This new regulation change will be for Falcon only..

Probably not significant. Water level and bass stocking drives this fishery. If anything, there might be a slight increase in common carp, tilapia and gizzard shad which made up 75% of the diet of gar in the Falcon study (largemouth bass was 8%).

Hi guys, it's is just my opinion. I believe tp@w does a pretty good job so if they increase the limit than it needed to be increased. But don't think for a second that having the right amount of gar, doesn't help the bass fishing. Gar primarily eat small fish and they help keep the populations in check. I believe that if large lakes didn't have gar, they would be full of 2 lb bass. If you think about it, all the Sabine fed lakes that hold monster bass have huge alligator gar in them. I believe this isn't a coincidence. Btw, I am a bass fisherman!

Witch hunt. What is your explanation about the fact gar have been in the lake since impoundment?

While it may be true that gar have been in the lake forever, their population had been balanced by commercial fishermen.. When the harvest was limited to one per day, it stopped all the Texas commercial fishing.. Six years ago the cartel presence ran off the Mexican gar fishermen, and they have not returned.

With awesome conditions, the gar and the bass exploded.. And while bass classes last so long, the gar live ten times longer. And when there is a lot of bass, gar eat a lot of bass.. TPWD's own studys showed bass populations down by 68% in two years before they did the gar study. Under good conditions! What would the stomach contents have been if they did this sampling in 2010?

As far as gar keeping the lake in check and us not being overpopulated with 2 pound bass, have you ever seen a stunted bass on Falcon? There is and always has been a tremendous food supply here. It has everything to do with biomass.. Food supply is not a problem.

One last thought.. If gar have nothing to do with bass populations, where are all the bass from the 2008 and 2010 classes? This lake should be crawling with four to ten pound fish.. We had two of the highest water years in history, which ALWAYS produces strong year classes.. If I have to explain why that is then we should not even be talking..

If you have never been here, then you cannot understand what we are talking about. Any fish that can easily carry 500,000 eggs, lives fifty years, spawns on a regular basis, and has no natural enemies or predators can easily get out of control..

And it has.. That's the facts.. Think what you want..

Alligator gar and cormorants are two apex predators that we can actually affect through legislation. The meat hunters and low water levels are tougher to address but I applaud you guys down south for getting your voices heard.

Anyone who's caught those beautiful bass with gashes in them knows they are being hunted.

Well thats good news. However, there are not enough gar fisherman to make a difference in the overall population even if the limit were 10 per day.
I have fished Falcon regularly for 13 years. I believe I noticed one person actually fishing for gar during that time. I noticed more people fishing for gar on Choke Canyon during those 13 years.
During that time, I also notice multiple fisherman almost every time I returned to the boat ramp with dead bass at the cleaning stations. Some were locals and some were out of town people. In the hotter months I also noticed a lot of dead bass floating in the lake. I believe a lot probably died from being in livewells and some probably died from distended air bladders. When Falcon was on fire, there were more fisherman and more dead bass. This takes a significant toll over time. Then you have the simple fact that bass only live for number of years, and on Falcon, I believe that time is shorter than the northern lakes. They have a fast growth rate and a shorter lifetime.
Then, you add drought and fast dropping lake levels. That takes a toll on the bass population on any body of water. The gar population boomed due to the dropping water levels in the Rio Grande. All those gar that lived up the river had to move south to survive.
To this day, even the recent studies on Falcon, mutiple studies have proved that the Largemouth Bass is less than 10% of the Aligator Gar's diet.
But, like anything, people love to have controversy. This is kinda like the single bullet theory. It simply didn't happen.

I guess those fish in 2008 and 2010 didn't spawn.. It simply didn't happen..

I guess the low lake levels have nothing to do with those fish spawning either? Amistad isn't what it was a few years ago either let's kill all the gar.

Mr. Bendele have you ever seen what gizzard shad do to a nest of bass eggs. This past year during the spawn on Texoma I witnessed what happens. I can assure you they destroy far more in that short period of time than gar could ever eat. Would you like to take all the shad out of the lake as well? What do carp do around the same time bass are spawning? Guess we should take all the carp out as well. I believe our efforts would be better spent focusing on fish care, people I've seen cutting up 5+# fish at the ramp or maybe lets try to do something about water level? Like stated earlier Witch Hunt

Too many is too many. This is good news.

What's the issue here? If there's too many gar which there clearly is allowing people to take more is simple management. All I see is some folks stepping up and taking action to help keep the lake managed.

Put a bow in the boat while you fish.....I promise it can turn the slows times into fun times!

I keep mine strapped down to the deck. It's like picking up another rod.

No doubt lets manage the fisheries. It's each of our duty to do so. Hook into one of those monsters and you will definitely have some fun. What I don't agree with is the folks saying the down turn at falcon is due 100% to gar and rallying everyone to go on this senseless witch hunt.

I go to the cabelas in Fort Worth almost daily seems like. Those cabelas people have done the craziest thing I could imagine. They have put those 70#+ gar in the same tank as their trophy bass........ They must restock those big bass daily or even hourly using the numbers of bass James has stated gar eat. Being confined in that space and having all those bass just swimming around and suspended right around their snouts. Or maybe just maybe gar actually do Prefer a diet that isn't live trophy bass. Who knows, that isn't a real world environment but one would think the gars desire to demolish a bass population would be exaggerated in a confined environment such as the aquarium. Believe me I've sat there for numerous hours throughout the years hoping one of those gar would smoke an 8# bass or one of those catfish but havnt seen it yet.