[Hot4huntin]

MR. DAUGHERTY: Yes. If you recall from the slide that I gave on that different harvest estimates, Choke Canyon Reservoir was on that list. We have just completed three years of market capture on Choke Canyon Reservoir. We tagged I think 676 fish in three years in that system.

COMMISSIONER JONES: Do they -- are they a predator to other fish in -- particular on inland waters and ponds and whatnot?

MR. DAUGHERTY: Alligator Gar are definitely are piscivorous. Meaning that their diet is other fish and probably small mammals and ducks and all kinds of things. They are an apex predator. You know, similar to a shark in a marine environment. The information -- I mean, you know, this is not a well-studied species. You know, this interest in Alligator Gar has really kind of ramped up in the last 10 to 20 years; so we don't have that really long, long, long history like Largemouth bass management or research.

However, there have been three or four studies of diet for Alligator Gar and the credible research out there suggests that they are an opportunistic feeder. And really what that essentially means is, is that they are feeding -- their diet is consisting of what is available in the environment proportionally speaking. So if you have a large number of forage fish and very few sport fish, which is typically -- you know, there's typically a large base of forage and a lower base of sport fish. You would see that in the diet. The Alligator Gar would be eating a large number of foraged, relatively few sport fish. They're not targeting any particular species. They may -- there have been some data out there on White bass in the springtime when White bass congregate in the upper portions of reservoirs, you may see an uptick in the diet in White bass; but it's just an opportunity thing.

So to answer your question, yes, they do -- I mean they obviously do eat fish. The favorite diet items based on research has been rough fish; so carp -- nonsupport species, carp, buffalo, sucker, freshwater drum are probably the top four species that Alligator Gar are known to eat.

COMMISSIONER JONES: And I guess to follow up, have we determined one way or the other whether if you stock, for instance, a private tank, pond, whatnot and there's Alligator Gar present, whether they will consume what you've stocked, whether it's catfish or bass or whatever, I mean?

MR. DAUGHERTY: I can't say that we would know that for sure. I don't think there's been any data out there to say one way or another in that particular instance. If you're talking particularly about our State stockings of reservoirs, I doubt there would be much issue between Alligator Gar and the stocked individuals because of the fact that usually our stockings are conducted into complex habitat; so it's providing cover to the -- let's say, for instance, we stock, you know, fingerlings of Largemouth bass. Those individuals are stocked into cover. So Alligator Gar typically are not found in the dense cover. They're found out in the open -- more open pelagic water and so likely the fish being stocked into the habitat, the complex habitat, they're not going to interact that much.

COMMISSIONER JONES: Well, I'm curious about this because during the last -- during the -- well, I guess we're still in a drought. But during the summer, couple of summers ago when we got literally no rain and lakes, ponds, and whatnot dried up all over the state, the pictures that you-all have in the hallway out here, I have a lake that did that in my hometown on my family's place and the last fish standing were the Gar.

MR. DAUGHERTY: Right. Doesn't surprise me in the least. I mean you --

COMMISSIONER JONES: And what's interesting about that is I was particularly interested when you were indicating that, you know, you were discovering that they -- we thought they were freshwater, but now looks like they may be able to survive in saltwater, brackish, and freshwater.

MR. DAUGHERTY: Uh-huh, right.

COMMISSIONER JONES: And, again, during that drought, they were the last fish in the little puddle as big as -- as big around as that --

MR. DAUGHERTY: Right.

COMMISSIONER JONES: -- area of the --

MR. DAUGHERTY: Yes, sir.

COMMISSIONER JONES: -- floor, probably 3 feet by 4 feet and the water was only --

MR. DAUGHERTY: Inches deep.

COMMISSIONER JONES: -- 2 inches deep, 3 inches deep. You could see their backs, you know, and very little oxygen in there obviously; but they were surviving.

MR. DAUGHERTY: The other interesting thing is Alligator Gar do breathe atmospheric oxygen.

COMMISSIONER JONES: I believe that.

MR. DAUGHERTY: Yeah. Oh, yeah.

COMMISSIONER JONES: Because there was a trail. There was -- I think they walk because -- I'm not kidding you. There was a trail in the mud about 2 inches deep from where one apparently was outside of this little puddle of water and --

MR. DAUGHERTY: He made is way back in?

COMMISSIONER JONES: -- he made his way. You could see the trail where he made his way over to the little mud puddle. So I'm sitting there thinking how did he get from there to there because there's no water? But you could definitely see the trail that he made to get to the water source.

MR. DAUGHERTY: Yeah.

COMMISSIONER JONES: So they are a fascinating fish.

MR. DAUGHERTY: They are. They are.

COMMISSIONER JONES: But I am concerned because if -- I'm concerned about whether if they populate a lake, a pond, a whatnot, will they eventually consume all of the fish, the other fish that are in there?

