Last time i shared my thoughts on this matter i had several dozen people threaten to kill me, hopefully this go around people are more civil.
Just because someone does not agree with you does not mean they are a total idiot or they are a vegan transgender atheist apache dog who voted for Hillary.
I wanted to share my strong opinions with the world and make it known where is stand exactly on the matter of bow fishing and on the conservation of alligator gar.
You can take my opinions or leave them one thing i can say is alligator gar..the big ones, the ones over 7 foot are going to become increasingly more rare over the next 10 years until they can barely be found at all as the internet gathers more and more information on how and where to target these fish making them easier for people to target and find in their remote waters they call home.

I have enjoyed bowfishing in the past. I've given away a lot of fish to people willing to eat carp, buffalo and gar. However, admittedly, they aren't my choice of food. That said if I had the time to bowfish anymore I wouldn't mind getting a big gar like that. And in saying that I would rather catch it on rod and reel and release it. I've release gar I've shot with an arrow in meaty areas of the fish and saw them later in the same areas. Even shot one a second time a week later. I think a lot of those big fish would survive a hit if they released them instead of shooting them with a .38 or thumping them with a club.

They have taken steps to protect them by limiting one per day. Perhaps they should do like they have with redfish and issue a tag or three per year to limit them even more.

You would be better off working with Austin than picking a fight with people in the hunting community though.

a discussion is different than a fight hopefully,
i respect your thoughts, that said i believe tpwd has addressed people releasing any fish shot with legal archery equipment and its not legal currently

Having a discussion would be between people willing to consider the other side of the discussion. Personally I see no need to have gar in the lake. Or carp. Or buffalo. Or Cormorant for that matter. They are negative to the populations of fish I like to pursue and eat. However I know they are part of the ecosystem and should be properly managed.

Go to falcon lake. They stopped commercial fishing them along time ago and now there are tons of 5 and 6 foot fish in the lake. Enough that they raised the limit back to 5. Most gar shot are in the 5 and 6 foot range on most waters, along with a lot of 4's


I've shot a few gar and have no problem with a hunter taking one for a mount, I would love to have a big 7' fish on the wall and may hunt one this upcoming year.

I don't want to see them extinct but they are an apex predator and I don't want to see the lakes fill up with gar while bass and other sport fish stocks take a hit, and I support responsible harvest of these fish. Again, I've seen more bigger gar in falcon in 2015 than I ever have.

What your failing to realize is that a lot of gar were harvested in years past with commercial fishing tackle and when that was outlawed years back the gar population increased along with numbers of big fish. So that disproves the theory that bow fisherman are gonna decimate big fish stocks perminatly.

One thing I took away from your video was that you don't like fish or any other animal thrown on the bank or not eaten or otherwise being caused unnecessary suffering, and I can appreciate your opinion on that

I thoroughly enjoy bowfishing, but I haven't and probably will never shoot a big gar. When we go we target mostly carp and tilapia. The tilapia are good eating and we use the carp for catfish bait. I loved it when you could bowfish catfish. We would always shoot 4-5 a night and we always ate them, I guarantee you people with trot lines and rods and reels were getting a lot more catfish than we were.

Did catch about a 4-5 footer on a trot line a couple months ago. We have a friend that is always looking for one, so we cleaned him and took him to them.