Passport to Texas

A fine looking catfish.

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This is Passport to Texas

Largemouth bass may be the gold standard when it comes to freshwater fish in Texas, but catfish are a close second.

We’ve done a lot with regards to the management of largemouth bass. And we figure, catfish are going to meet the needs of a new generation of anglers across the state; and there’s a lot we can do to manage for catfish and make fishing even better than it is right now.

Dave Terre is chief of fisheries management and research at Texas Parks and Wildlife. Catfish are abundant and adaptable to Texas’ changing environmental conditions.

We think catfish will be a good match for our changing environmental situations that we have both in our reservoir environments and our river environments in Texas. And we think we can manage those populations to meet those changing environmental conditions.

Dave Terre says catfish management takes many forms.

Stocking fish is a good way to increase opportunities for people catching more fish. We can also manage with fishing regulations. Fishing regulations allow us to control numbers and sizes of fish that are harvested. We can also manage fish habitats to improve populations in a number of different ways. As fisheries managers, there’s all sorts of things we can do with catfish to make fishing opportunities better in Texas going forward.

The impact of the new management plan on anglers. That’s tomorrow.

The Sport Fish restoration program supports our series.

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