I've fished Falcon numerous times over the past 15 years and seen the cormorant numbers increase each year....now there are literally tens of thousands of those fish predators on the lake and I don't have to be a biologist to know that no lake can stand that kind of predation on the bait fish or the fish....
after reading James Bendele"s Falcon tackle fishing report today,(http://www.tackleandrods.com/lake/flash.htm) why isn't TPWD screaming bloody murder to the FEDS to allow the numbers of cormorants to be reduced...they have done this in other lakes(santee-Cooper and Guntersville)��.if anybody has a contact and e-mail address at TPWD maybe it would help if they got a couple thousand e-mails demanding something be done from members of this forum......

Good question

Those things are on every lake in dfw by the thousands. Feds shut em down

https://tpwd.texas.gov/business/permits/land/wildlife/cormorant/

Mexico sucking the water out of Falcon is a much bigger issue than those Cormorants ever will be.

They are on every lake in dfw. But not even close to in the thousands.

Maybe while they are building the wall, they can weld the pump pipes until the government gets paid for original agreement

I think the guy that wrote the report, and I would get along.

I'm not saying I like them in anyway or a bird lover but is this the the comorant you are talking about. These are on the endangered list.
www.fws.gov/southeast/faq/double-crested-cormorants/

These birds are not on the endangered species list..

Yeah, definitely not! They are subject to a treaty. Methinks it may be time to exit.

Unless you have witnessed these fish eaters at Falcon it is almost impossible to describe how many of them there are. They fly over by the thousands and thousands. And this goes on for 15-20 seconds. Low water and cormorants = bad.

I've always thought and still to this day that it's those birds that are the reason the fishing on Choke is so bad.

They won�t bite a Senko. I�ve tried. .....a lot.

mexico sucking water out of Falcon just makes it easier for cormorants and alligator gar to decimate the baitfish and small bass.....I've tried and can't find a e-mail address for the head of TPWD......as it is,we've got one guy (James at Falcon Tackle) trying to protect the fishery and we need several hundred e-mails from members on this forum demanding TPWD get off their rear and protect our fishery.....permits to reduce those cormorants can be had.....we just need someone at TPWD with guts to demand it from the federal agency....

https://tpwd.texas.gov/about/administration-divisions/executive-office

Carter Smith is the Executive Director.

You probably should start with Craig Bonds, Director of Inland Fisheries

https://tpwd.texas.gov/about/administration-divisions/inland-fisheries

Looks the same but that has to be a different sub-species or something. The ones around here could not be on any endangered list. �Protected� maybe but hardly �endangered�.




No scientific evidence or surveys done by me but I do believe their numbers are in the thousands on many N. Texas lakes including Fork. Even if the tree huggers allowed �controlling� them how would you acomplish this? Poisoning is how most invasive bird populations are controlled but how could you be selective to the species and not kill the other carnivore species like the small population of bald eagles that call a few N Texas lakes home?

When everyone talks about cormorants, it is usually the double crested.. We also have a lot of Neotropic cormorants down here.. Some flocks are more Neo's than DC..

We are lucky enough to have both species..

But to me it doesn't matter the variety.. They are just fish eating machines..


Other locales have used shotguns, low power 22 rounds, and air guns to kill the birds. From what I understand.

Falcon would be extremely easy to hunt them on due to the near zero human population living on the waters edge.

I made TPWD an offer to handle the problem..

I need something to do this summer.. Turn me loose..

Apparently cormorant culling permits can be obtained from US Fish & Wildlife. But culling would only be a token local reduction.

The real control can come at their nesting sites.

https://greatlakesecho.org/2018/04/12/people-can-once-again-kill-cormorants/

James, if you ever get the go ahead, let me know. I'll buy a buncha cases of 12 ga and head on down!

I've sat in a duck blind on tawakoni and watched these things fly over for a solid 20 minutes... trust me... there's well over 1000.

This picture from the link looks like Langley Island on Lake Tyler a few years ago. Nasty stinking disgusting birds.

took this picture last year...am told there is more this year.......put me down as volunteer to shoot these things and I'll furnish my own shells...(actually they did this at santee cooper and it worked out well....except for the tree huggers pizzin and moaning...

What do double-crested cormorants eat?
They eat mainly fish. Adults eat an average of one pound of fish per day, which is typically comprised of small (less
than 6 inch) size classes. They are opportunistic and generalist feeders, preying on many species of fish, but
concentrating on those that are easiest to catch. The composition of a double-crested cormorant�s diet can vary
considerably from site to site and throughout the year

https://www.fws.gov/midwest/midwestbird/documents/dccofactsheet2008.pdf

That's a lot of shad gone every day these birds are on a lake.

