State Wildlife Department officials want anglers to know that postcard notices arriving in their mailboxes this month are about “trash fish” but are not junk mail. The bright green postcards, sent to 15,000 randomly selected fishing license holders, direct anglers to an online survey. Biologists said they want to learn more about anglers’ and bowfishers’ attitudes toward non-game fish species like drum, gar, or buffalo suckers (often incorrectly called “buffalo carp”), according to Betsey York, human dimensions specialist for the department.

These species have not received much attention in the past and few if any states have established regulations regarding so-called rough fish or trash fish, said Trevor Starks, stream biologist for the Wildlife Department and head of the department’s non-game fish rules committee.

Learning more about how anglers view the fish and pursue the fish will help guide future management decisions but Starks emphasized no rule changes are pending. “We’re not doing this to arbitrarily make regulations because there are no regulations right now,” he said. “It is something that we’ve recognized we probably need to get ahead of and understand better so we can ensure that my kids, my grandkids, and Oklahomans into the future can sustainably participate in the sport.” Bowfishers pursue the fish free of any bag limits where bowfishing is legal. Some anglers also still arbitrarily kill the fish because they are seen as competitors of game fish deemed more desirable. However, more rod-and-reel anglers, especially fly-fishers, are gaining an appreciation for the fish as challenging catch-and-release species, he said. “That trash-fish stigma permeates still to this day,” Starks said. “I don’t think it was that long ago there were some links even on our own website that talked about fisheries management that referred to those species as ‘trash fish.’”

The native fish are a natural part of Oklahoma waters but biologists don’t know as much about them as other fish. That’s because most research funding is reserved for sport fish like bass or crappie, or threatened or endangered species, Starks said. Information is especially lacking on how people pursue or use non-game species and how the overall populations can handle harvest pressure, he said. York said the survey should give biologists general information about bowfishing and about people’s views of non-game fish. Specific information about the questions and methods will come out in a final report. “Until it’s finished we want to make sure people aren’t going into it being biased about what might be on the survey before they fill it out, so we’re going to wait to share details,” she said. The survey is based in social science and not an effort to solicit broad general public comments, she said. It is designed to target a random sample of anglers with questions that are non-biased as possible.

The cards contain instructions and a QR Code and website address anglers can use to reach the online survey. The first cards hit mailboxes this week and a second round of reminders will be sent soon, she said. “We have a rigorous review within the department and we have some pilot testers we use. We work hard on creating non-biased questions to gather general information about the sport and general information about the target species,” she said.

The non-game rules committee led by Starks is one of several groups organized by subject matter within the department to closely examine rules proposals. He said the committee is not looking to the survey with new regulations in mind but more out of a recognition they simply need to know more.