Passport to Texas

Bird watching along the coast

Birding/Wildlife: Birding Classic, 1 Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

What started 18 years ago as a way for Texas Parks and Wildlife to promote its Coastal Birding Trails and fund conservation projects, the Great Texas Birding Classic has since become one of the country’s premier birding tournaments.

08—The birding classic allows you to test your skills and see how you rank against other birders here, in one of the best birding locations in the world.

Shelly Plante oversees nature tourism for the agency. Once held exclusively along the Texas coast, in 2013 the tournament became statewide.

07—You can now go in your backyard; you can go down the street to your favorite park; you can travel wherever you wanted, and you can do this anywhere.

The Birding classic has an expanded date range.

17—From April 15th through May 15th. You get to pick what day you participate. You can pick that based on the weather, on your team’s schedules –whatever works for you. In the past we designated specific days for a tournament, and everybody had to compete on those specific days regardless of weather.

Register your team for the Great Texas Birding Classic by April 1, and compete April 15 through May 15. There’s more information at birdingclassic.org.

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

The stars at night….

Meteor Showers in Texas Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

07—You can see a meteor on any night of the year if you get lucky, but it’s in the showers that you have a much higher chance of seeing something.

Anita Cochran is the assistant director at the McDonald Observatory. Dark skies are necessary to view meteors.

10—The most important thing for watching meteors is to get to dark skies. These things are not super bright. In order to see it, you probably want to be in the second half of the night because the moon will be up for the beginning.

There are more than twelve annual meteor showers, with the Orionids coming up on October 21st – but Cochran believes star gazers should leave city limits to view them.

11—Some cities have regions where you can get away from the light. Many of the larger cities in Texas, there’s really no place you can go to get away from the significant amount of light and so you’d be much better off going out into the country.

Cochran claims you won’t regret the trip.

14—A good meteor shower is something that very much worth going out and seeing because it’s kind of fun to see these things go shooting through the sky. It’s always more fun to go with people and everyone is sitting there “Oh! Look at that one!” “Oh, look at that one!” And so if you get a chance to see a good meteor shower, it’s worth doing.

Want to see more meteors? The Leonids appear the night of November 16, and the Geminids fill the night sky December 12&13.

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

Big Time Texas Hunts

Event: Big Time Texas Hunts Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Big Time Texas Hunts provides hunters an opportunity to enter for a chance to win one of 8 hunt packages.

04— You can enter through the deadline of October 15th.

Linda Campbell oversees Private Lands and Public Hunting at Texas Parks and Wildlife Website. Entries for a hunt of a lifetime are $9 online (with a one-time $5 admin charge) or $10 at license retailers, by phone and by mail.

20— Big Time Texas Hunts is a revenue generating program for Texas Parks and Wildlife; we offer eight hunt packages. Awesome experiences for hunters – really great hunting packages – for deer, and birds and waterfowl, alligator. We even have a new one this year called the Wild Hog Adventure.

Funds collected from entries support wildlife conservation projects in Texas.

13—These are fully guided hunts, and so everything is provided – lodging and food – all the guiding is also provided. You just have to get yourself there to the location. But other than that, everything is taken care of – including the taxes on the hunt itself.

Most hunt packages allow winners to bring either hunting or non-hunting guests. Whether or not draw your name, Linda Campbell says: everyone wins.

05—You’re adding to the opportunity to support wildlife conservation and public hunting.

Find details on the Texas Parks and Wildlife Website.

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

Catching Redfish

Angling: Bull Redfish Run Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Red drum, also called redfish, is a favorite among coastal anglers. And now is the time of year when this species make a big splash.

08— From about August to November or December, adult red drum congregate near the beach in these spawning aggregations.

Bill Balboa is a fisheries biologist for the Galveston Bay system. This concentration of red drum near the beaches is the annual red bull run.

06— So, they’re very big fish; they can run anywhere from 30-inches to upwards of 46 to 48-inches long.

Balboa says the name Bull redfish is a coastal colloquialism for any big fish in the gulf or estuaries.

11—But [they’re] also [called bulls] because they’re very powerful; and if you ever catch one it would be like trying to hold a bull in place. They’re very strong fish.

Medium to heavy fishing tackle with 12 to 30 pound test line, using crab, finger mullet or cut bait could help you real in these big boys.

21— If you catch a red drum between 20 and 28 inches long, you can keep three per day per person. If you catch one that’s over 30-inches long, with a Texas saltwater fishing license, we have a bonus red drum tag. So, if you catch a red drum that’s over 28-inches long, the fish has to be tagged after you catch it, and the tag has to be filled out. So, you can keep one fish over 28 inches.

We have more coastal fishing information on the Texas Parks and Wildlife website. The Sport Fish Restoration program supports our series.

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.