texas fish & game june 2015

Huntin

June 2015$3.95

Hook & Bullet:Next GenSportsmen

Natural Options forDeer Lease Prep

Make SomeCrappieMagic

UnderratedBlacktip Shark

OverlookedTexasBass Lakes

FutureFishing

THE TEXAS OUTDOOR AUTHORITY www.FishGame.com

Alton Jones with the TexasHigh School Bass Champs

FutureTHETHE

FutureTHE

FutureFutureFishingFishingOFFutureOFFutureOFFishingOFFishingFishingOFFishing

1506-Jun-CoverDIG.indd 1 5/24/15 3:36 PM

1506 Staffbox-Contents.indd 2 5/7/15 7:44 PM

www.FishGame.comPublished by Texas Fish & Game Publishing Co., LLC.

TEXAS FISH & GAME is the largest independent,family-owned outdoor publication in America.

Owned by Ron & Stephanie Ward and Roy & Ardia Neves.

ROY NEVESPUBLISHER

CHESTER MOOREEDITOR IN CHIEF

C O N T R I B U T O R S

JOE DOGGETT • SENIOR CONTRIBUTING EDITOR DOUG PIKE • SENIOR CONTRIBUTING EDITOR TED NUGENT • EDITOR AT LARGE LOU MARULLO • HUNTING EDITOR MATT WILLIAMS • FRESHWATER EDITOR

CALIXTO GONZALES • SALTWATER EDITOR LENNY RUDOW • BOATING EDITOR STEVE LAMASCUS • FIREARMS EDITOR DUSTIN ELLERMANN • SHOOTING EDITOR KENDAL HEMPHILL • POLITICAL COMMENTATOR WILL LESCHPER • CONSERVATION EDITOR REAVIS WORTHAM • HUMOR EDITOR TOM BEHRENS • CONTRIBUTING EDITOR GREG BERLOCHER • CONTRIBUTING EDITOR PAUL BRADSHAW • CONTRIBUTING EDITOR CAPT. MIKE HOLMES • CONTRIBUTING EDITOR

DUSTIN WARNCKE • CONTRIBUTING EDITOR

STAN SKINNER • COPY EDITOR LISA MOORE • CONTRIBUTING PHOTO EDITOR JOHN GISEL • STRATEGIC ADVISOR

A D V E R T I S I N G

ARDIA NEVESVICE PRESIDENT/ADVERTISING DIRECTOR

LARRY DALTON • ADVERTISING COORDINATOR 1745 GREENS ROAD HOUSTON, TX 77032 PHONE: (281) 227-3001 • FAX (281) 227-3002

EMAIL: [email protected]

REPRESENTATIONTHE OMNI GROUP

BRIAN THURSTON • PRESIDENT LEAHA WIRTH • VICE PRESIDENT OF SALES

(971) 322-7548

C R E A T I V E

ELLIOTT DONNELLYDIGITAL PUBLISHER

ANNA CAMPBELL • GRAPHIC DESIGNER MELINDA BUSS • GRAPHIC DESIGNER WENDY KIPFMILLER-O’BRIEN • DIGITAL ISSUES DESIGNER

S U B S C R I P T I O N S1745 GREENS ROAD, HOUSTON, TX 77032

PHONE (800) 725-1134

TEXAS FISH & GAME (ISSN 0887-4174) is published monthly by Texas Fish & Game Publishing Co., LLC., 1745 Greens Road, Houston, Texas 77032. ©Texas Fish & Game Publishing Co., LLC. All rights reserved. Content is not to be reprinted or other-wise reproduced without written permission. The publication assumes no responsibil-ity for unsolicited photographs and manuscripts. Subscription rates: 1 year $19.00: 2 years $34.75; 3 years $48.50. Address all subscription inquiries to Texas Fish & Game, 1745 Greens Road, Houston, Texas 77032. Allow 4 to 6 weeks for response. Give old and new address and enclose latest mailing address label when writing about your subscription. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to: TEXAS FISH & GAME, 1745 Greens Road, Houston, TX 77032. Address all subscription inquiries to TEXAS FISH & GAME, 1745 Greens Road, Houston, TX 77032. Email change of address to: [email protected] Email new orders to: [email protected] Email subscription questions to: [email protected].

Periodical postage paid at Houston, TX 77267-9946 and at additional mailing offices.

Paid Distribution of over 90,000Verified by Independent Audit

2 | J U N E 2 0 1 5 | T E X A S F I S H & G A M E ®


JUNE 2015Volume 32 • NO. 2

COVER STORY:FISHING’S FUTURE

STORY:

52 Alton Jones, pictured on the cover with last year’s top two

State High School Bass Cham-pionship teams, was an early proponent of interscholastic bass competitions to foster growth in the fishing industry.

Cover Photo and Storyby Chester Moore

FEATURES

COVER STORY:


THE UNDERRATED BLACKTIP SHARKThese sharks are popular and important for sport anglers on the Gulf Coast, yet they are greatly misunderstood.

by Chester Moore

WHETHER YOU LEASE OR NOTYour preparations for this fall’s deer season, whether it’s on a traditional deer lease, or on public land, can benefit from a number of natural options.

by Chester Moore

CRAPPIE MAGIC“Mr. Crappie,” Wally Marshall, is something of a magician when it comes to catching big fish. And unlike regular magicians, he’s perfectly willing to share some of the secrets of his craft.

by Chester Moore

24

28

OVERLOOKED BASS LAKESEverybody knows the superstar Texas bass lakes. But the state is also home to some unheralded fisheries that quietly produce monster bass without much fanfare.

by Matt Williams

Table ofContents

Table ofContents

Table of

HOOK & BULLETSTORY:

48 Changing demographics and the next gen sportsmen.

36HOOK & BULLETHOOK & BULLET

ALSO IN THIS ISSUE:

TABOO FISH & GAMESTORY:

44 Gar, ‘gou,’ squirrel brains and leprosy risks—the good, the bad and the

ugly of oddball sporting species.

20


by ELLIOTT DONNELLYDigital Publisher

InsideFISH & GAME

InsideInsideFISH & GAME

InsideFISH & GAME

ELLIOTT DONNELLY

FISH & GAMEFISH & GAME COLUMNS10 Editor’s Notes by Chester Moore TF&G Editor in Chief

14 Doggett at Large by Joe Doggett TF&G Senior Contributing Editor

16 Pike on the Edge by Doug Pike TF&G Senior Contributing Editor

18 Nugent in the Wild by Ted Nugent TF&G Editor At Large

19 Commentary by Kendal Hemphill TF&G Political Commentator

35 Bare Bones Hunting by Lou Marullo TF&G Hunting Editor

43 Texas Freshwater by Matt Williams TF&G Freshwater Editor

47 Texas Saltwater by Calixto Gonzales TF&G Saltwater Editor

51 Open Season by Reavis Wortham TF&G Freshwater Editor

54 Texas Boating by Lenny Rudow TF&G Boating Editor

58 Practical Angler by Paul Bradshaw TF&G Contributing Editor

60 Texas Guns by Steve LaMascus TF&G Firearms Editor

92 Texas Tasted by Bryan Slaven The Texas Gourmet

by Kendal Hemphill

Bare Bones

Texas Freshwater

by Calixto Gonzales

8 LETTERS

12 TF&G REPORT

32 TEXAS DEPT. OF DEFENSE

40 TRUE GREEN

62 INSIDER INDUSTRY

64 FISH AND GAME GEAR

66 HOTSPOT FOCUS

74 TEXAS HOTSPOTS

86 TIDES & PRIME TIMES

94 TF&G PHOTOS

DEPARTMENTS

Contents (continued)


www.FishGame.com

FishGame App Update

DESIGNING A NEW TECHNOLOGY BASED PLAT-form can be just as frustrating for the developer as it can be for the end user to fi gure out. In the May issue we talked about all the new features of the Texas Fish & Game app that we have been developing over the past few months. For the most part,

we have been successful in implementing all of the cool stuff that we came up with in the original app blueprint. We did, however, run into one major hurdle along the way.

As many of our readers know, the existing subscriber login mechanism within the app has been spotty at best. We have spent a great deal of time develop-ing a new system and working to get it up and running in a timely manor. Undoubtedly, we have caused some heartburn for some folks who have been waiting to regain access to their digital issues, and for that we offer our apologies.

I am excited to announce that we have now added a working subscriber login component to the FishGame App. Now, all of our existing print subscribers and our newly minted CCA digi-tal subscribers will be able to access all of the issues of Texas Fish & Game back to 2013.

To login, you simply need your email address and zip code. If you are a current subscriber and you have not provided us with your email address, call us at (800) 725-1134 or email us at subscriptions@fi shgame.com. Once we have your email, we will be add you to the digital subscriber database.

For those of you who have an email address on fi le, simply click on the My Account icon within the app and enter your email address and zip code. Once submitted, the app will reload the issues page and you will be able to down-load any issue you would like to read.

