BENEFITS OF DROUGHT—Can a bass fishery owes its 
success to drought? Find out on Passport to Texas. 

This is Passport to Texas (May 8)

Lake Travis is the site of this year’s Toyota Bassmaster 
Texas Fest May 17-20th.

Just a few short years ago the lake was at historic low 
levels due to extreme drought. However, Dave Terre, chief 
of fish management and research at TPWD says, the 
drought may have improved the fishery.

51— During those low water years, what happened is a lot of 
terrestrial vegetation grew up into the lake bed, or on the edges 
of the lake. Then, in 2015, when we caught all that new water, it 
flooded all that terrestrial vegetation, creating an immense 
amount of fish habitat at the lake. Then, TPWD came in there 
and stocked Florida largemouth bass into the reservoir; plus we 
had a lot of natural spawning of bass also at the same time, and 
the bass population just took off wildly. And now, we’re just 
seeing the result of that increased fish production.  And these 
strong year classes of fish up pushing through. And fishing has 
really been amazing on Lake Travis. And now is a great 
opportunity with the Toyota Bass Master Texas Fest to 
showcase this great fishery to a worldwide audience.

It’s free to attend the Toyota Bassmaster Texas Fest, May 
17-20th, on Lake Travis. Find details at bassmaster.com.

The Sport Fish Restoration program supports our series.

For Texas Parks and Wildlife, Cecilia Nasti.













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