Passport to Texas

Go Fish! In Texas State Parks

Go Fish! Learn to Fish Events Teach New Skills Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

This is Passport to Texas

Fishing dates back 40-thousand years. While we started as nomadic hunter-gatherers, archeological analysis indicates most permanent settlements were established near water, where fish became a primary food source. Today, fishing is not so much about survival as it is about connecting with nature and family. But most people are out of touch with the activity. And for them, we have Go Fish! events at State Parks.

At a Go Fish! event, they’re typically going to have a chance—after they’ve gone through learning stations—to borrow some equipment and fish there on the site.

Caleb Harris, Texas Parks and Wildlife’s aquatic education training specialist, says Go Fish! events take place at state parks year-round and are self-paced.

They normally have about five learning stations they learn how to assemble their fishing gear. The next station they may learn how to identify certain fish. So, they’ll go through those learning stations, and when they finish that, they normally have a check-list, and they come back up to the table and get their award for learning how to fish, and then can borrow some fishing poles.

Harris says it takes about 30 to 45 minutes to go through all the stations; those who do get an award and an opportunity to put their new found skills into practice.

We really hope they leave there [the Go Fish! Event] much more comfortable with the sport of fishing, and ready to try it out on their own.

Find Go Fish! events near you in the calendar section of the Texas Parks and Wildlife website…and get ready to get hooked. The Sport Fish Restoration program supports our series.

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

Making Christmas Cookies at LBJ State parks. See larger cookie recipe below.

Thanksgiving & Christmas in State Parks Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

November is the gateway to the holiday season. And that means Texas State Parks will be bustling with festive activities.

04—Yeah, we have a lot of fall activities happening in November.

Thomas Wilhelm works with Texas State Parks.

13—For example, at Meridian State Park, which is just west of Waco, they’re having a Thanksgiving recovery hike. So, the Saturday after Thanksgiving you can go out and hike off some of those calories that you may have picked up on Thanksgiving.

Want to go in the other direction and consume calories instead of burn them? Learn to make food fit for a holiday camp out… including sweet treats.

14—Palmetto State Park is having a harvest themed Dutch oven Cooking session, and Lyndon Baines Johnson State Park near Johnson City is having a holiday cookie decorating event as they start preparing for the Christmas season.

The folks at LBJ State Park even shared an old fashioned cookie recipe with us. Find it at passporttotexas.org.

11—The holidays tend to be so rushed—and they’re so commercialized—so, parks offer an opportunity to slow down just a little bit. Take it in. And celebrate the holidays the way they were intended.

Go to texasstateparks.org/holidays for a list of all holiday events in parks.

That’s our show for today… Funding provided in part by Ram Trucks. Guts. Glory. Ram

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

Getting experience shooting.

Hunter Education for Safety in the Field Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

If you’re a hunter, or considering becoming one, completion of a hunter education course is a must.

13-Overall, what a person learns in Hunter Education is the safe, knowledgeable, responsible habits that hunters and shooting sports participants would need to responsibly handle a firearm from the home to the field and back again.

Steve Hall oversees hunter education at Texas Parks and Wildlife.

39-The centerpiece for hunter education is the ten commandments of firearm safety. And those apply whether you’re handling them around the gun safe at home, how to store them properly, transport them properly. And then when you’re in the field, it’s called hunter safety. For a reason. There’s other kinds of things that come into play when you’re in the field like where the other hunters are at, what kind of shooting you’re doing; do you know beyond the line of fire of a
shot? Is it on a hillside that you’re shooting and you don’t know what’s ion the other side? So there are lots of things that come into play. And then they all kind of center around knowing your firearm, knowing how to handle it safely, but also knowing the capability of those firearms as well.

Hunter education classes take place year round across the state. Find hunter education classes near you, or take it online, when you log onto the TPW website.

The Wildlife and sport fish restoration program supports our series.

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

Well-known, and important, pollinator: the European Honeybee

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In May, President Barack Obama announced a national strategy to make Interstate 35 a 1,500-mile “pollinator corridor.”

06- US agriculture benefits from insect pollination to the tune of about 18 to 20-billion [dollars] a year.

Michael Warriner is an invertebrate biologist at Texas Parks and Wildlife. The plan: rehabilitate pollinator habitats from the Texas-Mexico border to Duluth, Minnesota.

Gardener, author, and green lifestyle expert, Shawna Coronado (http://shawnacoronado.com), believes this effort must extend beyond the highway and deep into the heart of the urban jungle.

23- One of the problems we have in cities all around the united States is, we have a dead area–that hot cement area that is the city. We have all these concerns about bees and butterflies and how we keep them in our communities and going throughout communities. Well, the best way to do that, of course, is to plant a native pollinator garden. Plants that are pollinator oriented.

Shawna hopes to see people growing pollinator gardens on apartment and condo balconies, and building rooftops.

19-My little dream is to have a pollinator corridor going through every city that would lead the bees and the butterflies and such through, instead of this giant, miles and miles and miles of area that they cannot cross through easily. This could provide a solution because of its unique way that it can fit into an urban environment.

Tomorrow: helping the Monarch butterfly.

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

Singing around a campfire.

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Campfires at state parks enliven your overnight camping experience. Yet, Terry Erwin says before building a blaze–ensure the site is suited for the purpose.

19-When you want to build a fire you certainly have to find a location to build it. You want the ground or the level where you’re going to build the fire to be dry. You clear the leaves away and if possible, gather some rocks to make a fire ring that will contain that fire.

Erwin is and avid outdoorsman and former Hunter Education Coordinator for Parks and Wildlife. Unless authorized by the park manager, he says you may not collect firewood at the park. Therefore, campers must pack in what they need.

23-Start with a bird’s nest of material so if you put your spark in there, gather some cedar bowls or cedar bark and when you spark it, you can blow on the spark and that will enhance the fire. Start with little sticks and graduate to bigger sticks until you add twigs, grass and bark shavings and things like that on the fire to get it started. Then you can add the larger sticks and get it going at that point.

Extinguish your campfire by drenching it with water, and repeat this step until all embers are dead. Alternatively, cover the embers with a thick layer of soil.

That’s our show…Funding provided in part by Ram Trucks. Guts. Glory. Ram

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