Passport to Texas

iSnapper App to report your red snapper landings

New Red Snapper App Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

With a 365 day season and four fish daily bag limit, red snapper is popular among recreational Gulf anglers in TX. Abundant in Texas waters, Parks and Wildlife employs various tools to monitor snapper populations.

05- We have bag seines, gill nets, and creel surveys–where we interview anglers to look at their catch.

Jeremy Leitz is with Coastal Fisheries. Last year the agency rolled out an online reporting tool for anglers to voluntarily share their snapper landing information.

06- However, in the very near future, there will be a free app coming out along with a new site to report your landings on.

That FREE app is iSnapper, developed by the Harte Research Institute. Leitz says iSnapper gives Texas Parks and Wildlife another tool to validate the data collected from current monitoring programs.

26- Anglers will be [voluntarily] inputting very basic information: it’s the date of the trip, how many people were on your trip, the number of fish caught, the number of snapper landed. Just very basic pieces of information–it will take just a few seconds to fill out. I’d like to emphasize only one person needs to report per trip. Our hope with this is that it just gives us another piece of information to help monitor that species, to help gather information on the population levels of fish that are out there. Also, it’s a way for anglers to be more involved in the management of the species.

Download the app from isnapper.org.

The Sport Fish Restoration program supports our series.

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

Grilled Shrimp

Fish | Cook: Learning to Cook Seafood Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

This is Passport to Texas

We love seafood, but when it comes to cooking it—most of us leave that to the professionals.

06— Because a lot of people are intimidated [by] seafood. They have this impression that it’s hard to cook.

But it’s not, says Rhonda Cummins with Texas AgriLife and Texas Sea Grant. Whether you harvest it yourself or pick up fresh fish from a local market, seafood is easier to prepare than you realize.

06— If you can master just a couple of quick easy [techniques] in the kitchen, you can cook seafood at home

The FREE monthly Cooking with Seafood classes Rhonda coordinates provide attendees the skills they need to prepare fresh seafood at home. Volunteer cooks teach demos, while fisheries biologists and others talk about the resource.

11— Sometimes I have to put the meal on hold because they’re still asking questions to the presenter. They’re coming to learn. I actually believe that it’s become more about interesting topics than about the food.

But there is food. The next FREE Cooking with Seafood class is Monday April 13 at the Calhoun County Fairgrounds outside Port Lavaca, and will include some combination of oysters, crabs, shrimp and fish.

14—The basic concept of the evening is going to be, you’ve harvested it, or you have bought it in its almost natural state at the fish market—what do you do with it next? So, we want to teach them some basic cleaning techniques and then cooking techniques.

Find out how you can attend at passporttotexas.org (see below).

The Sport Fish Restoration program supports our series. For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.

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If you want to attend the April 13, 2015 FREE Cooking with Seafood Demo, RSVP with Rhonda Cummins:

Cooking with Seafood
Free cooking demonstrations and samples using fresh, local seafood.
Calhoun County Fairgrounds, Bauer Exhibit Building
6 p.m.
RSVP to Rhonda Cummins: (361) 552-9747
Email: rcummins@tamu.edu

Fried oysters

Fish | Cook: Cooking Seafood Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Rhonda Cummins, coastal marine resource agent for Texas AgriLife and Texas Sea Grant, unintentionally became the de facto Seafood Cooking maven for her agencies.

04— I’ve got to admit: I may be the current maven, but I’m not the first.

She says Annette Hagen out of Rockport was Texas Sea Grant’s original seafood consumer educator.

11—And she created thousands of [seafood] recipes and we still pass them out today, They’re legendary.

But when Annette retired, they never refilled her position. So, years later, when Rhonda came along with an idea to help promote Texas fishermen by hosting seafood cooking demos, the baton was passed.

09— Now more than ever, we need to educate the consumer on their food choices. Not just know your farmer—it needs to be know our fishermen.

Rhonda teams up with colleagues from Texas Parks and Wildlife, Texas Sea Grant, and members of the community to demo seafood cookery.

22— Because a lot of people are intimidated [by] seafood. They have this impression that it’s hard to cook. Some people view it as a little pricey; they think it’s only for special occasions; I don’t want to mess it up… But if you can master just a couple of quick easy [techniques] in the kitchen, you can cook seafood at home. And it’s so much cheaper [than restaurants], so much healthier, and it supports my local fishermen.

Demos are free; we’ll tell you more tomorrow. The Sport Fish Restoration supports our series and the work of Sea Center Texas… The Sport Fish Restoration program supports our series.

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

Texas Parks and Wildlife Texas Outdoor Annual App

Tech: Outdoor Annual App Helps Anglers Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Smart phones and tablets continue to grow in popularity among the general public.

04— We’ve also noticed that our anglers are using those devices.

Tim Peterson, Texas Parks and Wildlife’s director of creative and interactive services, says that as the weather warms, anglers want to get on the water. With the Texas Outdoor Annual app they can spend more time fishing and less time wondering if they’re in compliance.

15— If an angler is sitting in a particular water body or lake – or near a water body or lake – they can use the GPS function in the app, locate the lake that they’re at or near, and they can see the bag limits and the exceptions for that particular lake.

The FREE Texas Outdoor Annual app is a convenient way for anglers of all ages to keep up with regulations.

24—The whole idea with the app was not only to make it mobile, but also make it easy for folks to use while in the field. We’re seeing a wide range of ages [using mobile devices], so it’s not just a younger audience; it’s a new audience. Anecdotally, I will tell you that I spent some time with my 80-year-old father-in-law this last weekend, and he used his mobile device as much as my 12-year-old daughter.

The free Texas Outdoor Annual App is available in iTunes or Google Play storefronts and you can also find more information on the Texas Parks and Wildlife website.

Funding for our series provided in part by Ram Trucks. Guts. Glory. Ram

For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti

Art Morris with his saltwater catch.

Fishing: Saltwater Fishing in 2015 Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Variety and quality – that’s what anglers can expect when fishing in Texas bays.

12— Spotted sea trout and red drum on any given cast. Throw on the occasional flounder and black drum…. There’s just tremendous opportunity there for any sort of skill level at any time of the year for that matter.

Art Morris, with coastal fisheries says his favorite is the Upper Laguna Madre.

24— I’ve been fishing it since I was a child, and it’s those trophy sized spotted sea trout that I like to go after. You’ve got clear water, shallow grass flats; you’ve got deep water reefs, and you use top waters and site cast the fish. And, oftentimes, it’s just the perfect setting for sport fishing on the Texas coast – for me, personally.

Each bay system is different and requires different tactics and baits.

25— As you move down the coast, the water tends to get clearer, so we tend to use more variety of stuff on the lower coast as far as artificial lures and bait. On the upper coast the water gets a little more turbid; you get more into live bait fishing, dead bait fishing. Some artificial use up there, but yeah, as you move down and up the coast, each bay is unique and have their own techniques that work best in those particular areas.

Want more? Check out Art Morris’ article on bay fishing in the digital fishing issue at tpwmagazine.com.

The Wildlife and Sport Fish Restoration program supports our series.

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