Email Elliott Donnelly atwebmaster@fi shgame.com

folks who have been

up with in the original app blueprint. We did, however, run

Tap the home button to access

the menu

Tap the my account button

to login


8 LETTERS

12 TF&G REPORT

32 TEXAS DEPT. OF DEFENSE

40 TRUE GREEN

62 INSIDER INDUSTRY

64 FISH AND GAME GEAR

66 HOTSPOT FOCUS

74 TEXAS HOTSPOTS

86 TIDES & PRIME TIMES

94 TF&G PHOTOS

DEPARTMENTS


LETTERS to the EditorLETTERS LETTERS LETTERS LETTERS LETTERS to the Editorto the Editorto the Editorto the Editorto the Editorto the Editorto the Editorto the Editorto the Editorto the Editorto the Editorto the Editorto the Editorto the Editorto the Editor

Let the Wookie Win THIS EMAIL IS FOR CHESTER Moore. I read his tribute to his dad article and wanted to tell him how wonderful it was. I also wanted to let him know how much I loved the ending and his reference to Chewie!

I am forwarding a copy of his article to Peter Mayhew. Peter is in my family and loved that Chester wrote about him and is such a fan. There are new UGG boots coming out in May that are Star Wars themed. The fi rst ones are Darth Vader black leather. I’m not sure why they are com-ing out in May. I guess we can wear them at night to Walmart with shorts and a tank top and won’t look suspicious.

Now if they come out with Wookie ones, all bets are off! I will be the weird girl walk-ing around with hairy feet and shorts.

Alison S.

Editor: This is such a huge honor. I have been a fan of Mr. Mayhew since I learned he played Chewbacca many years ago. I’m glad the article resonated with you and Mr. Mayhew and am deeply excited about the forthcoming Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens.

May the Force be with you!CM

May Issue KudosI LOVED THE MAY ISSUE. GOOD stuff throughout and nice to see a serious commitment to adding biological and wild-life information to the hunting and fi shing stories.

Jesse Phelps

Bradshaw FanPAUL BRADSHAW—YOUR ARTICLE about spoons in the April issue was very interesting to me. In order to simplify things I found some black Eagle Claw bar-

rel swivels with a short black leader (wire, I think). There was a snap swivel which would eliminate the need for the split ring when attached to the spoon.

At the other end of the short leader was a ring with which to attach the line. Not expensive, and a lot quicker.

Mike Sands

Game Camera EagleREADER DAVID DUFOUR GOT A huge surprise when he checked his game

camera set in Orange County.He got several photos of a huge bald

eagle that was scavenging on some carrion in the woods and he wanted to share it with the TF&G readers.

Although not widely publicized, eagles are adept at scavenging, which is the reason Benjamin Franklin opposed them being the symbol of America.

Scavenger or not, they are awesome birds and getting one unintentionally on a game camera is a real treat.

CM


1506 Letters.indd 8 5/7/15 8:07 PM

Oregon ConsJUST WANTED TO LET YOU KNOW that I received one of the fake renewal notices in the mail yesterday from the company in Oregon. I’m glad you have mentioned this issue in your magazine more than once because I recognized it right away for what it was even though it does appear to be very legitimate.

Thanks for a great magazine, we look forward to receiving it every month.

Publisher: Thanks for the kind words. With the Texas Attorney General now involved (see Inside Fish & Game, May 2015) maybe these clowns will get shut down for good.

RN

Some Gave AllCHESTER, JUST GOT THE MAY 2015 TEXAS FISH & GAME.

So sorry to hear about your father’s pass-ing. You have my prayers, bro.

Don’t want to stir the hornet’s nest, but I read Kendal Hemphill’s commentary. I have always enjoyed Kendal’s words, and today was no exception, except the very last paragraph is contrary to the entire piece and should have been omitted.

I grew up in a military family. I have seen the military life from the inside since I was a youngster.

With the greatest respect for Kendal, I think he may have just let the emotions fl ow and not completely vet that last paragraph.

We DO have the right to make rude comments without censorship and have opin-ions that vary from Chris Kyle’s, Kendal Hemphill’s and Greg Ford’s, because last time I looked, the fl ag fl ying outside did not have a sickle and hammer, but rather stars and stripes. If someone chooses to act like a jackass, more power to him/her.

As we know, American cities are full of them (see Baltimore). Keep in mind, I am on Kendal’s side here — all for respect and reverence. But because I choose, not because someone is going to make me.

We also have the right to be respectful

without having to run it by anyone. And we have the right to think and pray and do a lot of things thing Chris Kyle fought for.

Good piece by Kendal, except for the last paragraph.

Liberty applies to everyone — even the disrespectful idiots.

Warm Regards, Greg FordHouston

Send Your Comments to:MAIL:

EditorTexas Fish & Game1745 Greens RdHouston TX 77032

EMAIL:

editor@fi shgame.com

1506 Letters.indd 9 5/7/15 8:07 PM

Sea Arama: Wildlife Education Inspiration

REMEMBER SEA ARAMA?

I sure do.It was the super cool marine/

wildlife park in Galveston that was a destination of many thousands of Texas from 1965 to 1990.

It was the fi rst place I ever saw a Galapagos tortoise. It was the fi rst place I saw a king cobra and it was where the seeds were planted in me to get into wildlife education.

“Jaws” inspired me to seek out sharks.Marlin Perkins and Jim Fowler of

“Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom” taught me that the world was a big place fi lled with many wild creatures.

And Jacques Cousteau spoke to my heart about conservation.

But Sea Arama taught me encounter-based education is what really gets children motivated about wildlife. I did not realize it at the time but it had profound impact.

You see kids need to see wild things up close. They need to look animals in the eye and see wildness looking back at them.

The great naturalist Henry David Thoreau wrote, “In wildness is the preser-vation of the world” and I could not agree more.

The idea of safe encounters with animals is what petting zoos are all about and they are what keeps drive through wildlife parks going. I think there is a gigantic opportu-nity to teach wildlife conservation by unique chances to see animals in a safe setting.

That is one reason my wife Lisa and I founded the Kingdom Zoo: Education Center-a classroom designed for interaction with kids. Our ministry’s heart is to spread the gospel to children and we also want to teach children’ to be good stewards of the

Lord’s resources.We have been able to do that through

having family groups come through and visit our ferrets, turtles, giant frogs and other small creatures. We have had some 1,500 visitors come through and get a dose of Creation education through presentations that I do and special outreach.

To see a kid’s eyes light up when they see our African bullfrog “Prince” engulf a 10-inch nightcrawler in one bite or see our hairless rat “Lita” is priceless.

We recently had a beautiful black and white Argentine tegu (lizard) donated to us who has a broken back. “Lizzie’s” back legs do not work so well but we have been able to give her a good home and it gives us a special opportunity.

By seeing Lizzie, they learn that even though a person might have a disability, it does not mean they have no value. That might translate into them treating a special needs schoolmate with more respect or it might give the special needs child themselves more self-respect.

That is certainly the heart of what we do.It is time for the outdoors industry to get

hands on with wildlife education and stop doing the same old thing again and again.

Children’s lives matter. Conservation matters too and once you get kids to realize the value of wildlife, they will never turn back from their love of it.

One of the greatest lessons I have ever learned about the natural world started at the place that fi rst inspired me-Sea Arama.

The large alligator garfi sh that swam freely with the sharks, rays and groupers in their 200,000 gallon aquarium was my favorite. It was huge and made me think of Cow Bayou in Orange County where my

Dad caught a monster gar.15 years later, I found myself at the

Aquarium of the Americas in New Orleans and I saw a gar that looked eerily familiar. I told my wife Lisa it looked like the one at Sea Arama and the lady working at the tank turned around.

“Was that place in Galveston?”“Yes,” I replied.“That’s the same gar. They sent it to us

when they closed.”I was stunned. How cool was it that I

was looking at the gar I saw many times at Sea Arama?

But it gets better.In 2003, Lisa and I were at the Mandalay

Bay Aquarium in Las Vegas and once again, I spotted a gar that looked super familiar. After interviewing the divemaster I found it was the same gar!

It had been sent over from New Orleans and had actually been in captivity since the 1930s.

It takes an intimate place to get that kind of education and that is what my wife and I have begun. We are not at Sea Arama level yet but we have already seen many inspired kids.

We do this all on donations and if you would like to make a tax deductible contribu-tion go to this address- https://kingdomzoo.donortools.com

It’s important kids know God has a pur-pose and plan for their life and that wildlife resources are valuable and deserve their attention.

Email Chester Moore atCMoore@fi shgame.com

by CHESTER MOORE :: TF&G Editor-in-Chief

EDITOR’S Notes


1506 EdNotes.indd 10 5/11/15 1:56 PM

1506 EdNotes.indd 11 5/7/15 7:44 PM

Sharelunker Season Wraps UpTHE 29TH SEASON FOR THE TOYO-ta ShareLunker season ended on Thurs-day, April 30, with a total of six fi sh entered.

David Roulston of Frisco kicked off the season with his catch of Toyota Share-Lunker 558, a 13.88-pound largemouth bass from Lake Fork, on November 20. The fi sh was 26.75 inches long and 20.5 inches in girth.

Roulston was fi shing in 25 feet of water with a Brush Hog when the fi sh slammed his lure.

Blair Schwarz of McAllen caught Toy-ota ShareLunker 559 from a private lake in Zapata County on February 19.

The fi sh weighed 14.30 pounds and was caught on a Jackall ASKA squarebill crankbait in about six feet of water. The fi sh was 26.75 inches long and 21 inches in girth.

