Starless, you say that Texas says this and Texas says that, but that is not true, the only data that I have seen presented to TPWD was from an out of state lady, Georgia or somewhere.

Also, from what I say it was commercial fishing AND recreational fishing being limited. There is not a population problem where gator gar are found.

What do you guys think about this argument... If the gator gars are not kept in check they will overpopulate and eat everything? That seems to be a common thought on other sites.

Let's see...it clearly didn't happen in the last thousand years...so it won't happen now! If that were a problem, the entire missisippi river basin in Texas would have been nothing but Alligator Gar long before humans ever habitated the area. Nature has a way of preventing any native species from taking over.

Since im the person who started this, I'm going to say the following: I'm from Cotulla, TX. I live on the Nueces River in the middle of la Salle County. As many know the Nueces had some of the biggest gator gar you will ever see. Our ranch has a 35 acre natural lake on it that is fed by the Nueces River. When my father grew up it had Alligator gar up to 200 pounds being caught in it. The water was clear and aquatic plants grew 10 yards from the bank. During this time commerical fishing came around fishing for the Alligator gar. This now being in the sixties. Since then there has been a decline in the size of fish caught. Being in my twenties now the "biggest fish" I have caught from this river or seen for that matters is a 30 pound gator gar. Another thing that i have seen over the years the carp and buffalo populations have jumped in numbers by the thousands. It sounds good if your a carp fisherman but the biggest carp you will find will be in the teens. There are not that many carp above 20 pounds that i catch in this lake anymore. The Alligator Gar controled these fish because they are the only ones that could eat the medium to small size carp to keep a heathly population. Now my waters are murky full of undersized carp and buffalo. Yes there is still Alligator gar but the average size is only 2-3 pounds in the lake.

What is the problem? Overharvest of the adult gator gar. Commerical fisherman are probably more to blame than the bowfisherman but do the bowfisherman really help? No they do not. I believe that commerical fisherman started the decline as has habitat loss but there is only 13 registered commerical fisherman in Texas one of the articles said. When you take into account the number of bowfisherman that hunt for these fish and take a gator gar over 30 pounds....thats a major amount of fish. Tpwd is doing the right thing for these fish. They are native to texas and thee is a reason for them to be here. There is also a reason for them to be as big as they are. So I believe in harvesting as few as possible of the adult fish that we can.

Let's see...it clearly didn't happen in the last thousand years

My greatest concern on this topic is that of making new laws. Seems like some folks want to create new regulations to justify their existence on a commision.