Passport to Texas

Primitive camping site

Recreation/Safety: Keeping Kids Safe While Camping Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

If given a chance, children—even those enamored with electronic devices—will crave time outdoors.

07— Once they’re out and having a good time, then they just don’t want to stop. And they don’t even miss the electronics. They don’t. They don’t miss the electronics at all.

With Father’s Day coming up, Robert Ramirez — an education and outreach training specialist with TPW — says it’s an opportunity for dad to take the family on a weekend camping trip. He says: plan for success and safety.

33— You know, I have a laundry list of items that –as far as the planning goes — part of it is to educate them about the campsite, about the water facility. What they can do. What they cannot do. Where they can go. What to use. If they’re going to need a PFD [personal flotation device], or if they’re going to just go hiking to wear a whistle all the time. My kids always wear a whistle when they’re out and about at the parks. It’s very important to educate them about their surroundings — what to look for and what to stay away from.

No, never have. But, it’s so tempting for them; it’s hard to not use it just to see what happens with dad…where dad comes running from.

Are you new to overnight camping? Enroll in a Texas Outdoor Family workshop where your tribe will learn the basics of fun and safety in the outdoors. Locate workshops on the TPW website.

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

Family camping trip at Bastrop State Park

Recreation: Camping with Dad Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Camping offers parents an opportunity to bond with their children, and the kiddos a chance to connect with nature.

15— Kids love camping, and to get them outdoors is so important. Especially nowadays even more so with all the electronics that are out there. They are tomorrow’s leaders, and we want them to be conservation leaders. So it’s very important to get them outside and to have a good time with them.

Robert Ramirez is an education and outreach training specialist, and takes his kids camping whenever he can. With Father’s Day coming up, he encourages dads (and moms) to plan a camping trip with the kids. It doesn’t have to cost a lot.

16— You can find a lot of secondhand items at yard sales and Goodwill; my whole kitchen set is from Goodwill. It’s very inexpensive, and those are the kinds of things you’ll want outside that you can beat up or lose and won’t cost so much. And camping gear also – it’s there for you to find at yard sales and second hand stores for sure.

If you’re new to camping, consider a backyard test run.

15— Once you have your equipment and get outside in the backyard and do a test run – put up the tent and set up our little camp site and cook outside. That way you’re going to have an idea of what you’re going to need. Make a check-list of everything. And, educate your campers; that’s extremely important to do.

Find camping and safety information on the Texas Parks and Wildlife website.

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.

Flathead catfish, courtesy Virtual Aquarium, Virginia Tech

Fishing: Help Improve Catfish Management Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Hand-fishing for catfish, also called noodling, is a new way to fish in Texas even though it’s been going on for years.

06— And it’s typically passed on from generation to generation. There isn’t a lot of new folks being added to the sport.

Hand-fishers use only their bare hands to bring a fish to shore. Kris Bodine is a fisheries research scientist. Hand-fishing became legal in Texas in 2011, and since then, TPW’s been trying to understand this user group and their needs.

15— What we’re finding is that a lot of these people fish with their family members — it’s just passed on down the chain. But a lot of these folks like this sport because it allows them an opportunity to catch really big fish that might be otherwise very difficult to catch.

Bodine and his cohorts are collecting data about them using a voluntary online survey.

29—In recent years we’ve been working on developing a statewide catfish management plan. And that catfish management plan requires us to have a suite of different kinds of information. One piece of information is we need to know about our anglers: what they want, who they are, what they’re catching, and how they want us to manage the fisheries. Because they are a new angling group to us, and we know nothing about them — virtually. We need to consider their needs in our future management practices.

The survey’s available through the end of this month. Find a link to it at passporttotexas.org [find link to survey below].

The Wildlife and Sport fish Restoration program supports our series and is funded by your purchase of hunting and fishing equipment and motorboat fuel.

For Texas Parks and Wildlife, I’m Cecilia Nasti.
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HAND FISHING SURVEY
The survey should take five to 10 minutes to complete online at https://survey.tpwd.state.tx.us/TakeSurvey.aspx?SurveyID=8803304. Anglers may complete the survey any time between now and June 30.

Blue catfish – a fighter and biter for those who “noodle.”

Fishing: Giving Fish a Hand Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Noodling or hand fishing is a preferred way to land big catfish, for some.

15— What they do is they find holes that are typically on the bank, or in structure timber, what have you. And, fishermen will search around in the water blindly, feeling in holes until they find these fish, and then they’ll pull them out with their hands.

Whether the anglers get the catfish, or the catfish get the anglers is up for debate.

07— Some of them will tell you they’ll be as gentle as a kitty cat, and some of them will meet you at the door, ready to snap on.

Kris Bodine is a research scientist at Heart of the Hills Fisheries Science Center.

09—They [hand fishers] tell me that actually blue catfish are a little more aggressive than the flat head catfish, and a lot of the hand fishers don’t want to catch blue catfish because they’re so aggressive.

Although hand fishing is not a new sport, it only became legal in Texas in 2011, which means researchers are in the beginning stages of studying this unique user group.

16—It seems at the outset right now, in terms of the data we’re collecting, that we don’t have a very big user group. There’s probably not a lot of folks going out there hand fishing. In fact, they don’t even have a very long window to do it. It’s typically during the spawning season, so they only have a couple months to hand fish.

A survey for hand-fishing enthusiasts. That’s tomorrow.

The Wildlife and Sport Fish Restoration program supports our series and is funded by your purchase of hunting and fishing equipment and motorboat fuel.

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

Trophy buck taken by Tom Roughton with guide Rene Garza, January 17, 2006.

TPW TV: Buck Fever Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

While hiking, you spy a buck in the distance with large, perfectly formed antlers. Your heart races; your breath becomes shallow; your nerves tingle. Hunters call this buck fever. What do perfect antlers look like?

06— Nice smooth lines, tall tines coming off the main beams; very symmetrical one side to the other.

John Stein should know; he’s curator at the Buckhorn Saloon and Museum in San Antonio, where antler and taxidermy covered walls draw visitors by the thousands.

05— Overall, in the collection, there’s over 12-hundred trophies that are on the walls –of all difference species.

Some hunters pay landowners handsomely to bag trophy animals—money that’s funneled into land management and conservation. For 25 years, deer experts at the Kerr WMA have studied the genetic and nutritional aspects of antler growth in bucks, and have shared the data with landowners; biologist, Gene Fuchs.

15— The information that we’ve gained from this study shows that through selection – by never allowing a buck that was a spike to ever breed a doe – we produced no spike antler yearling bucks two years in a row. And, the percentage of good quality antler yearling bucks has steadily increased.

Learn more this week when a segment called Buck Fever airs on the TPW PBS TV Series. Check your local listings.