So back to the question someone else asked. What do you do with all those fish? I personally dont care though I do think that even at that high numbers unless you had hundreds of boats all doing that then your not going to impact the population of a species.

I would agree that one boat shooting that many fish probably won't affect a lake the size of Whitney. But, it is very rare to go out shooting and not see a couple of other boats bowfishing Whitney on any given night. I doubt that I am seeing every boat either since I fish a lot of creek arms and backwater areas. That haul in the pic was a really good night! Typically we will shoot half that number without the size. I would say that 1000-1200 lbs is average. So if everyone is doing that amount everytime they go out I would definitely say there is an impact being made.
As far as the fish go, if you need some let me know in a PM and I will hook you up next time I go out. Guys use them for eating, cut bait, varmint bait, pig feed, fertilizer, you name it. I personally don't eat them, and certainly not 2,000 lbs worth.

Lots of people LOVE to eat buffalo. TPWD should make it legal to sell them to encourage bowfishermen like yourself.

They do make great fertilizer for fruit trees... And really good catfish bait.

Buffalo are also incredibly popular as sportfish, people come from all over the world for a chance to hook into and release a 50, 60, 70, or bigger Buffalo. No reason to incentivize senseless killing of a native species, we already made that mistake with Alligator Gar and are working hard now to fix it.

I don't have any issues finding people who take the fish. As far as selling them, no need for me at least. I just love shooting trash fish. And my rig only burns $10-$15 of fuel in a typical night. The rig uses a fuel efficient Yamaha generator for the lights and a 25 hp Kohler engine runs the fan. Both engines sip fuel. I tend to put in really close to where I like to shoot. The outboard is really only on the boat so that if an emergency arises I can get back to the ramp quickly.

Buffalo ribs are tasty indeed! Man, that is a lot of fertilizer. I may try to hook up and get some from you later in the year, or early next spring.

Let me know, my place is on FM 4 between Cleburne and Grandview.

Buffalo are a native species in Texas and when you are shooting Whitney, you are probably shooting black buffalo (Ictiobus niger) in the mix. Black buffalo have a very limited range in Texas and there has been some discussion of adding buffalo to the gamefish list. A similar thing happened with sharks in Texas and spearfishing for them is now over. If buffalo are added to the gamefish list, bowfishing for them is over. It is great to utilize the resource, and as we have already discussed, there are lots of fish out there. While a majority of anglers may consider common carp as invasive trash fish (personally I think they are one of the most under-rated sports fish in the state), many angler do not put the native buffalo in the trash-fish category.

I hear a lot of ifs and maybes. It is legal right now, and I enjoy shooting them. If the laws change, I will respect it and adjust. Until then, it's still game on.

I've had discussions with TPWD several times on limits for Buffalo. The answer always is, they don't have enough data about large harvest amounts to make any real decisions. And there's always a few bow fishermen who say "we never shoot that many in one outing, do you know how hard it is to actually shoot these fish?", etc, etc. There were similar statements being made about Alligator Gar, but over time TPWD accumulated data on over harvest during the spawning season (where they're just sitting ducks), fewer trophy sized fish, etc, etc and put some much needed regulations in place.

lol.. this thread 16 years ago... was very informative for it's time. Lots of discussion.
https://texasfishingforum.com/forums/ubbthreads.php/topics/26203/1

btw...I am BY FAR no expert on any fish, but several people much more educated than myself on rough fish have said Buffalo can spawn more than 1 time a year, so there is a chance you happened to come across a spawning location, especially if they were in that flooded vegetation area. And when rough fish spawn, it's an incredible site to see so many fish in one location.

I promise you TPWD does not even think about an outing where 2000lbs of fish are taken in one night. So the public data you posted (2000lbs in 4 hours, half that amount on a typical outing) is really useful data, so thank you for taking the time to post that. It gives a great insight on what motivated bow fishermen can accomplish in a relatively short period of time.

While Carp gets plenty of respect as a sport fish, Buffalo being a native species has a much greater chance of obtaining game fish status imop. From TPWD: "Many people may be unaware that smallmouth buffalo is quite a food fish. It is the number one species sold by commercial freshwater fishermen." My personal feelings on the subject is if they did make Buffalo a game fish you would have to allow liberal amounts of fish per day to be harvested but at the same time introduce a slot to preserve the trophy fish and perhaps only a few trophy fish per year. Perhaps anything over 30lbs would be considered a trophy.



Sometimes the ones on the water daily, weekly, etc, understand the potential of the fishery much better than the folks at TPWD. My only suggestion to you when it comes to Buffalo is to perhaps consider passing on the larger fish. A 40-50-60-80lb+ Buffalo is an incredible...incredible "native to Texas waters" fish.

Fish the size of carp almost always have significant interpecies interactions with other fish in the same ecosystem. Unless they are a strong prey species very efficient at turning something on a lower tropic level into forage for a higher trophic level, these interspecies interactions are usually negative for the other species. Mostly, these negative interactions are either predation or competition for the same food sources. Of course, the "Carp Society" is going to downplay this reality for their favorite species.

Think of it this way, once they grow too big for other stuff to eat, carp are "dead end biomass." They keep eating, but don't provide much positive for the ecosystem. They take food from the ecosystem, but provide nothing positive in return.

This applies equally to every large fish.

The large Carp spawn once or more per year which provides plenty of forage for Bass, Sunfish, Catfish, Crappie, etc. Working with TPWD on some trophy Carp lakes we've actually put out habitat for the predator species as opposed to Carp, to cull the spawn keeping Carp populations small in population but large in size.