I don't have a dog in the political discussion as I'm a KY resident however I also fished Patoka in the 80's now get up there maybe 7 times a year (have a place on Barkley) as far as I can tell the lake has improved (bass) vastly (we call it KY lake north) lots of fish in the 3-6lb range, while it does get a lot of pressure it doesn't seem to effect it too bad but the fishing has changed since the 80's. Even tho some of these results are 6 fish limits the results are impressive and speak for themselves:

Winning weights of various tourneys

2014

March 16 22.26lbs 6fish
April 6 24.13lbs 6fish
July 13 20.37lbs 6fish
July 27 22.22lbs 5fish
Aug 23 20.29lbs 5fish

And it wasn't just one person with a big bag one tourney had 3 bags over 20lbs and the majority of the field had respectable weights. What do these results prove... not much, however if you think Patoka isn't a great fishery maybe its time to change
tactics because the fish are there.