Posted 9:23 pm Thursday, May 28, 2009
Bow Fishing Enjoying A Surge In Popularity In East Texas
They come by the dark of night, but they certainly aren't stealth.
With generators kicking out enough power to light a city, and in some instances fan motors to push the boat through the shallowest of water, bow-fishing boats can be as loud as a rock concert.
In an era when sportsmen love gadgets, bow fishing is enjoying something of a growth spurt in Texas. Fueling the interest is things including more gear than ever, bow hunters looking for something to do during the off season and an accidental promotion of the sport by Texas Parks and Wildlife Department with a series of regulation changes involving bow fishing in recent years.
Still there are only about a thousand participants statewide who are satisfied with chasing non-game fish species such as carp, buffalo, bowfin and the trophy, alligator gar.
Using home-built rigs that might cost $2,000 or a factory ride airboat that comes fully equipped for about $65,000, bow fishermen are primarily found working the shallow waters of area lakes or the backwaters of rivers at night. Daytime fishing is generally limited to spawning season or for big gar on the rivers.
While bow fishermen use bows with arrows attached by string to a reel to shoot fish under bright halogen lights, something that more resembles hunting, they are required to have a fishing license.
Because of the hours and the time necessary to keep gear operational, bow fishing is primarily a young man's sport.
"Forties is the upper end, but by far the majority of our bow fishermen are in their middle to upper 20s," said Tyler's Thomas Neumeier, who operates a bow-fishing tournament the third Saturday of each month on Lake Palestine.
Neumeier's Lone Star Tournament Trail, with a sister operation on Cedar Creek and Richland Chambers, is in its first year of operation. Since beginning in March it has averaged about 15 teams of three for each tournament, with a high of 26 teams.
"We haven't really had much of an organization around East Texas," Neumeier said of his reason behind forming LSTT. "We have the best lakes and most of the bow fishermen in the state, but no one stepped up to get it organized."
With an entry fee of $10 (kids 15 and under shoot free), Neumeier works to make the events competitive, but friendly. Payouts cover gas money and little more. The tournaments are so laid back Neumeier is able to compete himself before getting back to the tournament for the 2 a.m. weigh in.
"It is mainly everyone getting there early and socializing, getting to know each other. It is like the Working Man bass tournaments. That is what we patterned it after," Neumeier said.
While bow fishermen are welcomed on many lakes around the state, that isn't the case everywhere. At Lake Tyler the noisy boats have drawn complaints from lakeside residents and the city of Tyler is reportedly looking into an ordinance to ban them. According to reports, the lake patrol has also taken a rule on shooting projectiles aimed at hunters and twisted it to force bow fishermen off the lake.
Another issue surrounding bow fishing is the end result. At a few power plant lakes they can also take tilapia, the only edible fish bow fishermen can take. At any other lake the fish must be disposed. In some cases they are taken and used as fertilizer for a field or garden. Others cut the fish and drop them back mid-lake as food for turtles and other fish.
Once known as trash fish, the species bow fishermen take are today called rough fish.
"They are part of the ecosystem," said Craig Bonds, TPWD Fisheries Division regional director from Tyler. "The common carp are non-native, but they are what we call naturalized non-native because they have been in Texas over 100 years. Whatever negative impacts they can cause have probably been made."
Bonds said the rough fish species do play a role in the state's ecosystem and don't seem to have a major negative impact on sport fish such as bass and crappie.
"After the (TPWD) study on (Sam) Rayburn, and there were tons of far removed, they saw no difference in the bass fishery in the reservoir," Bonds explained.
"They occupy a niche in rivers and reservoirs that other fish can't occupy, especially in the case of alligator gar, which fishermen and biologists alike are just recognizing their increased recreational value," Bonds explained.
Concerned over the declining numbers of giant alligator gar, most likely the result of downstream water flows instead of sport and commercial fishermen targeting them, TPWD will begin a one-fish limit on them in September.
Bow fishermen initially opposed the regulation change, but since it was announced most have accepted it and are working with department biologists to collect samples for research.
As far as the impact of individual bow fishermen and tournaments on other species such as needle-nosed gar and carp, Bonds said there doesn't appear to be an issue in lakes like Palestine.
"It has such a high biomass and a large percentage is tied up in rough fish. (Bow fishermen) don't hurt anything. If they are helping anything, that is hard to say," Bonds noted.
The next Lone Star Tournament Trails event will be June 20 out of The Villages Marina. Registration begins at 7 p.m., fishing at 8:30 p.m. For more information go to www.lonestartt.com.
