Passport to Texas

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

What could be more relaxing than kayaking along an inland or coastal paddling trail, taking in the beauty of nature?

Water trails are one of the last public resources in the state.

Shelly Plante is nature tourism coordinator for Texas Parks and Wildlife.

In a state that’s about ninety-six percent privately owned, waterways are public passage. So the public has access to these waterways, and we just want to let people where they can go, and easily access the sites with community help, and paddle and see nature from a different perspective – down low on the water.

A community must nominate a stretch of river, or coastline, and then a thorough evaluation must take place before acceptance into the paddling trail program.

Currently most of our trails are from Central Texas down to the coast. And so, we are lacking paddling trails that have been nominated for east Texas, the Dallas/Fort Worth area, the panhandle, west Texas…if we get too many for us to be able to do in a year, geographic diversity is going to play a role in which ones get accepted annually.

Tomorrow, we tell you how to nominate your stretch of river or coastline for the paddling trails program.

That’s our show for today…supported by the Sport Fish Restoration program… providing funding for wetland conservation through the Private Lands Enhancement Program.

For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti

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

There’s something special about experiencing Texas from a kayak or canoe. And lucky for us, we have coastal and inland paddling trails to accommodate all levels of watery wanderlust.

The Texas paddling trails program began informally about a decade ago when Texas Parks and Wildlife set up some coastal paddling trails.

Shelly Plante is nature tourism coordinator for Texas Parks and Wildlife. That first trail was just the beginning.

From that project, we now have seven coastal paddling trails in our paddling trail program. And, in March of 2006, we launched our first inland paddling trail in Luling.

Other inland paddling trails are set to open throughout the year. Active community partners, and a thorough evaluation, are required of all would be trails – inland or coastal.

There are a few steps that need to happen for a paddling trail to become one of ours. And that includes a river survey to look at the water quality. Look at the wildlife, ecology, fishing opportunities that can happen along that river or bay. And then, again, meeting with the community, having a community partner that’s actively involved and interested in having paddlers come to their site. And then, developing kiosk materials, because we will have educational kiosks at every access point.

More on paddling trails tomorrow.

That’s our show for today…supported by the Sport Fish Restoration program… providing funding for wetland conservation through the Private Lands Enhancement Program.

For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti

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Passport to Texas Outdoor Stories from Texas Parks and Wildlife

Paul Dockery, from San Antonio, emailed his outdoor story to us through our website: passporttotexas.org.

He told us he’s an avid outdoorsman and a member of the Christian Outdoor Alliance, http://www.mycoa.org/. He shares his favorite times spent in the outdoors.

You know, it’s not that any one in particular thing happens. It’s just the fact that we get to get to get away and spend some quality time together. And we’ll be out on God’s front porch enjoying the beautiful weather and just enjoying each other.

My favorite times in the outdoors are when I get to load up with my wife and the kids. And we’ll have an ice chest and some goodies in it, and some folding chairs and a portable grill, and we’ll drag our boat out to a riverbank somewhere in the Hill Country. And just spend the day getting by on what we didn’t forget to bring.

We’ll have some fishing rods, and things like that, and probably take the dog with us, and spend the day out enjoying the Hill Country.

Visit passportotexas.org and send us your outdoor story. We may invite you to tell it to Passport to Texas listeners, like Paul did. And if we use your story, we’ll send you a Life’s Better Outside t-shirt!

That’s our show for today… Remember: Life’s Better Outside…For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti

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Passport to Texas Outdoor Stories from Texas Parks and Wildlife

Austin resident, Bill Harwell’s, paternal grandmother and his great aunt Edna loved to fish… and often invited Bill and his cousin to share the adventure. This is his story:

One night I got the exciting news that my great aunt had come into possession of – what we called – a pontoon boat. But the even better part of it was we were going to go night fishing, which we had never done before. Her living in Atlanta, the best place to put in was a big lake, just southwest of Texarkana called Wright Patman Lake.

And so my cousin and I – we were probably about eight…nine…ten years old at the time…this is around 1960 -61 something like that — get all of our gear aboard (the two of us and these two ladies).

They tell us they’d been told that the best thing to attract fish, above and beyond the worms and the minnows, is to hang a couple of lanterns off the side of the pontoon boat…. maybe that is the best way to do it… but my main recollection was just this incredible plague-like swarm of June bugs, mosquitoes…getting bugs of all sorts and shapes in our soft drinks….up our noses…. We did do some good fishing, but the overwhelming remaining impression of night fishing for me is lots and lots of bugs.

Share your outdoor story with us when you visit the Passport to Texas website.

That’s our show for today… For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti

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

I’m uncoordinated, plus I don’t like feeling confined. So the thought of squeezing into a kayak, doesn’t float my boat. But, after talking with kayaking enthusiast Jim Blackburn, I realize I have options.

There’s hope for all of you out there that feel uncoordinated and have trouble – sit-on-top kayaks is the way to go.

Blackburn is kayaking enthusiast, and an environmental attorney and planner in Houston.

These open cockpit kayaks are really – in my opinion – the way to go because they’re so stable and they’re so non-confining. People who have had trouble with kayaks in the past absolutely love them. I have no trouble at all with stability with these sit-on-top kayaks.

The trade off with sit-on-top kayaks is… you get wet.

Water comes up around your bottom when you’re sitting there, so you get wet during the summer. During the winter, we wear waders when we waders when we use these kayaks.

Getting your britches soaked to get closer to the natural world is worth it, says Blackburn – who does his kayaking along the Texas coast.

With a kayak, you can glide right on top of water that’s only a few inches deep, and you can get right up on a lot of the birds for sure, and oftentimes can see a lot of the fish as well.

We’ll have kayaking tips and etiquette tomorrow.

Our show is supported by the Sport Fish Restoration Program… funded by your purchase of fishing and equipment and motor boat fuels.

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

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