Great insight, I like the way you think. I'm definitely expecting a cluster F#$% on opening morning. The way I look at the whole thing is will this lake be better or worse than the lakes I currently target for big bass (murray, dixon, poway, wohlford, etc)? I think in the long run it will definitely be better. The first year or so it will be pretty barrett style, but not many super big ones. In 3 or 4 years I think no matter how much that lake gets pounded (look at how much pressure casitas, murray, poway etc have taken over the years and years and years) in those couple years the big fish at that lake simply aren't going to be as smart as the ones I'm currently fishing for.

I'm no fisheries biologist but the way I understand it is that the super big fish in our current lakes got that big by dumber fish continually being caught and killed over the years and thinning out the gene pool until only the smartest of the smart are left, as well as the fish being exposed to boats and lures and becoming conditioned not to eat at times. Hense the difficulty of catching a 10lber today. You can read stories from back in the day of how easy it used to be to catch 10lbers at casitas and castaic etc. But years and years of education and thinning the gene pool lead to where we are today. I really don't think 3 or 4 years of pressure at DVL is going to equal 25 years (maybe even more like 35) of pressure at casitas, no matter how intense it is.

Of course this is coming from the perspective of "I am after the biggest fish, not the most fish".

The funny thing about discussing DVL is that nobody knows what's going to happen. It's all speculation. There's never been anything done like this in our state that I'm aware of. We're all gonna have to see what happens and C&R along the way to help the process.

I've heard that the first 15 years of a lake are generally it's best years due to the high amount of minerals and nutrients that come from the flooded plant life and what not. Much like the way fishing picks up when a lake that's been down for awhile fills back up and the nutrients from the new life that grew on the banks restores life in the lake.

Interesting topic, I can't wait to fish it and see what happens with that lake in the years to come. One thing's for sure, we couldn't have asked for much more as far as the planning of the fishery itself. This lake has a lot of potential, I hope it grows some real giants as predicted.
-Brian

btw- I did the math, at that rate it would take 4.86 hours to launch 250 boats, hahaha, let's hope they have a better system... I guess I'll get there early :P