Toyota ShareLunker 560 came from Lake Ray Roberts and was caught by Shan-non Lee Elvington of Pilot Point on March 7. The 15.18-pound bass took a jerkbait. The fi sh was 26.25 inches long and 21.5 inches in girth. It is the current lake record for Lake Ray Roberts and is just three ounces shy of making the list of 50 biggest largemouth bass ever caught in Texas.

The fi sh qualifi es Elvington for Toyota ShareLunker Angler of the Year honors as the angler catching the biggest fi sh of the season. Elvington will receive a prize pack-age from G. Loomis and a lifetime fi shing license.

Also on March 7, Wayman Triana of Nacogdoches caught Toyota ShareLunker 561 from Sam Rayburn Reservoir during a Bass Champs tournament. The 13.05-pound fi sh was 25.5 inches long and 21 inches in girth. Triana caught it in 15 feet of water on a crankbait at 1:30 p.m.

Darrell Tompkins of Huffman, also fi shing on Sam Rayburn, rounded out a three-ShareLunker day, catching Toyota ShareLunker 562 at 6 p.m. Tompkins was throwing a spinnerbait in shallow water when the 14.32-pound bass took it. The fi sh was 26.25 inches long and 22.25 inches in girth. It was held for pickup at Jackson Hill Marina, an offi cial Toyota ShareLunker weigh and holding station.

The fi nal fi sh of the season was caught by David Campbell Perciful of Conroe. He caught Toyota ShareLunker 563 on April 7 while fi shing in a tournament on Lake Con-roe. The fi sh weighed 13.14 pounds and was caught in six feet of water on an eight-inch Texas-rigged lizard. The fi sh was 27.5 inches long and 20.25 inches in girth. It was held for pickup at Stow-A-Way Marina and RV Park, an offi cial Toyota ShareLunker Weigh and Holding Station.

BIG BAGS CATCHES

BLACK DRUM

Undisclosed Location

Frank Garcia of Edinburg shot this 17 point buck at the DD Ranch in Medina in Bandera county. It scored 200 B&C and was his biggest buck to date.

Holden Janysek caught this 44-inch black drum in Seadrift, using cut crab while on a family fi shing trip. It was his largest fi sh so far.


The TF G ReportTF GTF GTF GTF GTF G

Toyota ShareLunker 560 came from

TF GTF GTF GTF GTF GTF GTF GTF GTF GTF GTF GTF GTF GTF GTF GTF GTF GTF GTF GTF G Report Report Report Report ReportTF G ReportTF GTF G ReportTF GTF G ReportTF GTF G ReportTF GTF G ReportTF GTF GTF GTF GTF GTF GTF GTF GTF GTF GTF GTF GTF GTF GTF GTF GTF GTF GTF GTF GTF GTF GTF GTF GTF GTF GTF GTF G

Visit FishGame.com to upload your Big Bags & Catches Photos and Vote for our next Winners

ALLIGATOR

Anahuac

WHITETAIL

Medina

inches long and 21 inches in girth.

BIG BAGS CATCHES

ALLIGATOR

Anahuac

BIG BAGS CATCHESBIG BAGS CATCHESBIG BAGS CATCHES

water on a crankbait at 1:30 p.m.

BIG BAGS CATCHESBIG BAGS CATCHESBIG BAGS CATCHESBIG BAGS CATCHESBIG BAGS CATCHESBIG BAGS CATCHES

Taylor Shirley’s fi rst time alligator hunt-ing was a success, thanks to the Oyster Bayou Hunting at Anahuac.

inches in girth. Triana caught it in 15 feet of Weigh and Holding Station.

BIG BAGS CATCHESBIG BAGS CATCHES

BLACK DRUM

Undisclosed Location

WHITETAIL

Medina

BIG BAGS CATCHES

1506 TFG Report.indd 12 5/11/15 1:58 PM

State Funding from Sportsmen is HugeTHE U.S. FISH AND WILDLIFE SER-vice announced today that it will distribute $1.1 billion in revenues generated by the hunting and angling industry to state and territorial fi sh and wildlife agencies through-out the nation. The funds support critical fi sh and wildlife conservation and recreation projects that benefi t all Americans.

The Service apportions the funds to all 50 states and U.S. territories through the Pittman-Robertson Wildlife Restoration and Dingell-Johnson Sport Fish Restoration pro-grams. Texas received $54,850,661.

Revenues come from excise taxes gener-ated by the sale of sporting fi rearms, ammu-nition, archery equipment, fi shing equip-ment, electric boat motors, and from taxes on the purchase of motorboat fuel.

“These funds are the cornerstone of state-based efforts that are critical to the preservation of America’s wildlife and natural resources,” said Service Director Dan Ashe. “But they are also the fuel for a massive fi nancial engine that benefi ts outdoor recreationists, hunters, boaters and anglers, equipment manufacturers and retailers, and local and regional economies. Their value cannot be overstated in providing opportuni-ties for the next generation of Americans to get outdoors, experience our wild places and learn the importance of conserving our natural heritage.”

Pittman Robertson-Dingell Johnson funds are distributed by the Service’s Wild-life and Sport Fish Restoration program. Since their inception, the programs have generated more than $15 billion to conserve fi sh and wildlife resources and support out-door recreation opportunities for the Ameri-can public.

The recipient state fi sh and wildlife agencies have matched these funds with more than $5 billion over the years, mostly through license revenues.

“The Wildlife and Sport Fish Restora-tion program provides critical funding for conservation projects and outdoor recreation activities across this great nation,” said Assistant Director Hannibal Bolton of the Service’s WSFR program.

“I can’t stress enough that the key to the program’s success is through our dedicated partnerships with State agencies, non-gov-

ernment organizations and many others.“It is thanks to this signifi cant fi nancial

investment made by America’s sportsmen and women and the hunting, shooting sports, angling and boating industries that state and territorial fi sh and wildlife agencies can deliver science-based conservation on the ground,” said Larry Voyles, Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies President and Arizona Game and Fish Dept. Director.

“The Wildlife and Sport Fish Resto-ration Program has made the difference

between the survival and abundance of some species and it helps agencies like mine manage a vast estate of lands and waters and connect more people to wildlife-related recreation.”

—from Staff Reports

1506 TFG Report.indd 13 5/11/15 1:58 PM

Protect Your Investment

SO, YOU ARE THE PROUD possessor of a fi ne, new fl y rod. Maybe you bought it.

Maybe it was a gift. Maybe you “borrowed” it.

How you obtained the rod is of no concern to me. My objective is to offer some advice on how to take care of it. Keep in mind that a high-end graphite stick from most of the big names in the industry retails between $500 and $1,000. A little TLC is worth con-sidering.

Most fl y rods are built on a four-piece “travel” design. The individual sections are placed in a cloth sock and secured in a fi tted aluminum tube with a twist-off cap. This is a good idea, considering that most fl y rods are in the nine-foot range that would be awkward to transport in one or two sections. It’s worth noting that modern technology allows the four-piece design to function with ease and elegance.

Also worth noting, fl y rods and jet planes often go together (as many staggering credit card accounts will attest).

The fi rst thing to do when packing for a big trip is to ensure that each individual rod tube contains four matching sections. Don’t

scoff! I’ve come up short at least once, and I’ve seen two other veteran anglers pull the same blunder.

You do, in fact, have four pieces in the sock, but only three belong to the rod in question.

The confusion typically occurs at the conclusion of a major trip, as you break down and wipe down the various rods prior to packing for home. They all tend to look alike. This especially is true amid hurried circumstances, or under poor lighting condi-

tions, or maybe after three fi ngers of dark, aged rum.

Inadvertently swapping a section from the pickup-stix jumble on your bunk can knock a favorite rod out of action for the next expedition. My blunder happened with an 8-weight bonefi sh rod in the Yucatan. The third section in the sock belonged to a 10-weight back at home.

When packing for a trip it doesn’t cost anything to pull each rod from its tube and ensure all four pieces match. If nothing else, this inspection is smart damage control.

Now is the time to fi nd out if a ferrule is cracked or a tip guide is broken.

The second thing to do on a fl ight is to hand-carry the breakdown rods whenever possible. Checking valuable, fragile fl y rods is risking disaster. Various compact rod cases suitable for carry-on are available, and a good one can accommodate fi ve or six rods in their individual socks. These cases more-or-less meet carry-on requirements but a nitpicking agent may be a problem. At least you tried.

When “setting up” a rod, the fi rst day in camp, make sure each section is snug. Some makers rec-ommend rubbing a bit of wax on each male fer-rule, but modern rods are pretty good about staying together during the rigors of casting.

Having said this, it takes only a moment to hand test the tightness of each section several times during a prolonged session. Old habits die hard, and this is not a bad ritual to follow. If an unattended section works loose, the trip-killing price could be a split fer-rule.

Pay attention when stringing the fl y line from the reel and through the rod guides. The typical nine-foot rod has 11 guides, including the strip-per and tip. The so-called snake guides in between are small (compared to spinning or casting rods); it’s easy to miss one, especially after dabbling around the aforementioned ice cubes.

While you’re at it, make certain the line goes through the eye of the rear stripping guide and not through the gap between the eye and the foot.

