Passport to Texas

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

Great bass fishing in Texas gets better when anglers donate their fish to Parks and Wildlife’s Sharelunker program. Program coordinator, David Campbell.

A Sharelunker is a largemouth bass that weighs 13 pounds or more, legally caught in the state of Texas from private waters and public waters.

Loraine Fries (Fr-EYE-Z) manages the A.E. Wood Genetics Lab in San Marcos. She says geneticists use pieces of fin from donated bass to take DNA “fingerprints.” Information they collect tells them if the fish came from their selective breeding program.

We’re retaining offspring from lunkers, and as they mature and are big enough, we breed them back to other lunkers. And the idea is we are increasing the genetic contribution of lunkers to those offspring.

Florida Largemouth bass, stocked in reservoirs, grow larger than native northern bass, and enhance trophy potential. Geneticist Dijar Lutz-Carrillo (DEE-har luhtz—kah-REE-oh) says, thus far, all donated lunkers have been kin to Florida bass.

All of those fish were either a Florida largemouth bass or a hybrid with Florida largemouth bass influence in the genome. Just using those largest fish, big Florida largemouth bass, and producing fish from them—do those fish get significantly larger than the Florida largemouth bass? And that’s where the fingerprinting comes in.

And possibly where the next world record comes in, too.

That’s our show…supported by a grant from the Sport Fish and Wildlife Restoration Program… working to increase fishing and boating opportunities in Texas.

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

Dijar Lutz-Carrillo (DEE-har luhtz—kah-REE-oh) is a geneticist at the A.E. Wood Laboratory in San Marcos.

And we do everything genetics related for Inland Fisheries.

Lutz-Carrillo says geneticists help to answer questions biologists might have about freshwater fish. Some of the questions currently being posed involve DNA “fingerprinting” of largemouth bass.

In terms of the DNA fingerprinting, the questions they’re specifically asking are: is this fish from this reservoir produced in the wild, or produced at the hatchery? And if it’s produced at the hatchery is it with the OWR program—or Operation World Record—and if it’s from that program, who are its parents in that program? So, you’re asking the question who’s your daddy? Yeah, that’s the question (laughs). And your mommy.

Largemouth bass top the list of popular freshwater sport fish…and Parks and Wildlife is attempting to produce world record bass using genetic testing and selective breeding. Loraine Fries (Fr-EYE-Z) is lab manager,

It’s all related to fisheries management and our interest in having the best fishing in the world here in Texas.

We’ll have more on this topic tomorrow.

That’s our show…supported by a grant from the Sport Fish and Wildlife Restoration Program… working to increase fishing, hunting, shooting and boating opportunities in Texas.

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

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Passport to Texas from Texas Parks and Wildlife and the Sportfish and Wildlife Restoration Program

The September issue of Texas Parks and Wildlife magazine offers a forecast for the hunting season ahead. Managing Editor, Louie Bond.

We have our hunting forecast in which we put on our turban, and we hold the card up to our forehead and say, ‘where is hunting going to be great, and what’s going to be plentiful, and what might not be. And, John Jefferson is a great long-time outdoors man and writer, and he interviews all of our top-notch biologists, and we analyze the weather…there’s a lot of complex factors that go into our prognostication. And we may get it right most of the time, or we may get a few things wrong, so…it’s very interesting, though, to try to look ahead and foresee the future. And then another really interesting article that we’re featuring this month is about dove hunting, and whether we should be using lead shot or not in hunting dove. Interestingly enough, this study that we’re doing is so extensive and so important that worldwide wildlife groups are waiting for the results of this. We’re studying every aspect of it. So, not only will our hunters be watching this, but worldwide people are going to be watching this to see where it’s going to lead. So, get out your camo; make sure it’s all ready; get our your guns and get them cleaned; buy your shot and get ready for a great hunting season.

Thanks Louie.

That’s our show…supported by a grant from the Sport Fish and Wildlife Restoration Program… working to increase fishing, hunting, shooting and boating opportunities in Texas.

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

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Passport to Texas from Texas Parks and Wildlife

The summer drought inspires one family to conserve water. Gretchen Mahan tells us more.

My family agreed to try and reduce their personal water use by implementing simple conservation techniques. The day before our experiment began, I printed out the San Antonio Water System conservation tips and posted them in bathrooms and the kitchen. My dad, Jim, reads one of the tips.

When brushing teeth, turn the water off until it is time to rinse. When shaving fill the lavatory basin with hot water instead of letting the water run continuously. I think that’s a good, conservative use of water.

We also changed the shower head in my brothers’ bathroom to a more water efficient one from San Antonio Water System. My brother Peter tells us about it.

There are two kinds of sprays…the normal spray, the massage.

But my older brother, Trey, says taking shorter showers, wasn’t the most enjoyable experience.

My shower today was approximately seven and a half minutes compared to what it used to be was over fifteen minutes. It was a very painful process, but it was well worth it to save the environment.

Okay, so there may have been a little sarcasm in that last line. My brothers aren’t exactly the environmentalists of the family. But with a little prodding, we managed to do fairly well, saving 3,000 gallons or 13 percent of our total water use.

Thanks Gretchen. That’s our show…Find more information at passporttotexas.org. For Texas Parks and Wildlife I’m Cecilia Nasti.

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Passport to Texas from Texas Parks and Wildlife

A few conservation methods can go a long way. Gretchen Mahan tells us more.

It doesn’t take much to conserve water. My family and I conserved about 3,000 gallons this summer by changing a few habits. Right after we began the project, the city implemented water restrictions. So we followed the rules and only watered by sprinklers once a week in the early morning.

In Texas, watering the lawn can account for 50 percent of residential water use in the summer. So to make sure our sprinkler system was efficient, my dad and I hammered rocks behind them so they would shoot closer to the ground to prevent unnecessary evaporation.

Yeah, that’s pretty low to the ground.

My mom, René, tends to beautiful gardens, but, unfortunately, gardens require water. And she says since we’ve been in a drought, the plants aren’t looking their best.

Most of them are real yellow and dry. I got several that are just absolutely crying. They’re just laying on the ground begging me to come water them.

Fortunately, none of our plants died, but we might need look into replacing some of our gardens with more native plants that use less water. The 3,000 gallons we saved was 13 percent of our total water use. If every Texan saved that much, we could put a major dent in the amount of water we use.

Thanks Gretchen. That’s our show…Find more information about water conservation at passporttotexas.org. For Texas Parks and Wildlife I’m Cecilia Nasti.

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