While walking through Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, a man came upon another man hugging a tree with his ear firmly against the tree. Seeing this he inquired, "Just out of curiosity, what the hell are you doing?"

"I'm listening to the music of the tree," the other man replied.

"You've gotta be kiddin' me."

"No, would you like to give it a try?"

Understandably curious, the man says, "Well, OK..." So he wrapped his arms around the tree and pressed his ear up against it. With this, the other guy slapped a pair of handcuffs on him, took his wallet, jewelry, car keys, and then stripped him naked and left.

Two hours later another nature lover strolled by, saw this guy handcuffed to the tree stark naked, and asked, "What the hell happened to you?"

He told the guy the whole terrible story about how he got there. When he finished telling his story, the other guy shook his head in sympathy, walked around behind him, kissed him gently behind the ear and said:

"This just ain't gonna be your day, darling"!

Not to stir the pot, as i know and agree with what your saying to a degree, however, there is a distinction between Fisherman and people who buy a blue plastic tub of worms and walmart bags of beer and walk thru the woods to find the water, who i refer to as people who fish. There is a huge difference between the two. People who fish are the reason the boat ramp at the end of Old Hickory Blvd in Hermitage is closed....not fisherman. For the most part, and there are exceptions as with anything else, Fisherman are pretty good about not leaving a mess, its the groups of folks that go down to the dams and park setting areas on a nice day that trash places, but again....there are exceptions to it.
So yes, i understand what your saying, and i agree but to an extent, but it cant all be tossed into one "bad" category.

The distinction you make is very valid. I know what you're talking about and you know what I'm talking about.

To everyone else, we are all one group though, so we need to educate "people who fish", and the "fishermen" need to pull a little extra weight sometimes caring for spaces abused by others.

We take trash bags everywhere we go, and my boys are taught to pick up after others/leave it better for the next people.

Billy

That would be horrible!!!

Watch out for those damn squirrels too! I hear the dig and bury nuts to eat at a later time, thus killing the new tree growth.

And they love digging at the roots of my hostas and pillaging my garden, which is why I got myself a Daisy 880 air rifle :)

You sir are not welcome to lake Radnor park!

Radnor
 

I grew up not too many miles from Radnor and I remember when some people could fish there (it was private property back then). I knew of many people that fished it without permission, but that was no big deal back in the 70's. There were some awesome fish in it. I would suspect that these days, the fish are stunted after 20+ years of no fishing, I don't know. It is what it is now, a State Park. I always thought that it would be a great way to raise some money by having a lottery to fish it, but it's really probably not worth fishing anymore, unless TWRA has kept it balanced somehow. It's really a suburban nature walking area now pretty much. No, I can't imagine opening it to fishing. AS above comments have said, fishermen leave trash, etc. Very sad. And dogs not allowed?.. I don't think that's extreme. Everybody and their brother has dogs now and think they have to take them on field trips every day and the place would be covered in dogsh..t from day one.

People are supposed to be responsible and clean up their dog's poop. I always do and few things piss me off as much as people in my neighborhood who don't. Next time I see someone letting it happen I'm going to walk up to them with a doggie poop bag and ask if they were just out and needed one.

The party shouldn't be ruined for everyone because of some. Same with the fishermen vs people who fish argument. It sure would be nice to get access to that lake, man powered vessels only like other small TWRA managed lakes.

Party pooper. :)

One thing I will say to kinda take up for the rangers at the park and the manager is that Radnor is under the most political pressure of any park in the state. The rangers there are forced to be that strict and all of those rules are made by the folks with money, not the park and they have no choice but to enforce them. It is pretty hard for a ranger or park manager to be fired but but their are so many people with political ties and heck even Haslam's wife is know to hike the trails there occasionally that it would only take the right person to complain for one of them to be looking for another job. I would personally never work there just for that reason.

I have a friend who does turtle studies in the lake and catches quite a few fish in his traps. He said every one of the bass are 10-14 inches but the bluegill are quite impressive. I had heard the same thing from a friend who used to sneak in at night (pre night vision equipment, yes they do use it) but he did say it was literally a fish every cast. Used to be a big challenge for the baseball team at a near by university to go over and fish and try not to get caught.

Am I the only one thinking the next FishingTN gathering should be in the middle of the night at Radnor Lake and there should be a fishing tournament involved?

Great idea. Why don't you pre-fish the lake and give us a report?

ALL diving ducks.

Nothing in the bunch fit to eat.