Missing a guide sounds dumb but it hap-

by JOE DOGGETT :: TF&G Contributing Editor

DOGGETT at Large

A conservative retail value of the tackle in this Christmas Island rod rack is $6,000 to $7,000. The wise angler strives to protect his investment.


1506 Doggett.indd 14 5/11/15 1:59 PM

pens with alarming regularity. During a day on the water, sometimes the line between the tip-section guides wraps back through itself. Exactly how this happens, I have no idea, but be aware of the potential problem.

A sure sign something is wrong is when you can’t “shoot” properly during a manly double haul. The cast bogs down and you look like a rookie. Even worse, if a hot fi sh takes off, the added friction might snap the leader.

On the subject of stringing the rod, be careful when pulling a long leader from the tip. Pull out, not down. If the nail knot or fl y line loop hangs in the tip guide, the abrupt resistance at the sharp angle can snap the tip in a nanosecond.

Same thing when attempting to land a big fi sh by holding the high rod tight to your chest and pulling back to bring the trophy close. The acute angle can snap the sharp bend in the tip. The correct stance is to extend the rod hand as far behind you as possible while tilting the tip forward to ease pressure on the tip. Grab the leader and glide the Big Boy within reach. And,

of course, release tension at once if the fi sh bolts away.

A major disaster can occur if a leaping fi sh comes toward a high rod. The resulting slack can whip around the tip. Your best chance is to thrust the rod forward, slam-ming it down near the water, and hope the inertia fl ings the slack wraps off the tip. It does work if you react smartly.

Reeling frantically against a great bag of slack also can encourage the line to wrap around the waggling, bobbling tip; the wise ploy is to shove the tip into the water, provid-ing tension to control the incoming line. Of course, saying this at the keyboard and doing this in the clutch can be two different issues.

Fortunately, with my cat-like refl exes, controlling slack against a raging fi sh rarely has been a problem. Well, maybe once or twice.

If, despite all, you become tip-wrapped against a hot fi sh two bad things can hap-pen: The leader will break or the tip will break. Better the former, but neither does much for bragging rights back at camp.

Finally, putting a rod to bed wet is asking

for trouble. It’s OK to stuff a damp rod and sock in a tube for the trip back, just remem-ber to air them out when you get home. This means the day you return not two or three weeks later. Failure to promptly tend to this chore might result a nasty, moldy cork grip and a rod unfi t for use.

Many things can cripple a fi ne fl y rod. And in the real world screw-ups happen. Fortunately, the ruinous price tag for a top-end stick usually includes a no-questions-asked guarantee. At least, it should. The cost for a repair (or replacement) can be anywhere from free to about $50, depending on the manufacturer.

Send the rod and tube off and a month or so later it returns like new. This is one thing the industry really got right.

Email Joe Doggett atContactUs@fi shgame.com

1506 Doggett.indd 15 5/11/15 1:59 PM

Social Media Rules

NO TWO WORDS, NOT trolling motor nor steel shot nor braided line nor mechanical decoy, have more greatly impacted the way

outdoorsmen interact and communicate than social media.

The procession and proliferation of sites and apps devoted to outdoor recreation are littered with shortcomings, but they pretty far outweigh the ugly, and that is especially true as regards to resource management.

On the positive side of the ledger, for starters,

are the thousands of websites and message boards dedicated to the lawful, conscientious pursuit of fi sh and game. Photographs, stories, product reviews, tips and hints are at our fi ngertips all day every day and right through the night, never more than a click away for the curious sportsman.

The amount of information “out there” is grow-ing nearly exponentially. With little more than a smartphone, Wi-Fi connection and young eyes, there’s absolutely no aspect of outdoor recreation about which you can’t learn more than you ever wanted to know in half the time you thought it would take.

Also to the favor of social media, there is the incredible amount of law enforcement being done by lawbreakers themselves. “Dumb criminals,” they’re called wherever they pop up, and lately, a whole lot of them are popping up on outdoor-

related sites.Turns out, when some poachers take animals

illegally, they can’t resist posting photographs of themselves to boast of what they killed or caught. Nearly every state wildlife law-enforcement agency now has staff dedicated specifi cally to watching young people’s favorite sites for possible violators and violations.

I’m not sure how dumb you have to be to post a picture of yourself with an illegally taken animal, but I know that lots of guys are at least dumb enough. Kind of makes me laugh, truth be told, and makes airtight cases for game wardens.

A pebble in the shoe of social media, once you navigate outside the best known and recognized brands and sites, is that there’s no way to distin-guish between valid information and misinforma-tion. They look nearly identical, sometimes dis-

by DOUG PIKE :: TF&G Senior Contributing Editor

PIKE on the Edge

1506 Pike.indd 16 5/7/15 8:53 PM

tinguishable only by application of common sense.Beware false and outrageous claims. Your

parents were right, as were their parents: If it seems too good or amazing to be true, it probably is…not true.

Another red fl ag is the site that carries dozens of rave reviews and none or maybe one negative comment. Everybody loves the new fi sh widget but nobody, not a single person, took issue with the thing? Unlikely.

Remember as you size up a temptation, the person who owns the site is the one who decides which comments see daylight and which are swept under the digital rug.

I was asked once by an acquaintance to post a glowing review of his product when, in fact, I’d never even used it. I declined, of course, but was left with strong doubt about each of the other favor-able comments at his company’s website.

In the race to tick me off, rants of the ignorant and idle are running a dead heat with fake praise. Some take pleasure in criticizing hunters who generally don’t deserve it. Bolstering my case against these dimwits is the fact they typically prey on women hunters�as if women who hunt might be somehow weaker than men who hunt. (Guess

what? They’re not.)Twice in recent memory, hunting women have

suffered vile and unfounded comments from people who reacted with a jerked knee to photographs that showed the women with game they’d taken�legally�around the world.

Those who posted the grossly negative com-ments didn’t take time to research the subjects of their disapproval. Nor, based on what I read, did they bother to check local status of the animals that were hunted or where the money spent on those hunts wound up.

(In two high-profi le cases, the animals in question were not threatened or endangered, the animals were killed fully in accord with rules and regulations of the countries in which the hunts took place, the meat and hide and other parts of those animals were used by locals, and trophy fees paid by the hunters went to anti-poaching and habitat-restoration efforts. But details such as those never stopped an anti-hunter from raising a stink.)

When a professional hunter was killed by a charging elephant in Namibia early this spring and word of the tragedy found social media, animal-rights fanatics leapt at the chance to write that the man had it coming and that they hoped more

hunters met the same fate. Did they know the PH was involved with pro-

grams to save those elephants from poachers? Did they care that he, during his career, probably was responsible for the injection of more than a million dollars into cash-poor local economies? Did they ask any questions at all before they condemned a dead man? Probably not.

A fi nally word of social-media caution: Anytime you post something to the Internet, espe-cially if it’s at all controversial, it’s forever.

Posting to the Internet is like writing a letter and mailing it to everyone in the world. And even if you delete it quickly, the recipient may already have hit the “Print Screen” button and saved that off-the-cuff remark permanently.

If one boring night, a couple of energy drinks into a social media session, you elect to challenge some college kid who hates hunting and guns and wishes we’d all fall off a cliff, think before you type and choose your words carefully.

One of my favorite words under those circum-stances is “jackass.” It’s not vulgar or overly harsh, but it’s direct and universally understood.

1506 Pike.indd 17 5/7/15 8:53 PM

CornHold StrangeHold

FOR MANY YEARS NOW I wake up each night two or three times to relieve my oldman overworked blad-der, but it’s not all that bad really. In

fact I rather look forward to it, for you see, on each pee trip, there outside my bathroom window I am rewarded with one of the greatest joys of my life.

Throughout the night and into the morning I catch glimpses of many whitetail deer, exotics like giant Oryx and Gemsbok, blackbuck ante-lope by the dozens, groups of fallow deer, axis deer, sika deer, bands of Aoudad rams, nervous rabbits and jackrabbits, fi dgety squirrels, fl itting songbirds and birds of prey of every description and species, the occasional aggressive wild hog, even turtles, snakes, armadillos, roadrunners, many varieties of waterfowl and shorebirds, and even fi sh splashing about where the errant kernels may fall off shore.

And this constant stimulating joy is a direct result of another daily priority joy-the daily running of shellcorn and other proven wildlife attractants all around my home property in order to maximize critter encounters, and we all know that the more critter encounters we are blessed with each day brings those ever-loving healing powers of nature to the max as epito-mized by such sightings.

Corn! Wonderful, wonderful, wildlife enhancing golden kernels of CORN! I gotta tell ya, this simple grain brings me so much inde-scribable joy, happiness and supreme quality of life, I get a little emotional just talking about it.

I’ll never forget the very 1st time corn came into my life other than roasted with salt and butter at the picnic table. I had just bought my 1st little chunk of American deerhunting dream wildlife paradise farm in southern Michigan way back in 1971, and was struggling, as I had been for my 1st 20 years of stumbling, fumbling skunked deerhunting desperate to

ambush a whitetail with my trusty Bear recurve bow, MicroFlite glass arrows and old Bear Razorheads.

From the very beginning I hunted hard every day I could possibly get out there, but never seemed to nail down that ever mystical, always elusive “right place right time” thing.

