did a great breakdown and in it, he also gives credit to Ken Smith’s interview with Driscoll himself.