C'Mom Man .....
it is not the number of bass or any fish that "ONE" gar eats, it is the total number of gar in the lake that eat just "one" bass.
Listen (understand) what James is trying to tell you,,,,,,, it is the total number of gar in the lake and the way they explode exponentially each year.
It's very similar to putting grass carp in a lake,,,,,,,pretty soon you have no grass.
he doesn't want to exterminate them, just reduce the population that has grown out of proportion to what it should be.

Anyone on here know when the limit on gar changed to one per day?
Sept 2009. Yes, less than 6 years ago. Before that, there was no daily limit.
Here is another interesting fact from: https://tpwd.texas.gov/news-media/releases/?req=20090326g
"While research on the fish, which can grow to more than 250 pounds, is still in its early stages in Texas, biologists know that alligator gar are very long-lived animals and take a long time to reach sexual maturity, with females attaining an age of 12 years and a length of about 60 inches before spawning for the first time."

Right up the Rio Grande from Falcon is Amistad, which has a lower bass population than Falcon and no mention of a gar population problem depleting the bass population. Within 2-3 hours of those two lake is Choke Canyon, which also has a very low bass population and no mention of an increased gar population depleting the bass population.
All three of these lakes have some common problems.
1) increased fishing pressure after word got out that they were excellent fisheries.
2) extremely low water levels and extreme fluctuations in water levels.
3) lack of adequate largemouth bass stocking to offset problems 1 and 2.

So your saying 90% of the bass died?

What evidence do you have to substantiate this claim?

He said ("appear" to be less than 10%)
that is a personal observation and opinion..... no facts, just his own personal opinion.
He needs no evidence to state his own personal opinion.

Some people just don't like gar.
Falcon is not fishing like it used to.
everyone has an opinion as to why.
They do not need evidence or facts to state why they think Falcon is not fishing like it used to.

No, it's not the dumbest thing ever posted and lots of things eat gar when they're small. Until a gar gets over a foot long, which takes about a year, many predator fish can eat it as it's the shape of a hot dog, can't swim very fast, and has no defenses against being eaten. And, the biggest part of a gar's diet is usually composed of shad, which Falcon has a huge population of (reference #1 and #2). Gar will eat bass (reference #3), no question, but gar are lethargic opportunistic predators that eat whatever is in abundance. I can assure you there are far more shad in Falcon than largemouth, even back when it was fishing well. O.H. Ivie went through this same cycle a few years before Falcon got hot and it's not overrun with gar. Kev's accurate analogy is pointing out that harvesting a bunch of one predator that eats your chosen sportfish isn't going to solve the issue, it's never that simple. And, with alligator gar populations dwindling in other parts of the US, I highly doubt TPWD is ever going to allow extensive commercial fishing for them again.

#1 Food of Gars in Texas

#2 A Reappraisal of Gars and Bowfins in Fishery Management

#3 Ecology of the Alligator Gar, Atractoste...aulipas, Mexico

I'd be willing to wager that bass tournaments have killed just as many bass since 06' as gar have

It's a multifaceted problem. I catch more bass on the Mexico side than I do on the u.s side and they allow gill nets when in all actuality I should catch less.

The problem is multi-fold this witch hunt for gar is just to appease the public

Nevertheless I'll be down there bow in hand to do my part to kill some gar.

How many of the fans of raising the limits are gonna start shooting them?

Actually......this is about the most sensible post to the thread. at least as far as I, a gin-u-wine fisheries biologist biologist, even better what they call 'round here "An Aggie Biologist," can see.

Now I don't know exactly what's goin' on at Falcon, its a long ways from me, but I do know that gar, and all the other myriad of species, indigenous and exotic, are part of an interlaced and interdependent ecology. They play an important role in the form of a specialized predator and removing them all would likely have a an overall negative effect on the quality of the bass fishery in the lake.

Saying that, the gar's potential negative impact on bass is a lot more due to competition for food than actually "eatin' up all the bass." Not that they won't eat a bass given the opportunity, but there are more opportunities to eat shad, carp and tilapia than bass in most lakes with gar, especially alligator gar.

The gar's sedentary lifestyle does not demand a lot of food, very unlike a bass which has to eat very regularly in order to live its very active lifestyle.

The gar is one of nature's most enduring designs, pre-dating even the dinosaurs and surviving mass extinctions to this day. Not until overharvesting by humans along with habitat destruction was the alligator gar threatened with survival as a species. Whatever is "special" about Falcon Lake that makes for good AG reproduction and recruitment should be the thing under study there.