I wanted backstraps so bad I could taste them!

On numerous occasions I would see deer movement off in the distance right around dusk, but never in range of my chosen tree. And if you can believe it, astonishingly and inexplicably, treestands were illegal in Michigan back then, so until we fi xed that absurd law, I would settle into a slightly elevated crotch of some big old oak tree where I thought I could get a decent shot.

Scouting one day in my ever increasing frus-tration to kill a deer, I wandered down to the edge of a cut corn fi eld where I had seen deer move on several occasions. As I rounded the bend where the wide, thick, tangled fencerow opened up into the fi eld, right there at my feet was an elongated, three foot half-moon shaped scattering of shellcorn where I fi gured the com-bine had spilled some as it made the hard loop out of the fi eld.

I knew that there were spilled kernels here, there and everywhere throughout every harvest-ed fi eld, but I had never seen an accumulation as apparent as this scattering.

Why a more concentrated accumulation would attract more deer better than random spillage didn’t make sense to me at the time, but the proof was in the eye witness evidence, so I fi gured I would improvise, adapt and overcome.

There was no good ambush setup where this corn had spilled, so I scooped and scraped up a bunch of kernels and relocated them to a good, deadly spot.

Well, suffi ce it to say, I had struck real gold with this revelation, and from that point on, with many other lessons learned about getting into bowrange of crazy spooky Michigan whitetails, suffi ce it to say that the backstraps and giddy smiles started fl owing from that point on!

Each day here at home in Texas on our SpiritWild Ranch, I load up my mighty Labradors Gonzo and Happy into the Polaris

with a Harvant electric feeder mounted on the back bumper full of corn, and we make our daily run scattering corn here, there and everywhere across the property.

We have discovered the best of the best com-mercial attractant/supplements on the market too, and we go wild planting Evolved Harvest Throw&Grow all over the place along with varieties of killer Buck Forage Oats and other proven plantings.

We also make it a point to create min-eral licks with our Primos Red Spot concoction along with some green selenium blocks.

We have many electric automatic cornfeed-ers strategically placed around the property too, including the incredible Capsule feeders (cap-sulefeeders.com) and super strong and reliable Hang Em High feeders (hangemhighfeeders.com) plus a monster custom Dandy feeder that holds a ton!

Bags of granulated Swamp Donkey and Swamp Donkey blocks are placed in prime travel corridors where wind, sun and cover pro-vide the most advantageous ambush setup for both ladderstands, Shadow Hunter blinds and Primos Double Bull groundblinds.

I bet we have more than 50 setups on our 300 acre ranch to allow us to minimize pres-sure and still have the advantage of surprise. Hunting the spookiest deer on the planet, I need all the help I can muster, I assure you.

When ponds and waterholes recede or dry up during always expected droughts, we run a pump down to the river to keep the waterholes up and running. The ultimate bait on hot hunt-ing days is water!

Blessed with 100s and 100s of acorn raining oaks, many pecans, cedars and junipers galore, cedar elms, greenbriar, hackberrys, jungles of cedar and mesquite thickets, huge hayfi elds, wild berry and grapevine tangles, and our sacred home hunting grounds can only be described as the ultimate wildlife habitat an old bowhunter could dream of!

Say Glory Glory YOWZA backstrap Hallelujah!

Email Ted Nugent atTNugent@fi shgame.com

by TED NUGENT :: TF&G Editor-at-Large


NUGENT in the WildNUGENT NUGENT NUGENT NUGENT NUGENT NUGENT NUGENT NUGENT NUGENT NUGENT NUGENT

1506 Nugent.indd 18 5/7/15 8:52 PM

No, Ma’am

GROWING UP IN CENTRAL Texas, we had a word for girls who hunted, fi shed, and camped. We called them “keepers.”

Granted, a lot of women went hunt-ing with their husbands or boyfriends, but there were some who went hunting alone. Such women were fairly rare even in rural America during the 1970s, but there has been an upsurge of female hunters since the turn of the millennium. And those women are now under attack.

Several years ago I wrote an article in this space about Olivia Angelloz, a beauti-ful lady whose home features numerous trophies from her hunts in Africa and else-where. Olivia also earned the title of Mrs. Nebraska in 2003, and used her infl uence to promote hunting whenever she was afforded an opportunity.

Unfortunately, such promotions of the shooting sports by women often back-fi re, and create more anger than support. Kendall Jones, a nineteen-year-old cheer-leader at Texas Tech University came face to face with this fact in 2014, after posting pictures of herself posing with African big game animals to her Facebook page. The vitriol was so thick that a Washington Post article by Caitlin Dewey claimed Kendall was “the most eminently hateable person on the Internet.”

Eva Shockey, of course, has been a strong contender for that title for years. As co-host of a hunting show on the Outdoor Channel, Eva has long been a target for anti-hunters.

Melissa Bachman, a hunter from Minnesota with her own television hunting show, spent some time at ground zero in 2013 over some African safari pictures. Her haters created a ‘Stop Melissa Bachman’ Facebook page which received 360,000 likes.

Lately it’s been Rebecca Francis’s turn to sit on the bullseye. Rebecca posted some pictures of her African kills, one of which was a giraffe, and sent the antis into a froth-ing fi t.

Never mind her explanation that she had no intention of killing a giraffe, ever, until she was implored to dispatch this elderly male which had been ostracized by its herd.

Never mind that the meat fed hundreds of local, starving villagers.

And never mind that, had she not killed the giraffe, it would have soon suffered a slower and less dignifi ed death.

For years we have scratched our heads at the anti-hunting crowd and its hypocrisy. These pacifi sts are aghast when confronted with hunting of any kind, and their stated reason is that hunters have no respect for animals, or else they would never harm one. The antis, of course love animals, and have a great respect for life. So they call for the heinous, horrible, torturous deaths of the hunters. It’s a self-defeating argument.

But as duplicitous as is the antis’ position on hunting in general, these recent attacks on female hunters have created a whole new level of hypocrisy among their ranks, which generally bulge at the seams with liberal, tol-erant, equal rights advocates. It seems those most sensitive and opposed to misogyny are, themselves, misogynists.

This is, at best, incongruent, but just because something doesn’t make sense doesn’t mean it isn’t happening. When you’re dealing with people whose main argu-ment is “life is sacred, therefore you must die,” you have to think outside the box. You might have to think outside the box factory.

The recent attacks on women who post pictures of themselves with animals they’ve killed would, in every case, not have occurred if they had been middle-aged men. In point of fact, I happen to be a middle-aged man, and I’ve posted pictures of myself with dead game lately. Not a peep from the antis. Although I’m hardly famous, I can point to some men who are celebrities who

have received hardly a “shame on you” for similar posts.

According to the Washington Post, Vanderbilt philosophy professor Kelly Oliver thinks this is because people are unsettled by women who hunt. She says, “We expect men to be hunters, but we’re surprised when girls are hunting. We still have issues with women and girls carrying guns and using them.” This is, without ques-tion, evidence of a double standard.

Marlea Clarke, who teaches southern African politics at the University of Victoria, claims otherwise. She says the problem is not the hunters’ lack of a Y chromosome, but their blasé attitude about killing animals.

Clarke said, “There’s no self-refl ection about the animals she’s (speaking of Kendall Jones) bragging about shooting. She doesn’t at all question that she’s going to South Africa and benefi ting the white middle-class land owners, with few advances going towards the black population.”

Beg pardon, but how much are the antis helping the black population of Africa? People who do nothing for African peo-ple are complaining that other people are also doing nothing for African people, and should die because of it.

At best the argument is disingenuous, at worst it’s criminal.

When the Ford Model T came out, you could get one in any color you wanted, so long as you wanted black. Liberals now want women to be treated as equals with men, so long as they act the way the liberals want them to act. Which means, don’t act like real men.

The times, they are achanging . . .

Email Kendal Hemphill atContactUs@fi shgame.com

by KENDAL HEMPHILL :: TF&G Political Editor

T E X A S F I S H & G A M E ® | J U N E 2 0 1 5 | 19

TF&G COMMENTARY

1506 Commentary.indd 19 5/7/15 7:46 PM

20 | J U N E 2 0 1 5 | T E X A S F I S H & G A M E ® PHOTO: MATT WILLIAMS

story by Matt Williams

Feature 1 Tx Overlooked Lakes-MW.indd 20 5/7/15 7:50 PM

e verybody knows Texas harbors some of the very best bass fishing lakes on the planet,

but some of those impoundments grab way more attention than all the rest put together.

As a result, some of the state’s sweetest spots often get lost in the whirlwind of media

hype frequently cast on Texas “super lakes” and whopper size tournament favorites like

Sam Rayburn, Toledo Bend, Livingston, Palestine, Conroe, Fork, Ray Roberts or Falcon.

Think about it for a minute. When is last time you saw

Lake Pinkston mentioned in a magazine or on

the Internet? How about Lake Kurth,

Timpson, Lake O’ The Pines, Bonham,

Athens, Marine Creek, Bastrop,

Murvaul, Welsh or

Somerville?



Trust me. The lack of publicity about some of these fi sheries doesn’t come because of crappy fi shing quality. Often times it comes as the result of dynamite bassin’ that tight-lipped locals had rather keep all to themselves.

