Passport to Texas

Concrete pyramids for near shore reefing

 Conservation: Public Reefing: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

An artificial reef is marine habitat created by man and placed on the ocean bottom for the benefit of marine life.

06 – Fish like structure. And just about anything you put overboard will attract fish.

Paul Hammerschmidt, with coastal fisheries, says a program called public or near-shore reefing allows the public to deposit reef materials into the gulf.

12 —We’re going to allow the general public to reef material within state territorial waters, and that will expand the number of artificial reefs that we have out in the Gulf of Mexico off of Texas.

You shouldn’t think of this as an invitation to dump your garage sale rejects into the gulf.

13 – We have certain criteria for the material. It has to be stable; it can’t fall apart, it can’t wash up on the beach, it can’t float…all of those things, which is just exactly what we comply with when we do our own reefing.

More reefs in the Gulf of Mexico will mean better fishing for coastal anglers.

03—Our charge is to increase fishing opportunities, and this is a really good way to do it.

Find details about near shore reefing on the Texas Parks and Wildlife website.

The Sport Fish Restoration Program supports our series and provides funding for the operations and management of Sea Center Texas.

For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.

Image from June issue Texas Parks and Wildlife Magazine

 TPW TV: Coastal Fishing: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Summer officially arrives later this month. And if fishing is on your to-do list, Texas Parks and Wildlife TV Series Producer Don Cash says, a segment on this week’s show highlights angling opportunities along the Texas coast.

58 –I’m pretty sure that the fishing along the Texas coast is pretty good all year round, but summertime is when people seem to really think about going fishing. And this story focuses on a couple of different ways to do it. One of those ways is to take a charter boat out. The great thing about that is you’re surrounded by water — no land anywhere in sight – and you don’t really know what you’re going to catch sometimes. You never know what’s going to come up on the end of your hook; you can specifically fish for a certain type of fish, but Lord, there might be a hundred pound grouper, when you’re fishing for that two pound snapper. So, there’s a lot of excitement there. One thing you see in this story is the people fishing are having a really good time. Whoa! That’s a red snapper [laughs]. What I hope happens with this story is people will watch it and they’ll say ‘Wow. That looks like fun.’ If you can’t do a charter boat, you can always do wade fishing; you can go fish on the pier. There are all kinds of ways to go fishing on the coast, and all of them are a lot of fun.

Thanks, Don.

Support provided by Ram Trucks. Doing what’s right and good regardless of the degree of difficulty — takes guts. Those are the people who build Ram trucks. RAM.

For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.

Red Drum

 50th Anniversary: Redfish Wars, 2: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

After years of monitoring, data collection and analysis, the TPW Commission upheld a Legislative directive, and in 1981 banned commercial fishing of red drum/redfish in Texas waters; something known today as The Redfish Wars.

15- You think of the term ‘wars.’ This was really a conflict between what we were finding in our bays regarding the red drum populations, and what the commercial fishermen traditionally did. It was their livelihood.

Paul Hammerschmidt, with coastal fisheries, says commercial fishermen criticized the agency’s method of random sampling, saying it set nets where redfish were sparse.

19-If we sampled in areas where there always were found fish, it would take us a longer time to detect a change – either positive or negative — when you’re always able to catch fish. When you do it randomly around a bay system, you have a much better way of detecting a change.

Although Texas Parks and Wildlife was sued over redfish regulations, the strength of the science won the case. In the thirty years since the ban, redfish populations have rebounded, and are more robust than ever. The ban, stocking programs, size and bag limits placed on sport anglers, have helped. Since then, the relationship with commercial anglers has also improved.

04- We do have a much better relationship than during the wartime.

The Wildlife and Sport Fish Restoration project supports our series…and funds the operations and management of fish hatcheries in Texas. For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.

Red Drum

 50th Anniversary: Redfish Wars, 1: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

It’s illegal to commercially fish red drum, or redfish, in Texas. In the 1970s, during routine monitoring of bays, biologists discovered a serious decline in the number of the species caught by commercial fishermen.

06- So, we started looking into it very carefully, and started implementing bag and size limits on these animals.

Paul Hammerschmidt, with coastal fisheries, says the new restrictions were just the beginning of a lengthy and involved process to help increase populations of the species.

12-The legislature actually required us to establish quotas on commercial fishing. And we were allowed to modify those quotas depending on the amount of fish that were being caught on a day-by-day basis.

Most commercial anglers cooperated with Texas Parks and Wildlife by reporting the redfish caught in their nets….

26-Annecdotally, we had heard that red drum being landed and sold to fish wholesalers were actually reported as another species. What that did, is that showed fewer and fewer redfish were being caught in a particular bay. And that impacted the formula that we used to establish the quotas. So, the fewer and fewer fish that they got, the next year the fewer and fewer fish they were allowed to catch.

This marked the beginning of what would become known as The Redfish Wars; we’ll have more tomorrow.

The Wildlife and Sport Fish Restoration project supports our series…and funds the operations and management of fish hatcheries in Texas. For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.

Bahia grande Map, Texas A&M Corpus Christi

 Wetlands: Bahia Grande, 1: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Bahia Grande, the largest tidal wetland restoration project in the state of Texas, is getting closer to completion.

10 – A tidal wetland is normally a coastal wetland that is influenced by the daily tide cycle that would basically push or pull water into that system on a daily basis.

John Wallace, Deputy Project Leader South Texas Refuge Complex, says construction of the Brownsville Ship Channel in the 1930s effectively cut off Bahia Grande from the gulf.

09 – The spoil from that ship channel was piled on the north side, and it blocked off those natural channels that allowed water to flow into the Bahia Grande.

Without water, the basin dried up, and eventually became a nuisance to local residents and businesses whenever prevailing winds came from the southeast.

26 – Normally on a coastal area with prevailing winds, you would get winds ten to twenty miles an hour every day. And these winds would pick up that real fine clay dust, and blow it to the north and northwest. And the local communities north of there were suffering from this blowing dust. It was impacting people that had breathing problems. The local schools, their air-conditioning systems, it was getting into the classrooms. So, it was a major concern for the local communities.

Solving the problem…that’s tomorrow.

The Wildlife & Sport Fish Restoration Program supports our series and provides funding for wetland conservation through the Private Lands Enhancement Program.

For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.