Passport to Texas

Passport to Texas form Texas Parks and Wildlife and the Sport Fish Restoration Program

Each winter, inland fisheries stocks lakes and reservoirs with rainbow trout to provide a unique winter angling opportunity. Fish that escape the hook eventually succumb to the heat.

In Texas, we’re outside of the range where rainbow trout, at least for the most part, can survive throughout the year. So, we just bring them in during the winter months; and there’s an opportunity to fish for them until the spring.

Carl Kittel coordinates the trout-stocking program for Parks and Wildlife. He admits that—from time to time—a few fish manage to adjust to summer temperatures.

In years when conditions are right, particularly below the Canyon Dam and the Canyon tailrace, fish can survive the summer—occasionally. The problem is they can’t do so consistently, so we generally don’t get established populations.

So hurry and get these fish while they NOT hot. Anglers 17 years old and older must have a 5-dollar freshwater fish stamp and a license to hook a rainbow. You won’t need either if you fish in a stat e park.

We consider all of our rainbow stocking in Texas to be a put and take fishery. We put the fully-grown fish in, which are a catchable size when we stock them. And the purpose of stocking them, and our expectation of those fish, is that they’ll be fished out by anglers.

There’s a link to the rainbow trout stocking schedule on our website, passporttotexas.org.

That’s our show…with support from the Sport Fish Restoration Program…which also helps fund winter trout stocking in Texas…For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.

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