A few of my fi shing buds may want to dump outboard oil in my fuel cell for what about I am about share here, but sometimes it comes with the territory. Here is a synop-sis of some of Texas most overlooked bass lakes:

KurthHere’s an East Texas honey hole that

has gotten so little publicity over the years that many folks may not even know it exists.

Located in Angelina County a few miles off US 59, Kurth spans about 726-acres and maintains an outstanding population of trophy-size fi sh, largely because of its excellent water quality, a relatively constant water level and outstanding habitat provided by abundant hydrilla, lily pads, cattails sub-merged brush and stumps. The water clarity here is typically gin-clear, and hydrilla has taken hold at depths beyond 15 feet, creat-

ing optimum conditions for vertical fl ipping in the summer and springtime sight fi shing.

TPWD manages the lake with a restric-tive 16-inch maximum length limit, designed

to protect all bass larger than 16 inches and to enhance the trophy prospects. Access is limited to annual and daily permit holders. Annual permits and three-day permits can

22 | J U N E 2 0 1 5 | T E X A S F I S H & G A M E ® PHOTOS: MATT WILLIAMS

The spectacular bass fi shing available in Texas is not limited to the so-called

“super lakes.”

Chris Fontenot pulls a nice bassout of Lake Kurth.


be purchased through the City of Lufkin Monday through Friday or from the lake caretaker’s residence during daylight hours.

PinkstonPinkston has as been producing big bass

since the early 1980s, but the late Earl Crawford made it famous when he hauled in a former state record weighing 16.90 pounds there in February 1986.

Located in Shelby County along Big and Little Sandy creeks, the lake spans only 523 surface acres. But don’t be fooled by its size. Pinkston maintains one of the healthiest bass populations in all of eastern Texas.

It was among the fi rst lakes in the state to be stocked with Florida bass (1976) and has since been salted with more than 20,000 Toyota ShareLunker offspring that have fl ourished in a habitat-rich environment comprised of hydrilla, lily pads and abun-dant wood cover. The fi sh are protected by a restrictive 14- to 21-inch slot limit.

TimpsonFor years, the 237-acre reservoir has

been fl ying beneath the radar of Texas’s bass fi shing fraternity. Meanwhile, a handful of local anglers from Shelby and surrounding counties have been catching and releasing big Florida bass topping 12 pounds and saying very little about it. There has never been a lake record largemouth certifi ed for Timpson, if that tells you anything.

Located at the end of FM 2667, Lake Timpson is named after the nearby town of the same name. It maintained an abundant coverage area of hydrilla until 2004, when grass carp were introduced at the request of lakeside homeowners.

Although the grass has not yet made a comeback, the lake has dozens of docks, stumps and plenty of native vegetation where anglers can soak their baits. The lake is gov-erned by a 14- to 21-inch slot limit intended to promote quality fi shing.

SomervilleHere’s a sweet little honey hole just a

short trip from Houston for those looking for change of pace from more pressured waters like Conroe, Livingston or Fayette County.

Located near Brenham, Somerville cov-ers about 11,400 acres and produces num-

bers and quality fi sh alike. In 2009, the lake kicked out a lake record ShareLunker weighing 13.6 pounds.

Things are looking especially bright for the lake’s future thanks to big rains last spring that pushed it beyond full pool just prior to the heart of the spawn. According to area fi sheries biologist Mark Webb, the big rise fl ooded a wealth of terrestrial vegetation that grew during multiple years of low water, creating optimum conditions for spawning and recruitment of a banner year-class of fi sh.

The lake is managed under the statewide limit of fi ve fi sh, 14 inches. It is worth noth-ing that Somerville also maintains good populations of white bass and hybrids.

Lake O’ The Pines Lake o’ the Pines near Longview will

turn 60 next year. But you would never know it by the quality of the goods.

Lake o’ the Pines has weathered the test of time and continues to crank out top notch results for weekend anglers and tourna-ment buffs alike. The lake record is 15.13 pounds, and it produces fi sh in the 6- to 8-pound class consistently.

The lake typically produces the heaviest sacks during the spring months. However, summertime can be outstanding for those who like to toss frogs and topwaters around grass and lily pads or dredge deep diving

crankbaits around main lake structure.The best grass is typically located at the

lake’s northern quadrant, but some fear the vegetation may have gotten hurt by extreme high water back in March and April. The lake is governed by the statewide fi ve-fi sh, 14-inch length limit.

Brandy BranchBrandy Branch is a 1,250 acre power

plant reservoir east located east of Longview off of FM 3251 in Harrison County. It was built in 1982.

If you like to fl ip grass with big jigs, this is defi nitely one to check out during the sum-mer months. The lake is extremely clear and the hydrilla forms mats at depths beyond 20 feet.

It produces good numbers of quality fi sh and some giants. Local bass club events fre-quently record fi ve fi sh weights topping 20 pounds, and 30-pound sacks aren’t unheard of. The lake also produces outstanding results at night because of its extremely clear water.

The lake record at “Perky” stands at 13.97 pounds, and it frequently produces fi sh in the 8- to 10-pound class. The limit on bass is fi ve fi sh, 14 inches.


Overlooked bass fi sheries such as Somerville, Pinkston, Brandy Branch and even the larger Lake O’ the Pines offer a change of pace from

better known high-pressure lakes.



Fea 2-Blacktip Sharks.indd 24 5/7/15 7:51 PM

y first encounter with a blacktip shark came while soaking a big hunk of cut mullet behind a shrimp boat in the Gulf of Mexico.

I will never forget seeing the streamlined fish burst from the water like a wayward rocket and achieve an almost marlin-like tail walk on the sandy green surface. To my fishing hosts, this was just another annoying shark, but to this young angler it was an encounter with destiny.

Since then I have battled and caught many blacktips. Although my shark studies have focused more on bulls, great whites, tigers and even the diminutive Atlantic sharpnose, blacktips always seem to be in the mix some-where. These sharks are popular and important for sport anglers on the Gulf Coast, yet they are greatly misunder-stood.

For starters, all “blacktips” are not necessarily black-tips. Young bull sharks are sometimes mistaken for blacktips by novice anglers due to the black markings on their fins but on closer inspection, the rounded nose and

bulldog like appearance of the bull is a striking contrast to the sleek blacktip. The

spinner shark however is much more difficult to differentiate from blacktips. In fact, many

veteran anglers and biologists have a hard time telling the difference at first glance.

They are very similar in body shape and size and both are quite acrobatic when hooked although the spin-ner twists like a tornado as the name implies, and black-tips do more straight jumps. The best way to tell them apart is the anal fin on the spinner is black whereas the blacktip’s is not. In reality, the spinner in many cases has more black on its tips than the blacktip.

If you were to ask anglers whether these species were dangerous, most would answer with a resounding “No!” since they are not in the lexicon of deadly sharks. In fact, the Discovery Channel produced a highly rated program about the top 10 most dangerous sharks and neither made the list. Both the oceanic whitetip and shortfin mako did. However, those species rank far below both the blacktip and spinner in terms of unprovoked attacks on humans according to the International Shark Attack File (ISAF) at the Florida Museum of Natural History.

T E X A S F I S H & G A M E ® | J U N E 2 0 1 5 | 25PHOTO: DPC


ISAF data show blacktips are respon-sible for 28 unprovoked attacks and 13 provoked attacks (think feeding, harassing, etc.). Spinners have been responsible for 15 unprovoked attacks, and one on the provoked side. For comparison, the oce-anic whitetip committed fi ve unprovoked and three provoked attacks. The shortfi n mako dished out eight unprovoked attacks and 15 provoked.

In the network’s defense, its list featured numerous factors, including fatalities, size and likelihood to encounter humans. This would obviously put species like the great white above many other known attackers, but in terms of raw attack data, blacktips and spinners deserve our respect.

They are also a species humans are likely to encounter in shallow water along beaches. This is where anglers tote stringers of speckled trout and other sport fi shes, not to mention the scores of swimmers in this area.

It is also possible blacktips and spinners

are responsible for more attacks than ISAF can accurately list.

“Positive identifi cation of attacking sharks is very diffi cult, since victims rarely make adequate observations of the attacker during the ‘heat’ of the interaction,” accord-ing to George H. Burgess of ISAF. “Tooth remains are seldom found in wounds, and diagnostic characters for many requiem sharks (including blacktips and spinners) are diffi cult to discern even by trained pro-fessionals.

“Realistically, almost any shark in the right size range, roughly six feet (1.8 meters) or greater, is a potential threat to humans because, even if a bite is not intended as a directed feeding attempt on a human, the power of the jaw and tooth morphology can lead to injury.”

This does not mean you should start wor-rying about becoming a blacktip’s next meal. After all, shark attacks are rare, no matter

the species. However, you might want to give them a bit more respect because the statistics don’t lie.

The blacktip shark deserves it.I spent two summers tagging blacktips

with the Mote Marine Laboratory under the guidance of biologist John Tyminski. Unfortunately, I had to quit my tagging efforts because of fi nances and an adequate boat at the time, but I learned a lot about the species and their conservation problems.

