Passport to Texas

Redfish on the half shell on the grill.

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Through December, adult red drum, called bull redfish, congregate near shore in spawning aggregations, making them easily accessible, but not easy to reel in.

05—They’re very powerful; and if you ever catch one it would be like trying to hold a bull in place.

Bill Balboa is a fisheries biologist for the Galveston Bay system. These fish get pretty big – some as long at 48 inches. They’re good looking fish, but are they good eating at that size?

13— It’s just a matter of how you prepare it. It’s going to be a large fillet, so you may want to cut it perpendicular to the long axis of the fish, so you that you get long, narrow strips of meat – sort of like steaks – because, you’re not running along muscle fibers.

I know Bill is a home cook and griller, so I asked him how he might prepare one of these big fish.

21— One of the most popular ways, especially for some of these big ones, is what they call redfish on the half shell. You fillet the fish, you leave the skin and the scales on – you can even leave the ribcage intact on the fillet – and you throw it on the barbecue pit. You can season the flesh with whatever you like. The beauty is, the scales and the skin is so tough, it’s almost impossible to burn the meat of the fish.

Bill says he partially covers the fish with foil and if it is a large fillet, cooks it over direct heat for about 8-10 minutes.

That’s our show…The Sport Fish and Wildlife Restoration program supports our series.

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

Catching Redfish

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Red drum, also called redfish, is a favorite among coastal anglers. And now is the time of year when this species make a big splash.

08— From about August to November or December, adult red drum congregate near the beach in these spawning aggregations.

Bill Balboa is a fisheries biologist for the Galveston Bay system. This concentration of red drum near the beaches is the annual red bull run.

06— So, they’re very big fish; they can run anywhere from 30-inches to upwards of 46 to 48-inches long.

Balboa says the name Bull redfish is a coastal colloquialism for any big fish in the gulf or estuaries.

11—But [they’re] also [called bulls] because they’re very powerful; and if you ever catch one it would be like trying to hold a bull in place. They’re very strong fish.

Medium to heavy fishing tackle with 12 to 30 pound test line, using crab, finger mullet or cut bait could help you real in these big boys.

21— If you catch a red drum between 20 and 28 inches long, you can keep three per day per person. If you catch one that’s over 30-inches long, with a Texas saltwater fishing license, we have a bonus red drum tag. So, if you catch a red drum that’s over 28-inches long, the fish has to be tagged after you catch it, and the tag has to be filled out. So, you can keep one fish over 28 inches.

We have more coastal fishing information on the Texas Parks and Wildlife website. The Sport Fish Restoration program supports our series.

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

Native Texas Bumblebee, Image from Native Plant Society of Texas, www.npsot.org

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Bumblebees and solitary bees are the native bees of Texas.

09— Compared to honeybees, native bees have far less interest in term of research and money and organized conservation.

That’s too bad because native bee populations are declining from loss of habitat and plant diversity, says TPW invertebrate biologist Michael Warriner. Should they decline significantly, that could further affect what you see on the landscape.

13— If decline happens, you may see over decades, fewer of certain plants. Maybe you don’t see that wildflowers as frequently as you did or that flowering shrub as much as you did. And they slowly just disappear off the landscape.

We can all help the native bee populations.

19—The landscape of Texas has changed so much that we’ve lost a lot of plant diversity – particularly of those plants that bees need for nectar and pollen. Even if you live in the heart of a city, if you planted just a few more good native plants that produce good nectar and pollen – you can help to support the native bees in those areas.

Find resources for supporting native bees at passporttotexas.org.

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.
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Native Texas Bee Resources:

http://www.txnativebees.com/
http://www.beewatchers.com/bee-watchers.html
http://dallas.culturemap.com/news/food-drink/06-09-13-north-texas-farmer-garden-native-solitary-bees/
https://www.facebook.com/texasnativebees
https://www.facebook.com/texasnativebees#!/texasbumblebees

Native Solitary Bee. Image from www.txnativebees.com.

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Although we’re concerned about the loss of honeybees from colony collapse disorder, this might ease your mind:

12— You have to think of honeybees as a farm animal. We can grow more of those. And we can produce more honeybee queens, which can in turn, grow more honeybee colonies.

That’s TPW invertebrate biologist Michael Warriner. While we focus on replaceable non-native European honeybees, we’re neglecting our irreplaceable native bee populations, also in decline.

17—If we lose native bees, we can’t necessarily breed more of those because we don’t know how. We don’t necessarily know what kinds of things they prefer – because we’re not managing them. They’re existing in natural habitat that we’re losing. Honeybees are pretty much a domesticated animal we can breed
more of.

Native bees play a valuable role in the ecosystem.

18— They play the biggest role in maintaining native plant communities. And a lot of those plants have to be pollinated by bees. As we lose bees, those plants will be less able to produce viable seed, which means that they just slowly disappear off the landscape.

How to help native bees…that’s tomorrow.

That’s our show…the Wildlife and Sport Fish Restoration program supports our series, and funds diverse conservation projects in Texas.

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

Dinosaur Track at Dinosaur Valley State Park

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Artist, photographer and sculptor, Mike O’Brien, has spent the past 15 years documenting tracks in the Paluxy River near Glen Rose made millions of years ago by dinosaurs. He’s featured this month on the Texas parks and Wildlife TV series. Producer Ron Kabele.

59— When he started this, he didn’t have access to all the cheap technology that he has now. Now he can do 3-D tracks, he can do geo-positioning of each track. And then, when you combine it with Google Earth, he gets some fascinating maps.

This segment airs the week of September 22. Check local listings.

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