# bowfins



## marc

Are bowfins common arround here? I dont fish fresh water much, but last weekend I managed 9 bowfins between 3 and 8 pounds. I fished a pond near the brazos. They look like a cross between a redfish and a gar. All the way down to the dotted tail. Maybe someone can post a pic of one.


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## Reel-tor

*Reasonably common*

I used to catch them near the Trinity River below Dayton years ago. They put up a good fight. They are edible but better do it quick as their meat does not hold up to freezing. It gets meally-like.

Strange critters! They will hit artificials at times--if one hits your topwater, you will not forget it! They actually are a prehistoric fish species.

They are usually found in rivers or ponds created by river overflows. I have heard of them in Lakes Conroe and Livingston (makes sense--river based).


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## bobber

*Choupique (Bowfin) Pic*

Heck of a good fighter. In LA. Chou (shoe) pique(pick) fish


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## shadslinger

The eye spot on the tail only occurs in their bredding season and only on the male (Ithink). They are prehistoric and do fight like dinosuares, and they are really stupid. It's on common for one to hit your bait, break your line, and do that several times before being caught. Crappie fishing at the mouth of sandy creek & the neches river I had one break 4 canepole braided lines in row, then I caught him and had all four lines still hooked and trailing. They also eat wooducks, grown ones! I've seen them many times blowup on group of woodies and scarf one down along oxebow lakes. They make a nest beside flooded hawthorn trees when breeding and protect it with vigor. They have many common names, grindle,bowfin,greetrout, griniecat, and afew that are not nice.


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## obiewan57

I caught one on a lure once, dipped it up in the dip net, it cam off the hook and ate a hole right thru the dip net, fell in bottom of the boat. Watch their teeth.


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## bigreave

wierd i have fished the brazos for years and never heard or seen one


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## Bozo

bigreave said:


> wierd i have fished the brazos for years and never heard or seen one


They don't make much noise, you have to put your ear really close to their mouth to hear them.


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## Brian Castille

I see them all the time at my grandparents lake in sugarland. They look so weird in the water. The tail is almost like an eel. There is an area that's about 1' deep in heavy cover that they like to hang around. Like mentioned above, they will hit ANYTHING and are STUPID. Sometimes I can throw the same lure at the same fish and get hits over and over again. I caught this one on a small spinnerbait on 8lb line in 1' of water. When I hooked the fish, it jumped like 5 times out of the water. It was pretty wild. Oh yeah, fish was released....


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## obiewan57

Brian, good to see you posting...I am the one that owns K & K CUTS in Aggieland.
Never did get to go fishing with you, but glad to see you are still chasing em. Almost time for them really big reds to run, are you ready?


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## Indigo Flats

I know them by the name of Mud Fish here in S. C. Their flesh will cook up like catfish flesh and make an excellent stew. We always "bled" them as soon as we caught them by cutting them deep at the anus so that the blood will bleed out. They are excellent fighters as reflected here in this discussion.


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## OxbowOutfitters

Id like a couple for my pond...It would keep the neighbors kids outta there for sure after see'n that ugly mug


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## KillaHookset

Years ago I fished one of the feeder bayous off I10 near Eldridge that fed into Buffalo bayou from Addicks Res. I caught one about 28 inches long and it fought pretty good. It scared the beeejeebies out of me but the guy next to me wanted to keep it so I gave it to him. I thought it was some kind of mutant Redfish/eel


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## shadslinger

Bowfins are quite an interesting fish, as we can see after 2 pages of posts. yall know what a gullar plate is?


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## marc

*?*

Are you sure bowfins will eat ducks. I put a couple in my favorite woody hole. I hope I didnt mess that up.


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## shadslinger

They will eat woodies and I have seen them do it many times while duck hunting Holy Bluff slough in the Alabama Creek Wildlife area on the Neches. They make a huge blowup and leave nothing but a trail of down in the water.


