Passport to Texas

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

Lake Fork is the site of the first annual Toyota Texas Bass Classic, scheduled April 13 through 15. The organizers of this one million dollar tournament had to figure out how to work with the agency’s restrictive management policy.

We manage that lake with a 16 to 24 inch slot limit. Which means fish between 16 and 24 inches must be released immediately. They can’t be held in a live well or carried to a weigh-in.

Phil Durocher is Director if Inland Fisheries at Texas Parks and Wildlife.

We’ve been working with them and they’ve developed a format where they’re going to actually weigh the fish on the boats as they catch them and release them on the spot. So, it will be the first time anywhere in the country that we’ve had a top-notch professional bass tournament on a lake with really restrictive length limits.

In addition, the professional anglers will work as four-man teams.

Two of the anglers by draw are going to go out and fish the morning session. And then, they’re going t get together with the other two anglers on that team, where they have a strategy session about what they need to do in the afternoon. And in the afternoon the other two anglers are going to go out, and fish based on the information and the patterns they discussed with the anglers that fished in the morning. You know, these anglers are not used to fishing in teams. So it’s going to be interesting to see what happens. They’re going to have to work together to win this event. It’s reality fishing.

Get tournament details on the Texas Parks and Wildlife website.

That’s our show… supported by the Sort Fish Restoration program. ..funded by your purchase of fishing equipment and motor boat fuels.

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 met with Phil Durocher, Director of Inland Fisheries, on a day when a noisy construction crew was working outside his window. But the racket didn’t distract him from the topic of our interview – fishing in Texas.

Fishing is big business in Texas. And on the freshwater side alone, it’s estimated to be somewhere in the neighborhood of about a four billion dollar a year industry.

One fish that draws anglers to Texas from across the country is the large-mouthed bass.

The bass are the number one fish in fresh water. It’s estimated that over half of all the fishermen in Texas fish solely for bass. It’s a big part of our business, and it’s the most popular fish in the united states.

And Durocher isn’t shy when it comes to sharing what he’d like to see for bass angling in Texas.

It is big business, and we’d like to get all of it in Texas if we could.

He may get his wish after the first annual Toyota Texas Bass Classic takes place at Lake Fork next month.

It’s going to be a one million dollar tournament. I don’t know what they purse is going to be for individuals, but the total package is one million dollars.

We’ll learn about the tournament on tomorrow’s show.

We’ve been working with them and have developed a format where they’re going to actually weigh the fish on the boats as they catch them, and release them on the spot.

That’s our show…sponsored by the Sport Fish Restoration Program… funded by your purchase of fishing equipment and motor boat fuels.

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 and Wildlife Restoration Program

It’s time to enjoy our state parks; and Texas Parks and Wildlife TV series producer, Don Cash, says the show delivers an eyeful of parks all month long.

And a couple of them come to mind. Martin Dies, Junior SP in Jasper, which suffered quite a bit of hurricane damage from hurricane Rita, and was closed for awhile, has reopened part of their camping area, and they are again doing the float trip down the Angelina River.

The Angelina River down here is really…it’s very clean. The water’s pretty clear. It’s really nice. Makes the trip real enjoyable.

One of the other parks is Goose Island SP, which is on the coast across the Copano Bay across from Rockport and Fulton. Fishing is the big thing at Goose Island.

Ever since I been a little kid been coming out here. It’s relaxing. One of these days we might get lucky and catch a fish.

You can fish out of a boat. You can wade fish. You can take your kayak into the shallows. And they’ve got a sixteen hundred foot fishing pier at Goose Island SP that people are fishing on all day and all night.

Check local listings to see when the show airs in your town.

That’s our show…supported by the Sport Fish and Wildlife restoration Program… funded by your purchase of fishing and hunting equipment and motor boat fuels.

For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti

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The year 2006 marked a major milestone in the recovery of the endangered Kemp’s Ridley sea turtle. Mexican and U.S. scientists staged the largest single-day turtle release since the bi-national recovery project began three decades ago, helping two hundred forty thousand (240,000) turtle hatchlings wriggle across the sand and into the Gulf of Mexico. Even though sea turtle nestings on Texas and Mexico beaches soared to record highs in 2006, biologists are tempering jubilation with caution, saying current levels of funding and work must continue for the world’s most endangered sea turtle to fully recover. Tom Harvey has this report.

Read about Ridley Recovery

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