You will almost always find that when the gar population is thriving, so are those of other large predators in the system, such as largemouth and striped bass, blue catfish, ospreys, eagles, otters, etc.

I do advocate for reasonable management in favor of the most economic and least environmental impacts to a community. Which in this case would be in favor of the bass over the gar.

TP&WD, especially with respect to managing fisheries in unnatural and manmade habitats, does an excellent job, and I'd endorse their plan based just on that.

Txtrophy,
We need to get set up with your buddy to go shoot some. I will be down there in late April.

Just for the record.. Choke Canyon is also over run with gar.. And Gators..

They took out a million pounds in a single year back in the eighties and they are still crawling in that lake.

If I hear one more person quoting OLD data from other studies I am going to scream..

Falcon Gar mature in much shorter time, are sexually mature at three years old in many cases, and can weigh a hundred pounds on average at eight to nine years..

We have seen that on average a 100 pound gar here on Falcon is nine years old.

If a fish converts 5% of food weight to body weight, which would be on the high side, he would have to eat 220 pounds of fish on average per year to get to 100 pounds. So in the course of this fish getting to 100 pounds, he has eaten close to a ton of fish.

And like I said, that is using a 5% conversion rate, which is probably a bit out there.. But hell, a lot of this stuff is speculation anyway.

But that is a hell of a lot of fish, no matter what fish you think they are eating. And we are talking about ONE fish.. Eating a TON of fish.. And if they live to be fifty years old.. Well.. You do the math..

That does not soundlike a lethargic or light eater to me..

But then some folks might think that Rosie is not fat..

Who knows how many gar we have in the lake.. But the numbers have never been higher..

Since commercial fishing was halted in 2009, we have seen an exponential rise in gar numbers..

Coincidence? I don't think so.. Did we have a shortage of gar before the reg change in 2009? With no limit? I don't think so either..

A balance is all we are after.. Not the anniliation of the species. TPWD has taken a good first step in MANAGING gar as they should.. And if in the near future we see numbers decline or increase they can and will, I am sure, adjust the legal harvest..

We used science for this regulation change..

But to the ignorant science might appear to be magic.. Or even witchcraft..

not witch craft but a witch hunt.

Yes, and if 10% of the Gars diet is largemouth bass then that equals 22lbs per day. How many pounds per day do you think die from natural causes, reckless fisherman, tournament fisherman, gill nets, and fisherman keeping them to eat?

And I guess you think I have never addressed these issues?

Gar are one piece of the puzzle..

Do you think we should start stocking gar in other lakes? Like Fork?

I base my opinion off personal experience fishing these lakes regularly over the past 4-5yrs. And tournament weights give a really good sampling of fish populations and sizes. Tournament anglers comb the lake from one end to the other. From shallow to ultra deep. The results have be consistent easily since last Jan. I think the bass population on Amistad especially is actually even quite a bit less than 10% of what it was 3-4 yrs ago. You used to be able to hit every spot that looked good on the map and there'd be bass. Now it's a needle in a haystack to find fish. 20lbs for 5 fish was nothing 3 yrs ago. Now there are only a hand full of 20lb sacks brought in each yr!!!! And not just the size of fish but the number of keeper fish that are caught are probably more realistically 5% or less of where it was. Everyone's arguement to the dead fish claim is that you'd see fish floating everywhere. That's just not true. The fish can just as easily die and all sink to the bottom.

I'd say increasing the bag limit is a small improvement but will not even remotely put a dent in the population fluctuations of gar there. They need to put multiple electroshock boats out there every day for months and kill every last one they can. Don't know what theyd do with them. And even still will only make a small dent. Falcon's bass fishing will come back regardless of the gar and fishing pressure. They were all mostly killed off most likely from some kind of pollution that most likely made its way into the system from Mexico.

Just my opinions.

They did not stock them in Falcon. BTW, they are already in Fork. See pic below.

Here is some more factual information from the Falcon study.
"In the Falcon study, bass made up 8 percent of the gar�s diet, 10 percent were catfish, 3 percent were freshwater drum and 2 percent were crappie. More than 75 percent of the fish identifiable in gar stomachs were rough fish � common carp, blue tilapia and gizzard shad.
At Falcon, female alligator gar reached sexual maturity at age 7. Females weighing 100 pounds were mostly 9 years old. Females grew to five feet in five years while it took male alligator gar 10 years to reach five feet."