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## rambunctious

*Ducks*

We need about 1 billion of the bowfins in Lake Conroe for the ducks, and hopefully they would eat the White carp too.


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## shadslinger

There are some guys on the other board who eat hardheads, maybe they would come and catch grass carp to eat,....


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## greyloon

I caught bowfin on Sheldon Resevoir every trip this Spring. The largest was about 7 lbs. Great fighters, caught them on shrimp fished on bottom while trying for cats. Great teeth too.


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## centexfisher

rambunctious said:


> We need about 1 billion of the bowfins in Lake Conroe for the ducks, and hopefully they would eat the White carp too.


There a few bowfin in Conroe. I caught the lake record in '99.  I was going to leave it on the bank, but my wife suggested having it mounted and thought it would make a good conversation piece, so I took it to a friend that is a taxidermist. He likes mounting record fish and cut me a great deal on monting the thing but only if I registered it, so I did. I was right. It has made a great conversation piece-usually starting with: (What the heck is that"?).


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## AyersReefer

Check this out... http://www.bowfinanglers.com/recipes.html


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## Guyj

Many years ago I saw an old man walking with a 5 gallon bucket from the Big Lake at Brazos Bend State Park. Asked him if he caught anything and he tells me "Yep, gots me a grinner". I didn't really understand but when I looked in his pail he had one of these bowfin. I saw the teeth and paddle tail and thought he had caught a gar. I asked him what he was gonna do with it and he just laughed and said he was gonna eat it. That is the only time I have ever seen a bowfin. So I guess if you wanna catch one they can be found in Brazos Bend State Park.


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## QuackWhacker

Could you bowfish them?


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## triple f

Seem to be more common in ponds, oxbow lakes, and such. Can't say that I've ever caught one in any of the rives or creeks around here, but pulled plenty out of some of the smaller ponds.


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## neckdeep

we call them Grennel and catch them all the time in La. If you get about a 5 or 6 ponder to hit a crawworm you will swear you have the state record largemouth on your line


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## texas two guns

Heck yea, you can bowfish them.
Pretty awesome fight, too.
Missed the state record in a tournament one night, man that sucked.


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## ALLUKIN

can you tell me if the grass carp is back in conroe...i would love to go and catch them.


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## Capt. Tim Bradbeer

Grinnel is what we called them in Orange. We would catch them all the time in the Sabine River while bass fishing.


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## espanolabass

*grass carp*



ALLUKIN said:


> can you tell me if the grass carp is back in conroe...i would love to go and catch them.


Go for it they are back. Kill them all!


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## shadslinger

Bowfin love oxbows and backwaters, like where a creek runs into a river, or a distributary system off the river. They will hit an old tire(especially steel radials)if it lands close to them. No really, they are prehistiric fish and very stupid, but survivors from long ago, and are hard fighters(kick yo a..) on any kind of tackle. Thery will defend their spwaning area like an old sow pig protects her young.


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## KingTut

I used to fish a pond next to the Forest Cove Little League fields and caught them all the time. They'll make a wake on the top of the water as they charge a lure from the complete oposite side of the pond. Looks like a freight train caming at your lure! Problem was, once they were introduced into the pond from the flood of '94, they ate everything in it and it was never the same for fishing. I thought I heard somewhere that they were not a native Texas species and therefore should be gutted and allowed to die on the shoreline.........


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## redduck

I always called them grinnel. I have caught numerous over the years bass fishing. I caught one in the 70's on Toledo Bend (spinner bait) that weighed 12 pounds. For a moment I thought I had caught the State record largemouth bass. They do fight hard.


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## tx064deer

redduck I had the same thing happen, was fishing Fork running up a creek with trolling moter throwing top waters had put a shiner on a line with bobber and was draging it behind boat holy **** almost lost the whole rig when i got it close to boat I thought i was back in the stoneage again i didnt know what the heck it was .