The Mote offi cials were interested in establishing whether the Upper Texas Coast was a nursery area for blacktips and whether they headed south toward Mexican waters in the winter.

There is a totally unregulated commercial fi shery for sharks (and just about everything else in the Gulf) down there. Biologists were looking for a way to establish where the sharks were produced and where they met their demise.

My personal favorite blacktip encounter

26 | J U N E 2 0 1 5 | T E X A S F I S H & G A M E ® PHOTO: CHESTER MOORE

Blacktips can grow to fairly large sizes and and are extremely exciting sportfi sh with impressive acrobatic ability.


happened in the Chandelier Islands back in the summer of 1999. I was fi shing off the shore of Breton Island with Capt. George Knighten when a school of mullet in front of us went from being nervous to completely freaking out. They leapt in every direction away from something that looked to be about two and half feet long and stirring in the water below.

Knighten, who was wading ahead of me, chunked his Mirrolure Top Dog toward the fracas, fully expecting to catch a big sow speck. What he got instead was a massive blowup from a juvenile blacktip. At that

time, Top Dogs were hot commodities so he wanted to reel the fi sh in and retrieve his plug. However, the shark had other ideas, snapping the line easily with its sharp sand-paper skin and quickly darting back into the small channel along the island.

Two days later, just before we were headed back to the mainland, Knighten and I found ourselves wading the exact same stretch of shoreline, this time catching a nice bunch of specks. As we plugged away, Knighten hollered “shark” as a blacktip tugged at his stringer, making an easy meal of the trout.

“You’re not going to believe this,” Knighten said.“This is the same blacktip I lost here two days ago.”

“How do you know,” I asked.“My plug is still in its mouth!”Whether that shows the species is ter-

ritorial or not is debatable, but it defi nitely illustrates a dogged determination that is see-ing this valuable species hold its own while others dwindle away.

PHO

TO:

DPC

:

Blacktip sharks frequent shallow waters and are likely to be encountered by humans.


28 | J U N E 2 0 1 5 | T E X A S F I S H & G A M E ® PHOTO: CANSTOCK

Natural Options forBetter Management and

Better Hunting

STORY BY CHESTER MOORE

Fea 4 Deerlease.indd 28 5/11/15 2:01 PM

IF YOU WANT TO be consistently successful hunting whitetails, gaining a broad knowledge of their natural food habitat is important. The time to start thinking about it is now.

It is easy to rely solely on corn feed-

ers to lure them in, but the fact is deer

prefer natural foods when they are

abundant, and few big bucks frequent

feeders during legal shooting hours.

There is another reason for this

story.

With today’s financial woes, many

hunters are having to hunt national

forest land, draw for hunts on public

land or simply forego using feeders.

We thought it was important to give

some space to the importance of natu-

ral foods.

The food sources deer will eat are

growing right now, and the earlier you

get the jump on their location, the bet-

ter―especially if you are hunting public

land.

The Texas Agricultural Extension

Service based out of Texas A&M

University said it’s important for hunt-

ers to know that white-tailed deer are

ruminants like cows, but their diet

selection is radically different.



“Cattle are grass-roughage eaters, have a relatively large rumen relative to body size, and depend heavily on grasses for their diet. Grasses are relatively low in crude pro-tein and digestibility when compared with legumes or forbs (broadleaf weeds).”

“Because of these nutritive parameters, grasses have a longer residence time in the cow rumen,” they said. “Longer residence time increases rumen microfl ora (bacteria and protozoa) degradation of the forage. Thus for grass-roughage eaters such as cattle and sheep, residence time is relatively long and rate of passage slow.”

White-tailed deer are concentrate selec-tors, which means their diet must be higher in nutritive value and more rapidly degraded in the rumen.

“Therefore, white-tailed deer rely primar-ily on forbs and browse (leaves and twigs of

woody plants), which are usually higher in crude protein and digestibility than grasses. Grasses comprise only a very small part of the overall diet of the white-tailed deer. Only grasses that are rapidly degraded in the rumen, such as the small grains and ryegrass, are used to any extent by deer.”

“Other useful introduced forages include both warm- and cool-season legumes. Native plants used by white-tailed deer include browse, forbs, soft and hard mast (fruits, acorns), and mushrooms. Forbs and mast, while providing good nutrition, may not be available each year or at all times of the year. Browse is usually the most important source of deer nutrition because of year-round avail-ability.”

Another excellent source for deer is black gum, which Texas Parks & Wildlife Department (TPWD) officials rank

as “excellent” for deer and other game. Coralberry or “buck brush” is a great source of food, especially in the eastern third of the state.

The name should give it away, but the thicket it creates along with the nutrition it provides makes it a favorite among deer hunters in the region. Looking at the Piney Woods as a whole, TPWD offi cials note that in most areas, the virgin forest has been harvested several times over the last century.

For those hunting on national forest or large public hunting lands in the eastern third of the state it is important to examine how the land is divided.

A TPWD survey indicated that 22 per-cent of all timberland was classifi ed as pine plantation. Most (72 percent) plantation establishment was on forest industry lands. The 1992 survey indicated that approxi-

30 | J U N E 2 0 1 5 | T E X A S F I S H & G A M E ® PHOTOS: COURTESY TPWD

Learning a deer’s pre-ferred food can save you money and help score on nutritious, heart-healthy venison.


mately 71 percent of the plantations were less than 20 years old.

That is worth explaining because some of the very best areas in the state are around fresh clear cuts (and up to a few years old) that are used to make way for these pine plantations.

“The woods in the region are so different from what they were 100 years ago,” said hunting enthusiast Chris Godfrey. “The reason you see deer feeding alongside the roads so much is because that’s where a lot of the broadleaf forbs they eat can grow. It requires sunlight for them to grow; and in much of the woods, there is not enough light for that to happen.”

Godfrey said that’s why hunters would be wise to fi nd those fresh clear cuts.

“As aesthetically unpleasing as they are, there is no denying they produce a lot of the woody browse and allow for broadleaf forbs to grow, which is very important to deer,” he said. “Some misinformed hunters move their stands when their area gets clear cut, but the reality is they should be staying there because there will be a whole lot more deer activity than before.”

Broadleaf forbs are essentially weeds that grow in open areas and are what often give farmers and gardeners a big headache. In

fact, most of the time deer are seen in fi elds feeding, they are eating these forbs, not the grasses. Find a weedy pasture along a pine thicket, and you’re likely to fi nd lots of deer.

“We have so many super-thick areas, but some of the very best you can fi nd are some of the spots in the national forests that are managed with fi re where the underbrush is kept low and you get a lot of the forbs grow-ing and a lot of sunlight penetration into the forest,” Godfrey said.

“These spots also offer the advantage of being able to see deer. So much of the public hunting involves seeing a deer and then not seeing it a second later because of the habitat and its density. These types of areas allow you to have a much better chance of shooting deer you see.”

That is extra important, factoring in ant-ler restrictions, and is crucial for the hunter with limited time.

Hunting on a budget is challenging. No doubt about it. However there is something about truly learning the habits of our quarry that makes the hunt that much more mean-ingful.


Pre-season scouting is key on pub-lic lands in East Texas in particular because natural foods are the only kinds allowed to hunt over. Feed-ers are banned.


Alterations

I AM NOT A BIG BELIEVER IN altering carry guns.

When I was on active duty with the Border Patrol, and even before that, I

saw a lot of cops who would do some pretty scary things to their guns with the idea it would make them quicker to get into action. One of the scariest was cutting away the front of the trigger guard. The idea was that if there were no trigger guard to get in the way, the shooter could shave a few thousandths of a second off his reaction time. I never could see it did anything but make the gun unsafe and more fragile.

Some of the guys, when they got a new Smith & Wesson revolver, would immediately take the grips off, remove the side-plate, cut a couple of turns off the trig-ger return spring and unscrew the hammer spring tension screw until the trigger was

light enough to suit them.The problem with this was that cutting

too much off the trigger return spring could allow the shooter to tie up the gun in rapid fi re. Also, unscrewing the hammer spring screw to lessen the tension on the spring could cause the hammer to strike the primer too lightly, thus causing a misfi re, or worse�a hang-fi re.

On my competition guns I would spend untold hours honing the parts with hard Arkansas stones, fi ling the fl at hammer spring, and cutting back the coil springs, to get just the ultimate possible perfection on the trigger. However, on my duty guns I left them pretty much the way they came from the fac-tory.

If the trigger was so hard it was diffi cult to shoot well, I might cut a coil off the trigger

return spring, but never enough to cause the gun to tie up in rapid fi re.

I left the hammer spring alone, because I wanted to be absolutely sure that the gun would fi re when I pulled the trigger. A misfi re in a pistol match is just an inconve-nience. A misfi re in a gunfi ght could very well mean your death.

Changing grips is another thing: I saw a lot of guys change from the factory grips to some kind of rubber grip, with the idea that it gave them a more solid grip on the gun. This is true. However, often the grips they chose were the kind that placed a bunch of rubber between the back strap and the

Self Defense by STEVE LAMASCUSTactical :: Concealed Carry & DUSTIN ELLERMANN

TEXAS Dept. of DEFENSEby &

Dept. of Dept. of Dept. of Dept. of Dept. of Dept. of Dept. of Dept. of Dept. of Dept. of Dept. of Dept. of Dept. of Dept. of Dept. of Dept. of Dept. of DEFENSEDEFENSEDEFENSEDEFENSEDEFENSE

Defensive AR Upgrades

AR15S ARE SO EASY TO CUS-tomize they are called “Adult Legos.” With just a few simple tools you can upgrade any part. Although it is good to be profi cient with a stock rifl e, an optimized defensive rifl e is preferred. There are a few upgrades I always recommend.