MR. DAUGHERTY: Just thinking primarily from a biological standpoint, typically that doesn't occur because essentially it's -- I mean it's detrimental to the stock of fish. If they eat themselves -- literally eat themselves out of house and home, you know, they're just -- they have nothing else to eat, so typically that doesn't occur. In a small, very enclosed --

COMMISSIONER JONES: Well, if you would like a place -- if you would like a place to study that, I've got a place for you because I have no doubt that when the rains came back, the first fish that popped out of wherever they hid their, you know, larva or whatever it is they do --

MR. DAUGHERTY: Right.

COMMISSIONER JONES: -- I have no doubt they're back in there.

MR. DAUGHERTY: I believe it. I believe it. I mean, well, and you know as we've talked about before, you know, the -- when you have a high flow event or you have connection of things like ponds to, you know -- where did the water come from that filled your pond? I mean it must have -- it came from a stream or --

COMMISSIONER JONES: There's an artesian well.

MR. DAUGHERTY: Okay.

COMMISSIONER JONES: But the evaporation of the drought zapped the water.

MR. DAUGHERTY: Oh, okay.

COMMISSIONER JONES: It couldn't -- it couldn't sustain the lake.

MR. DAUGHERTY: Right. Well, you get a -- you know, like we said before, when you get a high flow event, rain event connects, you know, rivers and ponds and backwater areas and so on and so forth, that is a key a lot of times for fish like Alligator Gar to move up into those areas. A lot of times they get -- they move up in those areas. They stay there. They may spawn. They may just take advantage of those areas for the low velocity that -- you know, getting out of the high flow event in the river. And then they lose the connection when the water goes back down and they're essentially stranded and that's -- I'm sure that's exactly what you've seen and maybe some young fish, too, if the spawning -- if the high flow event occurred during a spawning period.

And they will -- I will put my last paycheck on the fact that they'll be the last fish in the water if you don't get another connecting event. No doubt.

COMMISSIONER DUGGINS: Bill, are you sure yours were Alligator Gar and not Longnosed or Spotted?

COMMISSIONER JONES: No, I think they were -- they were Alligator Gar. I'm positive.

COMMISSIONER SCOTT: How much wine was involved on that?

COMMISSIONER JONES: No, no. I've got --

COMMISSIONER DE HOYOS: Before the fish started walking, how much wine was involved?

COMMISSIONER JONES: I've got pictures to prove it. I'm telling you that fish -- I thought somebody had taken a motorcycle and driven out across the -- I said, well, who's been out in the middle of this lake and I look in the little water.

COMMISSIONER DUGGINS: Commissioner Morian I think has comments or questions.

COMMISSIONER MORIAN: I've got a couple of questions. Are you monitoring the method of harvest at all?

MR. DAUGHERTY: We are doing some. Dan Bennett, who is one of our management biologists over in Tyler, conducted -- has been working really close with a lot of the boat fishing clubs over there on the Trinity River over the last four to five years and he's collected some pretty interesting data. He conducted an angler survey -- well, he conducted a survey, an angler survey, over there and based on the results of his survey, suggested about 70 -- 77, I want to say, percent of the Alligator Gar harvest was by bow anglers. The remaining --

COMMISSIONER MORIAN: 70 percent?

MR. DAUGHERTY: 77 percent. The remaining 23 percent was hook and line, jug line, so on and so forth, yeah. So the majority of our effort is definitely coming from the bow angling community.

COMMISSIONER MORIAN: Well, I've seen an increase in traffic on the Trinity River where the bow hunters are looking for the trophy Gar and, you know, harvesting the oldest. I don't know enough about them to know if that's sustainable, but it looks like there's going to be a problem at some point if you can take one Gar a day and all you're taking with a bow, obviously it's a terminal event. But taking the oldest fish, it seems like that's going to be a problem sooner than later; so we need to look, at some point, look at method of harvest I would think and then also look at the size and the number.

MR. DAUGHERTY: Right.

COMMISSIONER MORIAN: And be interesting to see what your studies, the future. I find it very interesting, which leads to my next question. It looks like putting this data out to the fishing community as we learn about these fish, would be an important component because people don't know about them. I mean they don't know that fish might be 60 years old.

MR. DAUGHERTY: We've done a lot of out -- we've tried our best to do a lot of outreach events.

COMMISSIONER MORIAN: Yeah.

MR. DAUGHERTY: It came from the very start, even the ones that I did myself, the personal experience I can speak from, a lot of people didn't even realize there was a difference between an Alligator Gar and Longnose Gar and Spotted Gar. I mean they thought a Gar was a Gar was a Gar and, you know, they're very different life histories. You know, we never -- well, I shouldn't say never. But we have not seen any issues in terms of spawning success or population declines for the Longnose and Spotted Gar; but, you know, Alligator Gar are a completely different beast.

COMMISSIONER MORIAN: Completely different, yeah.

