Tulle Samurai

[R.Mac]

I just was curious as to what other bass fisherman think about tullies getting chopped to shi.. from 109lb motors and weedwacker blades?I can only speak on the situation I saw at Clearlake this week,but man,those tullies really take a beating after a big tourney.Now I don't care that much about the tullies per say,but it seems like the bedding areas are really compromised by this practice of mowing right through the middle of an 80ft strip of them looking for bed fish.Some folks,including lakefront property owners(which I'm not), don't like the idea and do the best they can from outside the edges.We're usually the ones that come to weigh-in with an average size bag.Everyone knows that this time of the year, bed fish are going to win the tourney. Is it fair? Your concience,you decide.Obviously this is not anything new(except motors are more powerful than ever),and the ecology of the lake seems fine, so maybe it has become a "natural" part of the spawn cycle?Just curious.

[sTony]

I've seen, on many lakes, where tulle growth has taken over and really damaged the ability to gain access. One great example of this is Lake Merced in San Francisco. It's the only fresh water fishing lake in The City but much of the dollars that were spent on fishing docks and general access by the public have now been overtaken by dense tulles growth. Lake officials can't do anything about it cause some nature group will file lawsuits. The south lake there is completely lined by dense tulle growth and many of the fishing docks that were built via public funds are now not even usable by the bird watchers let alone anglers.

You are correct that the current era of trolling motors bring anglers where they had a much harder time going before and maybe more anglers are accessing these areas then ever before.

I for one am not a big fan of dense tulle growth. Nate Lemons came off the water this past weekend and said, "Get me to a lake where there aren't any tulles. I'm sick and tired of fishing 'em." So not all anglers have a tulle infatuation either.

sTony

[NaCl]

I wonder if people living on Clearlake suffer from "Tule Envy" ? HAR HAR!

.....NaCl

[Smitty_dennis]

I was fishing the AC Pro/Am this weekend and I know 100+ trollling motors cut up a few tulles, but what I saw were the carp bowhunters with their Flat bottom boats crushing a laying over the tulles like a bull dozer. I'm not convinced the massive tulle damage was caused a bassboat. I know we can cause some of the tulle damage, but not like what I saw.

[Andy Giannini]

Lanes that get whacked are just temporary. They make a good fishing spot. Not the shallows the guys were trying to fish, but the lanes. Lanes cut by the big prop are good spots too. A grassbed on the Delta is a good example of this. The fish will use the lanes cut by big motors during a tide change to ambush bait. Yet many anglers cast not there but all the way to the bank.

Tules grow back pretty quick. Hard to imagine them really wiped out, but I did not see what you did.

A.G.