At Sugar, I was pitching a jig and the little turds waited to the last second to fly away and I hooked one. It got ugly until I finally cut the line and said the heck with it.

There's one at Falcon that owes me big time for crapping on me. But I wouldn't mind extracting some payback from a few of his buddies.

they are federally protected because they are scarce in Michigan or someplace up NORF.

e-mail address for director of inland fisheries is �.craig.bonds@tpwd.texas.gov

we have had 1254 views of this thread....I assume this has been viewed by several hundred people.....if each of us will send craig bonds an e-mail and ask him to do something about the cormorants decimating the Falcon lake bass fishery..and to come on this forum and advise us what is being done.....maybe we will get something done.....
FWIW here is copy of my e-mail to Mr Bonds...

Mr. Bonds
Currently we have tens of thousands of cormorants preying on the bass population at Falcon Lake...this coupled with the proliferation of alligator gar and water being taken from the lake for irrigation purposes is extremely detrimental to the bass,crappie and striper population...
Santee-cooper reservoir in south Carolina faced this same problem and permits to reduce the cormorant population by duck hunterswere obtained by the state...
however TPWD decides to reduce the numbers is fine but we desperately need it done..be advised that reducing the cormorant number is an active thread on the Texas bass fishing forum and being followed by several hundred people so we would appreciate your participation and input into the subject...
thank for your time..

I live on Wolf Creek on Ray Roberts, we had probably 500-1000 right behind our house the other day just pounding the fish! They are terrible birds and need to be at the very least controlled.

Only good thing about cormorants is that they soak up spilled oil.

I think someone should build blinds and start selling �turkey� hunts

We were saltwater fishing in Florida years ago in a canal and there was one sitting in a tree there by us. When we would drop our baits down to the bottom, he would go down in the water and eat the baits off our hooks and he never got hooked

Water turkey stew?

Caught one on crappie jig at lake worth barge years ago . Good fighter on 4 lb test.

Maybe if we could start blasting them they would fly back norf and stay there. 1 pound of fish per bird per day is ridiculous. Those suckers need to vanish. Besides soaking up oil spills, they are good for catfish under their roosts.

There are states that opened a season for them because they were decimating certain fish population (yellow perch I believe for one case) and if I remember right it was only a 3 day season but they wiped their As*es out pretty good. We have an "endangered" cormorant they are afraid hunters will mistake for the double breasted. Ive seen the endangered on Sheldon and it flies with a curled neck like a crane not straight like ducks/db corms. Unless I am mixing birds up. Please correct me

I used to sell a lot of #6 high brass loads to La. fish farmers. They all had permits to blast them when they showed up.

Not just a falcon thing, they have exploded statewide... NEVER saw them in Cleburne growing up and I see several hundred a day now... They go back and forth somewhere and flight line is right over my house

If they oppened all public water to hunting them for a week a year we cold maybe do some good... But honestly we need to net their nesting areas and be DONE

not so much.
Somehow, they ended up getting lumped into the endangered shore bird act. the biggest (and its been looked at several times) is how to remove them. and just them, from the list.
while it seems easy to you and me, by the time the politics and the tree huggers all get involved, it all turns into a convoluted mess.
With no real natural predators their numbers are skyrocketing. Hopefully, fish and wildlife (national, not state) will figure put a way to manage them.
And, shooting/hunting them probably isn't going to be the answer due to the fact that no one is going to bring them home and cpok/clean them.

send them north? heck with that!

us norfers hate em too!!!!!

It�s a migratory bird, so I think it�s protected. Lol. Nasty bird.

I believe I read on another forum that duck hunters/fishermen killed over 11,000 of them on santee cooper in short period of time and didn't even make a dent in the flocks using that lake...also recall this hunt was allowed because of a study that showed cormorants were decimating the shad,bream and small bass popul;ation...several guys on the forum had participated and one or two mentioned they had cut open some of the fatter birds and found small bass and bream in their stomachs along with baitfish...

Well, ship 'em up there then.

Just dump them at the boat ramp next to the gar and carp.

or on the road going to our ranch, seems to be a favorite dumping area around us.........sad but true

If Oregon can do this with the sea lions, why can't we do the same with the cormorants? Same problem, just different culprits. And yes, sea lions are protected by the Feds under the Marine Mammal Protection Act.

https://www.statesmanjournal.com/st...4DSUeA0NXFmhbVgogyMgqRG_wLBEtBNX6U9XoOuM