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## hunt2grill

*Snake heads vs. Bowfins*

Here's the info on them



KingTut said:


> I used to fish a pond next to the Forest Cove Little League fields and caught them all the time. They'll make a wake on the top of the water as they charge a lure from the complete oposite side of the pond. Looks like a freight train caming at your lure! Problem was, once they were introduced into the pond from the flood of '94, they ate everything in it and it was never the same for fishing. I thought I heard somewhere that they were not a native Texas species and therefore should be gutted and allowed to die on the shoreline.........


*Bowfin and Snakeheads: Distinguishing Features*

Snakeheads (family Channidae) from Africa and Asia are occasionally imported illegally into Texas. They closely resemble native bowfin (Family Amiidae) but are unrelated. This page depicts one species of snakehead. About 27 others have been identified, some with different color patterns. Pelvic fins may be lacking in several snakehead species. Snakeheads are environmentally harmful. If you see or catch one in Texas, please contact a game warden or a Texas Parks & Wildlife Fisheries office.








[D]

*Bowfin (Amia calva)
Native species, not prohibited in Texas*








[D]

*Northern Snakehead (Channa argus)
Exotic species; prohibited in Texas*

*Figures and text prepared by R.G. Howells, Heart of the Hills Research Station, Ingram, Texas*

Return to snakehead page

Text Descriptions of Graphics: 
*Bowfin (Amia calva)*


No scales on head
Bony plates between lower jaw bones
Pelvic fins at mid-body
Anal fin short
Eyespot (Ocellus) at base of tail, in male specimens only
*Snakehead (Channa argus)*


Enlarged scales on head
No bony plates between lower jaw bones
Pelvic fins closer to head
Anal fin long, almost as long as dorsal fin
Eyespot present in some species


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## HoustonKid

My dad used to call them cypress trout. Not sure why, but he was about half **** a**. I caught a huge one near the Sabin River not far from the I-10 bridge in some canals north of I-10 in Orange. It was st least 10 pounds. I have a pic some where. I will post it if I find it. I may not have been ten pouds, I was only 12 or so. It seemed like it at the time.


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## espanolabass

I caught 2 in Bundick Lake LA. a couple years ago on a senko. They gave me a heck of a fight. I believe they were spawning since I caught them out of teh same spot.
MEAN looking fish.


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## espanolabass

ALLUKIN said:


> can you tell me if the grass carp is back in conroe...i would love to go and catch them.


Yes they are back. Go git'em! TPW restocked them this early fall. You'll notice the hydilla is floating on the top of the water do to them eating the bottom of the plant


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## SwampRat

*Caviar!!!*

Had a layover in Amsterdam this week and took the time to look around in several of the many shops within Schipol (airport). Sometimes it's pretty amazing what gets sold as "local fare" in the duty free zones and this time it was Bowfin cavier!! There were about 5 types (different fish species) available within the "lower ranks" and the choupique (bowfin) held the highest price at 27.50 Euros for the 50gram tin. The high end stuff (sturgeon) commanded well over 200 Euros for the same sized tin...I've never had cavier, but can't imagine why you would want to pay $200-300 for something you could eat in a couple of gulps...Kinda makes me wonder what my gumbo is worth....

I'll just stick to my seashell shaped chocolates, thank you very much...

SwampRat!


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## Sir Fishalots

We call them a Grennel


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## deke

Wow, a striper and now a Grennel. We use to skip school and go to Brazos Bend State Park and catch them. we would make a wire leader with a saltwater reble(stronger and big gar would sometimes geat them to it) and put a strip of bacon about 4-6" long and real it across the surface of the water and they would blow it up! Give them a few seconds to git deeper than the jaw area, real bony, and set it like you would on an off shore fish. They were great to fight, I had alot of fun out there doing that.

The aligators really liked the grennel as well! I lost many a grennel to this big 12'+ mama gator that lived in out favorite grennel spot.


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