txtrophy, Yes, that dumpster is right in an area where people live. I am fine with Bow fishing and do not care if they grind them up for dog food, chicken food or fertilizer just don't leave them sitting around for a few days!

Waste of edible fish is illegal. Throwing them to rot in a dumpster like this is 'waste'.

Only issue I have is disposal. Leaving a dumpster full of rotting anything for people to see and smell isn't right.

Stringers of cats, crappie, bluegill...etc are harvested day in and day out, so there can't be an argument that they are hurting the fishery. If anything they help the population, that's been proven over and over, best way to improve a fishery for trophies and overall health is maintaining the population.

Yeah, I don't have a problem with the tourney or even a ton of dead trash fish.
I have problem with poor public relations. Whoever put on this event should have known this would be bad optics. Some nimrod was obviously going to present this photo to the public with a moan about "waste".

Never understood that part "edible" is a broad term. I'm not eating every hog I shoot, haven't actually cleaned one in a long time, but every chance we get we pile them up and leave them for the yotes and buzzards. I'm talking 30 a night if we are hitting some good places. Tpwd is fine with that, but carp and gar are different?

No I don't leave them piled up in places for people to smell either.

Yes I understand hogs are classified as invasive and rough fish are not...I'm speaking of just the contradiction with tpwd and their "waste" and "edible" concerning hogs vs fish.

I agree with this! Worded better than my original post!

I agree 100%. Don't leave a nasty fishy dumpster full to the brim to stink up an area.

Dumpster crew doesn't work weekends. I'm sure they will be there as scheduled today.

Better in a dumpster than the ramp I would think.

I'm with Blues.. management of carp and gar fall into the same category as feral hogs. The biggest difference is the visibility of the damage and the management there of.

Bowfishing is mostly done in the public space and visible to anyone. Hunting in Texas is mostly on private property and is out of sight as is much of the damage feral hogs do to the environment.

We have created these problems with unwanted species invading and upsetting the natural order like a cancer on the planet. The only cure we have for this cancer is ugly, wasteful and painful to watch..

The question I pose to all of you is:
Do we stop this type of management or do we ignore the mess we created and let nature do it her way.

I will add that fish management is more susceptible to brutal cycles of drought that can kill whole lakes in a bad year.. but the feral hogs out compete everything for resources (more like humans) and are much harder to manage or even hope to eradicate. I don't feel bad about killing hogs by the hundreds or thousands just for buzzard feed.. Governmental regulations on the use and/or sale of game/fish or feral hogs effectively removes the only incentive that might work in the management of the resource/waste..

"update was told these fish went to a turtle farm"

I used bold for emphasis. Last time I checked, gar and buffalo are NATIVE to Texas, not invasive.

I kinda misunderstood the original post, if they dumped those fish into a public dumpster I would be wanting to do something about it, they should be required to dispose of those fish properly, weather it is bringing them to a land fill or onto someones property to get rid of.

Makes little difference if an unwanted species is native or introduced when it comes to management. Nature uses natural cycles to ensure that only the strong survive but we humans manipulate and tinker around with everything to see what we might make "better" but most often that "better" is only in the short term.

My use of the word "invading" wasn't necessarily intended as "invasive"

adjective: invasive

(especially of plants or a disease) tending to spread prolifically and undesirably or harmfully.