Passport to Texas

This is Passport to Texas

It’s trout season in Texas. It’s when Texas Parks and Wildlife Inland Fisheries stocks hundreds of thousands of rainbow trout in lakes and neighborhood fishing ponds to provide a unique winter angling experience.

06—Trout are a cold water species and they like the cold water and they regularly bite at this time of the year.

Steve Magnelia is a fisheries biologist with inland fisheries. If you think Texans are the only ones enjoying this winter treat, you should know that Trout Unlimited named the Guadalupe River near Canyon Dam, one of the top 100 trout streams in North American.

10—One of the things I think that gets it into the top 100 is that you can come down here during the winter and enjoy trout fishing. And we get a lot of people from up north that come down to the Guadalupe during the winter months to fish.

And because the water in the river near the dam is cold—below 75 degrees —the fish often survive Texas summers; some of the rainbows can get big and feisty.

18—It’s one thing to catch the 8 to 10 inch fish that we stock every winter, but when you hook into a 4 or 5 pounder, it’s pretty exciting. It’s fun when you hook up with one and they jump out of the water like a tarpon, which they do. Those big ones like to jump and they’ll jump out of the water 4 or 5 times trying to throw your bait. It’s pretty neat.

Find other trout stocking location on the Texas Parks and Wildlife website.

The Sport Fish and Wildlife Restoration Program… supports our series as well as conservation programs in Texas.

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

Fish/Wildlife: Canyon Lake Rainbow Trout, 2 Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

This is Passport to Texas

We don’t have much in the way of native trout in Texas.

12—The only native trout that we’re aware of are maybe some Rio Grande cutthroat trout that were in the McKittrick Canyon area of the Guadalupe Mountains. Other than that, there are no native trout we know of in Texas.

Which is why, says Steve Magnelia, Parks and Wildlife stocks lakes and neighborhood ponds with rainbow trout every winter.

10—The winter trout program is to provide anglers with a different species to fish for during the winter months when our warm water fish like largemouth bass and other species aren’t readily biting.

Magnelia, an inland fisheries biologist, says because trout won’t survive in water warmer than 75-degrees, the rainbows anglers don’t reel in during winter perish as the water heats up—unless they are in the Guadalupe near Canyon Dam.

08—Because it’s a cold water discharge from Canyon Lake, the water stays cold enough during the summer to sustain trout all year round.

So, if they’ve habituated, does that mean they’ve become a self-sustaining population as well?

08—We don’t have any real evidence that the fish spawn and reproduce in the river, but we do know that they carry over from one winter to the next.

Find other trout stocking locations on the Texas Parks and Wildlife website.

The Sport Fish and Wildlife Restoration Program… supports our series as well as conservation programs in Texas. For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti

Fish/Wildlife: Rainbow Trout in Canyon Lake Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

This is Passport to Texas

Before you sell seashells by the seashore, you first have to find them. Surprisingly, summer beach combing may not yield the results you desire.

I feel the best time to go shelling is in the wintertime.

Paul Hammerschmidt, with coastal fisheries, is a lifelong and—admittedly obsessive—shell collector. He says winter storms churn up the Gulf bottom, sending marine critters and their calciferous containments onto the beach. To improve your chances of finding a variety of intact shells, Hammerschmidt says stay clear of crowded beaches.

If you get a chance to go to some more isolated beaches, like down on Padres island, or something like that, where the population of humans is not quite so thick, you’ll have a much better chance of finding some really unusual shells.

Such as a pretty little shell called baby ears—which looks like…well…baby ears. Or, there’s another special shell worth searching for called spirula.

And it’s a coiled, snail-like shell. But it doesn’t belong to a snail—it belongs to a little squid. And it’s inside the squid, and when the squid dies, that little thing has a lot of chambers in it with gas, and it floats and washes up on the beach. Those are very pretty, bright white, and they’re very fragile, so you have to be careful with them.

This winter, instead of heading to the slopes for skiing, head to the beach for shelling…you can still have hot cocoa when you’re done.

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

Nature: Winter Shell Collecting Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Passport to Texas from Texas Parks and Wildlife

Nobody thinks twice about collecting shells from the beach. But I started to wonder if it’s really okay since beaches are public land.

It’s okay to collect shells. The ones that are broken and come apart, they create the sand that’s out there, but there is no law against it [collecting].

Paul Hammerschmidt, with coastal fisheries, is a lifelong shell collector. He says collect responsibly to avoid creating problems for the environment or marine animals.

I highly recommend that you only take shells that are from dead animals—not live animals.

How can you determine if something is still alive? In the case of the popular sand dollar, small spines cover the shells of living animals…so look for smooth, spineless shells. If, like me, you’ve never found a sand dollar on the beach—there’s good reason for it.

I think it’s because everybody wants to get a sand dollar. And, too, they’re another very fragile shell. And when the waves are strong, they’ll get broken up, and you’ll just see fragments of them. A lot of times, the best time to find a sand dollar, is after a storm—and then very early in the morning—before anybody else gets out on the beach.

More tips on when and where to go shelling tomorrow. Continue this story online at passporttotexas.org.

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

Nature: The Shell Game Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

This is Passport to Texas

For an inexpensive, entry-level fishing experience the entire family can enjoy, it doesn’t get much easier than winter rainbow trout fishing in Texas.

05—In fact that’s one of the fish we use at the Expo each year to allow kids to catch their first fish.

Carl Kittle oversees the Texas Parks and Wildlife trout-stocking program. The agency will distribute up to 285-thousand fish to 120 sites—including additional urban locations—between December and March.

14—We’re excited about having a number of new ponds online for our neighborhood fishing program. We actually stock slightly larger trout and we stock frequently—every other week—at specific sites that are set up near urban centers to provide opportunities for urban anglers.

If you prefer to get away from the city for your rainbow connection, then state parks provide the perfect escape.

14—A number of our state park ponds will get stocked with trout. For those ponds and lakes that are located completely within a state park, the license will not be required. The limits will still apply: five fish per day, and there is no size limit on trout.

Anglers fishing in locations other than state parks must have a valid license.

Find the trout-stocking schedule at the Texas Parks and Wildlife website.

That’s our show…with support from the SF Restoration Program… helping to fund fish hatchery management and operations in Texas.

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

Family Winter Fishing Fun: Rainbow Trout Play Now | Play in Popup | Download