Passport to Texas

Paddling in Texas

TPW Magazine - Gently Down the Stream Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

This is Passport to Texas

Photo-journalist, Camille Wheeler, grew up in a farming and ranching family in West Texas, and remains a country girl at heart, despite living in the Capital City since the mid-1990s.

I didn’t grow up around very much water. So, while I was a country girl, I’ve always had a fascination with rivers and streams.

Given her fascination for flowing water, she wondered why she’d never explored Austin’s Lady Bird Lake.

So, about a year ago [in January], I went out—really for the first time by myself—on a kayak, on Lady Bird Lake. And the lake was just filled with all these wintering birds. And the double crested cormorant is one of my favorite birds in the world. There were so many of them, and I could paddle up close to them and take pictures. And I was like: Why have I not been doing this?

She discovered Lady Bird Lake is in Texas Parks and Wildlife’s Paddling Trails Program, which gave her an idea for an article. She shared the idea with TPW magazine’s editor, and the agency’s nature tourism manager.

We came up with this idea of me traveling around the state as a beginner [paddler] who has medium knowledge of birds, and putting the two things together for readers.

Read about it in the March issue of Texas Parks and Wildlife Magazine. On tomorrow’s show: how Camille Wheeler found the middle of nowhere in the middle of everywhere on an urban paddling trail.

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.

Beautiful but deadly lionfish. Image from Harte Research Institute.

Fighting the Threat of Lionfish in Texas Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

This is Passport to Texas

With amazing appetites and reproductive abilities, lionfish are a growing threat to native Texas marine life.

Everybody agreed lionfish was a problem, but we weren’t working together. And that’s always a challenge, because this is not going to be fixed by biologists.

Leslie Hartman, Matagorda Bay Program Leader, said during last year’s Lone Star Lionfish symposium organizations worked together to address this issue.

We brought together engineers, biologists, legal professionals, including enforcement and lawyers. We brought in oil, shrimpers…academicians. We brought in a roboticist expert. All this, because you cannot fix the lionfish issue with a single, non-existent silver bullet.

Participants developed seven parameters of need, including funding, research, and regulation—and assigned each one an approximate cost and pragmatic rating.

Using these approximate costs and the pragmatic rating, things should float to the top. [We can say] this is a really good value, and it’s really practical. So this would be something that we would rate high. All of this is to create a unified state plan. And we’re going to be able to disseminate it to the universities, and the engineers, and the regulators, and say: ‘this is what a whole bunch of experts determined as being the most appropriate way to go about this, so that it can be most effective.’

The Second Annual Lone Star Lionfish Symposium is February 15 & 16.

The Sport fish restoration program supports our series.

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

Pretty but deadly to native aquatic species.

The Problem with Lionfish Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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The lionfish, native to the Pacific Ocean, is a common species in the aquarium trade.

But a couple of them have gotten loose

Leslie Hartman—Matagorda Bay Program Leader—says lionfish wasted no time getting busy making more of their kind.

They get to reproductive age in one year. They breed every four days. They can be found in an inch of water. They can be found in 12-hunderd feet of water. These guys are really super successful. And they’re Americanized. They’re willing to eat past the point when they’re full, until they get fat.

And what they eat are native marine species.

We’re really concerned about how many of our fish, shrimp and crabs their eating. In the Caribbean—and they’ve been there quite a number of years before us—a single Lionfish on a little coral reef, consumed 80% of that season’s young.

Because of their voracious appetites, their reproductive prowess, and the fact that they haven’t any predators…

We’re really concerned long term for the effect it’s going to have on all of our fisheries. Whether it’s the commercial shrimp and blue crab, whether it’s the recreational snapper, redfish, trout—we just know we need to be concerned.

Tomorrow Leslie Hartman tells us about what’s being done to prevent lionfish from becoming a problem in Texas.

The Sport fish restoration program supports our series.

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

Derelict crab traps collected from Chocolate Bayou.

2017 Crab Trap Cleanup Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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Commercial crab fishermen use baited wire traps to lure their prey. Sometimes traps end up missing due to storms, or they are simply discarded.

These traps continue ghost fishing for months or years—capturing fish and other marine creatures, including endangered species—taking an environmental and economic toll on gulf fisheries.

In February of 2002, Texas Parks and Wildlife conducted the first abandoned crab trap removal program; and 2017 marks the 15th cleanup. During a 10-day period this month, volunteers like you, will join Texas Parks and Wildlife staff and partners, in removing derelict traps.

This year’s cleanup is February 17th through the 26th. The big cleanup “push” is Saturday, February 18 from 10 to noon. This is the only time citizens may remove these traps from gulf waters.

More than 32,000 derelict crab traps have been removed from the gulf since 2002, saving tens of thousands of marine organisms.

Texas Parks and Wildlife and partners facilitate roughly 20 sites coast wide and provide disposal facilities, and supply volunteers with tarps, gloves, crab trap hooks and other items.

To volunteer for this year’s program visit the Abandoned Crab Trap Removal page on the Texas Parks and Wildlife website.

The Sport Fish restoration Program supports our series.

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

Baits and lures are an angler’s friend.

Using Baits and Lures to Your Advantage Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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Nothing beats live bait for catching fish. Yet, manmade lures have been around a long time—because they work.

For example, take the spinner bait. The spinning blades are designed to catch a fish’s attention as they move through the water. The flashing silver looks just like a tasty minnow.

Steve Campbell worked in Outreach and Education at Texas Parks and Wildlife, specializing in angler education.

Another popular lure is the top water lure. Because it floats on top of the water, it works best in calm waters where it is visible to fish below. To use a top water…cast…wait for the bait to settle, and then pop your rod tip; repeat until you get a strike.

The crankbait is a fun lure to work with. It has a kind lip that extends from the front of the lure.

This lip causes the bait to dive down through the water as you crank on the reel. As soon as you cast your crankbait, turn the reel quickly a couple of times so the lip will catch the water and pull down. Stop reeling, and the lure begins to float back up. Your goal is to imitate an injured fish darting through the water.

Lures come in all shapes and sizes, and your tackle dealer can help you select the right lures for your next fishing trip.

And remember: while natural bait is best, it’s always a good idea to keep a couple of lures on hand when you get tired of feeding—I mean catching—the fish.

The Sport Fish restoration program supports our series.

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