Commentary ⦿ CARPPRO ✪ 2013
small carp, small buffalo, and lots of catfish. There have been reports of bigger fish but they are few and far between so I’m anxious to see what the first net shows us. Greg slows the boat and we drift toward the first set of floats. Mukhtar is at the bow with a boat hook and snags the net float at the first
Mukhtar disentangle the larger nontarget fish--buffalo, carp and gar-and return them to the lake. They are not a target species for this survey. The buffalo are still lively and no worse for wear after a few hours in the gill nets, although there’s a little bit of fin damage which will heal itself in time. The rest go into the can and the net is
Darin Gossett & Mukhtar Farooqi attempt. The engine idles and Greg joins him with the sample container - a large, green container that looks like a trashcan with a locking lid. They start hauling the net into the sample can but the first few fish in the net are smallmouth buffalo in the mid-twenty to mid-thirty pound range. This is surprising for a couple of reasons. Firstly, they have been caught near the surface yet most anglers consider buffs to be a deeper water species. Secondly, they are very dark. There are black buffalo (Ictiobus niger) in Lake Travis, but these are heavily pigmented smallmouths (Ictiobus bubalus). Although these fish are being taken for sampling, Greg and
given a tag and the number is noted. “In addition to gill nets,” Mukhtar explains, “we use techniques such as electrofishing (for shorelineoriented species like bass and other sunfish), trap nets for crappie, and creel surveys to get angler catch rates, preferences, opinions, and expenditures.” We manage another 6 nets for the morning before I have to leave. Lake Travis turns up nothing larger than mid-thirties, carp or buffalo. Interesting to see but not unexpected. Along the way we get some less than friendly looks from