Texas Fishing News & Reports
TPWD Set to Graduate 41 Game Wardens
AUSTIN – After seven months of training in everything from water rescue and state-federal law to alligator handling, the 41 cadets of the 55th Texas Parks and Wildlife Department Game Warden class will close one chapter of their lives and start a new one with their graduation Tuesday as state game wardens.
The ceremonies, open to the public, will be at 9 a.m. Tuesday in the E1 auditorium at the Capitol in Austin.
The new game wardens will then report for duty at stations spanning the state from East Texas to El Paso. Game wardens’ duties include responding to natural disasters and conducting public outreach on a variety of topics in addition to enforcing hunting and fishing laws and water safety regulations...Read More
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Lifetime License Winner
AUSTIN – Daniel Hidalgo won $1,000 in Las Vegas many years ago and hadn’t won anything since.
So when he went to his local Big 5 Sporting Goods store in Midland to buy a fishing license and saw a display advertising Texas Parks and Wildlife’s Lifetime License Drawing, the last thing he thought was that his single entry would win.
But he didn’t leave Lady Luck behind in Vegas as he had thought. Hidalgo’s was the winning entry in the June 30 drawing.
“I was thrilled when they called me and told me I won,” he said. “Luck was with me.”
Hidalgo won a lifetime super combo hunting and fishing license and will be able to hunt and fish in Texas for the rest of his life without having to purchase another Texas state hunting and fishing license."....Read More
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Biologists Sampling Texas Coast to Prepare for Possible Oil Spill Impacts
AUSTIN – Texas Parks and Wildlife Department biologists are working their way down the state’s long coast line collecting environmental samples so that a baseline record is available to gauge any impact in Texas from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. The effort is part of a plan developed by multiple natural resource trustee agencies in coordination with BP.
TPWD is leading specialized five-person teams of scientists who are systematically collecting data at 21 locations up and down the coast. These samples will be used to characterize beach conditions, water chemistry, benthic invertebrates (living creatures in shallow water, mud and sand), and other "indicator" factors....Read More
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Big Bass Retire to Little Lake
ATHENS—What happens to a big bass after it spends 10 or so years at a Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) hatchery making little bass to be stocked into Texas lakes?
Fittingly, after rendering noble service to Texas anglers by producing untold thousands of fish, the big bass get to retire to a lake to live out the rest of their lives.
About 100 retired largemouth bass brooders from the A.E. Wood State Fish Hatchery in San Marcos made a 5.5-hour trip to Lake Moss outside Gainesville June 23 in the care of TPWD fisheries technician Mike Pereira. “These fish are from the class of 1996,” Pereira said. “They are 14 years old, and typically their egg production decreases as they age.”
Largemouth bass are believed to live up to 20 years, so the fish have several years to enjoy retirement and perhaps make more little bass in Lake Moss. Since the fish were all pure Florida largemouth bass, the stocking will improve the genetics of the fish in the lake, which are already good—the lake record largemouth weighed 13.25 pounds. Lake Moss was last stocked with Florida largemouth bass in 1982.
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TPW Gears Up For TS Alex
AUSTIN – In advance of a growing Tropical Storm Alex, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department today announced the closure of three state parks in the lower Rio Grande Valley effective today and the deployment of game wardens to South Texas to assist with emergency operations.
Fifty game wardens are enroute to a staging area in Mercedes. With 17 airboats and 33 shallow-draft vessels, they will be on standby to assist with any necessary search and rescue operations. In addition, a TPWD mobile command vehicle with a satellite system, computer capabilities and dispatchers is being sent to the Valley.....Read More
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