Hey Steve,

Just an observation regarding cormorants.  I fished Ellington TreeFarm about two weeks ago and found the main island on Lake Hope taken over by the birds.  Just about every tree on the island was holding a nest.  Not sure how how that will effect the fishing, but it sure makes for a nasty setting on what used to be a picturesque spot.

 Tom Strother

Thanks for the udate I will let the landowner know. I suspect he already knows. Shooting Cormarants requies a state issued permit. Perhaps there are issues wtth shooting in such a densily populated area or other reason?  But make no mistake about it, birds can have a negative effect on a fishery. We are now seeing Pelicans and Seagulls on bigger private lakes in North and North East Texas.

Water turkeys (cormorants) eat the fish we like to catch, no doubt.  But are they all bad?

I ask this because the number one problem on most private ponds & lakes is too many bass.  They spawn prolifically, get ahead of the forage, and stunt.  In fact, stocking strategies have changed dramatically to deal with this reality, as pond owners are encouraged to put in 20 to 30 bluegill for each bass (it used to be 10) and to hold off on the bass until the bluegill have spawned.  Also, as we see in PWF, anglers are encouraged to take out bass to help rebalance things, while returning bluegill.

My point is that if the water turkeys eat the smaller bass on most private ponds & lakes, they may well be doing the fishery a favor.  Cormorants tend to target fish they can handle, leaving the lunkers in the lake.  In essence, they rebalance for us.

Admittedly this can go too far.  If there are too many cormorants, the lake is shallow, and bass numbers are low to begin with, the fishery will be damaged (though perhaps not permanently after the next spawn).  And if we enjoy catching numbers of fish, especially bass, the birds are aggravating as heck.

But if we want bigger bass, even cormorants can maybe sometimes be a fisherman's friend.

Not that I will welcome them on my pond to be, of course.  For all my fine talk, I HATE to see a stupid bird taking out fish I worked hard to grow!

Frank you probably remember the site we had in Houston over on the east side.  It was a private park that held corporate events and such.  This was pre Alexander period.  The cormorants had a rookery on an island is the middle of the lake.  The stench was so bad you couldn't get close to it. The east side had a resident gator as big as a bass buster boat.  So I have no love for those birds or gators.  When that gator started to move towards my boat I was glad to have a fully charged battery and a Minne Kota turbo.  So for me keep the birds in Houston as I believe this rookery did not help.

Yeah, I remember seeing reports on that.  Very shallow water, if memory serves, which meant just about all the fish were vulnerable.  Kind of a worse case scenario!