MR. DAUGHERTY: And people don't realize there's a difference between the species is where we were really running into problems. Because a lot of times with people -- you know, we'll say, you know, they don't reproduce successfully every year and we might get a year class every, you know, ten years or whatever and they say, oh, I see small Gar every year, every year I'm not fishing I see small Gar. And I'm like, yeah, but, you know, they're not Alligator Gar probably and --

COMMISSIONER MORIAN: Well, I can see putting out printed material into the fishing community that -- identification, the difference in life span.

MR. DAUGHERTY: And people are very interested when you start talking to them about it.

COMMISSIONER MORIAN: Yep.

MR. DAUGHERTY: It's amazing, you know. They show an appreciation for it, definitely.

COMMISSIONER MORIAN: Okay, that's my comment. Thank you.

COMMISSIONER DUGGINS: Commissioner Scott.

COMMISSIONER SCOTT: When I grew up down in Port Arthur, we had Alligator Gar in the bayou and it ran between the Texaco and Gulf Oil refinery and that was way before there was any Water Quality Act or anything. So that bayou was actually -- I mean there was crude oil flowing down and the only thing alive was Alligator Gar, so I actually was joking. They are tough critters.

MR. DAUGHERTY: Yeah, yeah, they definitely are.

COMMISSIONER DUGGINS: Anybody else have comments or questions? If you go to your slides, you've got the one of my son in there, which I want to --

MR. DAUGHERTY: Oh, did we? I didn't...

MR. SMITH: Yeah, sure, Dan. Feign surprise.

COMMISSIONER LEE: How did that get in there?

COMMISSIONER DUGGINS: Go to the Alligator Gar.

COMMISSIONER JONES: Is there a lawsuit to follow?

COMMISSIONER DUGGINS: No, no lawsuit. But I want to mention this because of Reed's I thought very on the -- to the mark comments. This is my son Phillip last June and this was a trip on the Lower Trinity and that's about a six-and-a-half foot Gar that he caught with a rod and reel and we released it, of course. But what was interesting was the guide who took us, used to be a bow guide and once he got educated to Reed's point about that fish being somewhere -- Craig Bonds, who was along as an observer to make sure that we didn't break the law, estimated that fish to be 40 to 50 years old.

Well, you can't keep killing fish like that and not eventually have this thing collapse. Particularly where your spawn rates show from '07 forward, we haven't had a spawn and the spawns between '07 and before were very weak going back for almost ten years.

MR. DAUGHERTY: Yeah, to about 1990.

COMMISSIONER DUGGINS: So I think your comments, Reed, are really important that we remain very vigilante about killing these by bow. Catching them with a rod and reel is -- I mean it's fantastic fun, and these are beautiful fish. This doesn't really give you the color of this fish. I mean it is a beautiful fish. It's a prehistoric looking creature and it's -- why kill these fish just to kill them?

It just doesn't -- I have a real concern that that's sports -- that's what we ought to be promoting and so I -- and also it concerns me given the spawn, the difficulties of Alligator Gar spawning, that we really stay on top of this so we don't find ourselves like Louisiana is now where they've got a lot of Gar; but they're all 2, 3, 4 feet and nothing in the 5, 6, 7, 8 feet and on range.

And another thing that when we got our first major presentation on this, which I think was in May 2009, one of the things that Phil Durocher talked about doing was identifying spawning habitats and coming back with recommendations about whether we essentially make those off limits. And your presentation, this isn't a criticism, didn't really deal with that; but if you go to the slide, I want everybody to look at this, it's the one that says management goal, maintain existing...

MR. DAUGHERTY: This one?

COMMISSIONER DUGGINS: It's got two photographs on the right, one of the spawn -- that one. No, back up. Right there. You see if you've got it on your -- pull it up on your computer screen, you see what looks like four Gar in 2, 3, 4 inches of water. And to me, if we're going to maximize the chances of a spawn given that it's so critical and happens four out of ten years we've seen it happen, then I don't know that we ought to permit bow fishing -- I call it bow fishing, killing them by bow in a spawn month.

I mean I just question the sport of that when you're walking up on a fish that's not moving anywhere and it's in 2 to 3 to 4 inches of water, it's just shooting fish in a barrel.

COMMISSIONER SCOTT: Literally.

COMMISSIONER DUGGINS: So I would like to ask that we -- that you come back at the January meeting and have some further thoughts on whether we ought to eliminate a take by bow during May, which I understood is the -- generally the spawning season. And I realize it may not happen.

If we don't have flooded vegetation, there's no chance it happens from what you-all are saying. But I think we should look at whether we tighten that up on the spawn, given the troubling spawning numbers that you just showed and the lack of recruitment over the last roughly 15 years.

MR. DAUGHERTY: We can certainly -- we can certainly discuss that.

COMMISSIONER DUGGINS: And then the other final comment --

COMMISSIONER MORIAN: Can we expand that to --

COMMISSIONER DUGGINS: Sure, go ahead.

COMMISSIONER MORIAN: Can we expand that just to question taking by bow, period?

COMMISSIONER DUGGINS: Fine with me.

COMMISSIONER MORIAN: Let's discuss it at least.