First accessory you should acquire for your rifl e is a good quality sling. Having a rifl e without a sling is as silly as having

a pistol without a holster. A sling isn’t necessary for plinking or zero-ing your rifl e, but for any serious training, hunt-ing or defensive maneuvers it is mandatory. I pre-fer an adjustable two point sling like the VTAC series mounted with push button QD swivels so I can remove it quickly as necessary.

Next I recommend mounting a good quality light on the rifl e. Evil loves the darkness so there is a good chance that if you ever were in a defensive situation, it would be in low light. I wouldn’t go cheap with a Chinese-made gun show special

but try to at least get a Streamlight and even better, an Elzetta. These lights are designed to handle recoil and can take a beating. In fact I threw my Elzetta Charlie light out of a helicopter from 300 feet onto concrete, and it still works. Find a solid mount that fi ts your preference, upgrade to a pressure switch and you will be in business.

My next upgrade would be a good

32 | J U N E 2 0 1 5 | T E X A S F I S H & G A M E ® PHOTOS: DUSTIN ELLERMANN

The author’s primary defensive rifl e, and Adams Arms adjustable piston AR15 with

a VTAC sling, Geissele SSA trigger, Elzetta Charlie light, and Trijicon 1-4x optic.

1506 Dept of Def.indd 32 5/11/15 2:02 PM

shooter’s hand. This trend was, I think, started by Bill Jordan.

What the unsuspecting shooter didn’t realize was that Jordan had hands the size of the Jolly Green Giant. For him to grip the gun properly, he had to have this extra distance between the back strap and his hand, so that his trigger fi nger struck the trigger in the right place. If the shooter didn’t have hands a foot long, he was mak-ing a mistake that would negatively impact his ability to put the shots on the target.

I have big hands, but I cannot shoot that type of grip at all well. For me, the standard Smith &Wesson target grip, on anything but the small J-frame snubbies, fi ts like it was made for me.

Today, with the interchangeable rubber back straps on some of the modern semi-autos, the shooter needs to fi nd the one that fi ts him, not the one he was told was best by his buddy who is six foot eight, and has fi ngers eight inches long.

One alteration I wholeheartedly believe in is bobbing the hammer of a snub-nosed revolver that is to be carried concealed. The hammer spur of a snubby is of very little use. The little gun is (or should be) almost always fi red double action, by pulling the trigger without using the hammer to cock

the gun.A hammer spur is usually just in the

way and can get caught in clothing during the draw. This happened to one of the deadliest gunfi ghters that ever lived. When John Wesley Hardin was confronted by a Texas Ranger on a train in Florida, where he was hiding from the law, he yelled, “Texas, by God!” and tried to draw his

gun, but the hammer got caught in his sus-penders. The Ranger cold-cocked Hardin with the barrel of his Colt Peacemaker and hauled him off to prison.

There are a number of snub-nosed revolvers that have either shrouded ham-mers or internal strikers. If yours is not one of these, you should consider bobbing the hammer. The gun can still be cocked by starting the hammer back with the trigger, then catching the top of the hammer with the thumb to continue the cocking stroke. This should never be done except on a range, or when out in the pasture and away from people, and never in a high tension environment, as an accidental discharge can occur.

By and large, carry guns should not be altered. It is almost always better to fi nd one that suits you than it is to try to alter one to make it better.

—Steve LaMascus

quality trigger. Mil-spec triggers are reli-able, but they can be horribly heavy, gritty and have way too much travel before the break. A consistent, crisp trigger will help you shoot accurately and give the overall quality of the rifl e a boost.

I don’t recommend tweaking a mil-spec trigger by adjusting the springs because that can lead to reliability issues that could be catastrophic on a defensive rifl e. A good quality trigger will run from $120-$300. The most affordable that I’ve found acceptable is the Rock River Arms two-stage trigger that runs $120

If you are uncomfortable install-ing smaller trigger parts look into the CMC self-contained, drop-in trigger. Manufactured in Fort Worth, the CMC triggers offer a clean, crisp, consistent break in your choice of traditional curved

or fl at shoe in a variety of different weights for around $200.

If you like options check out Geissele, which offers more than a dozen models tuned for different missions such as speedy 3 Gun to Competition Precision. And fi nally I’ve really enjoyed the new LaRue MBT on my OBR lately. It’s also an ultra reliable, precision trigger manu-factured out of solid S7 steel tool plates breaking crisply at 4.5 pounds in two stages of 2.5 and 2 pounds.

My fi nal AR upgrade is a reliable optic. Since defense is usually fast-paced and close quarters I suggest a non-magnifi ed, red-dot style optic. My favorite has been Aimpoint. They are rugged and reliable and have a super-long battery life. I leave mine on 24/7 and haven’t replaced the battery in more than three years.

I’ll also use a low-power magnifi ca-tion optic as long as it is a true 1x in addition to an illuminated reticle such as my Meopta and Trijicon. However if you can’t afford an optic that you can trust your life to, just make sure you have a secondary aiming system such as 45-degree iron sights, pop up iron sights that you can use with your optic, or true co-witness iron sights.

So before you slap on any silly bipods, foregrips, or any other bells and whistles to your Minuteman weapon system con-sider the above. Keep it simple, pray hard, shoot straight.

—Dustin Ellermann


TEXAS Dept. of DEFENSE

“There are a number of

snub-nosed revolvers that have

either shrouded hammers or internal

strikers.“


The Confi dence Builder

SPRING HAS SPRUNG! AND now it has already left!

It does not take too long for the warmth of summer to take control

here in Texas. Although some of the northern States

are still dealing with the mud and rain that spring brings, Texans are already turning the air conditioners on, and hunting is no longer the most important thing on a hunter’s mind. As a matter of fact, I would bet that most outdoorsmen and outdoorswomen reading this column have a Texas Fish and Game magazine in one hand and a fi shing rod in the other.

I do not blame them at all. Sometimes, it is just too warm to deal with the bugs and the sweat while trying to take a hog or an exotic, but practice should always be on your mind. I am not talking about an entire afternoon set aside for practice, but a light practice should be the order of the day.

It matters not if you are shooting your favorite rifl e or “Betty Lou,” your trusty bow. You should keep both handy and easily available for a quick, half-hour of practice if you can.

I have a friend who shoots one arrow every day before he goes to work. He walks out of his kitchen to the garage, opens the garage door and picks up his bow. A target is already set up 20 yards away. He takes one shot, gets in his car and backs it up out of his driveway, retrieves his arrow while the garage door is closing, and off to work he goes�every morning.

Now, I realize that to some, this kind of practice is a little “over the top,” but it really

is a good thing to do if you have the room to do it. By shooting one arrow a day, you are training your muscles to be able to draw before your fi rst cup of coffee. Not only is this muscle memory important, but you also are training your mind to concentrate more on the shot.

If you have only one shot at the target, you want to make it count. That is exactly the way it is for us in the fi eld in a real hunting situation. Many times, you get only one shot at the animal you are hunting. You need to be accurate to make that shot count.

Make practice fun. I remember when I wanted to introduce bow hunting to my young son. I would practice a little every day and would always ask him to join me. There was always a reason why he could not make it.

Then, one day I blew up some balloons and put them on my target. One by one the balloons would break, and my son was fascinated. Of course it did not take long before he showed a huge interest in giving it a try, himself. That afternoon has led to many afternoons, very early mornings and a lifetime of bow hunting.

Another way to make practice fun is to incorporate the old basketball game “pig” in your practice. I have no idea what it is called today. I have heard horse, cow…whatever. The idea here is to make a shot and then the others have to make the same shot or take a letter. It can certainly get interesting when your buddy makes a shot on one leg that looks impossible.

Oh well… that’s what makes it fun.This time of year is also a perfect time to

teach your little one�or not so little one�some safety issues with your fi rearm. Even if they say they already know about it, it is always good to go over certain rules again and again. Rules like… always treat your fi rearm as if it were loaded.

We are creatures of habit, and it is a good habit to get into always to check any fi rearm that is handed to you. Always check to make sure it is not loaded. Even after confi rming it is empty, treat it as if it were loaded and

always keep the muzzle pointed in a safe direction.

How about teaching your new hunter about cleaning your fi rearm? How does it come apart? What are the parts of your rifl e? What is their function, and how does it work? Much can be discussed while you are in the process of cleaning it and making sure it is ready for the upcoming season (which really is not too far away).

You should not forget to sight your rifl e in. give yourself plenty of time to do that. Procrastinating is not a good thing here. As the season gets closer, more and more hunt-ers will be at the range doing the same thing you are doing. So, my advice is to be one of the fi rst people at the range a few months before the season begins. Once your fi rearm is sighted in, check it again to make sure it is unloaded and store it in a case until hunting season arrives.

You will have plenty of other things to do to fully prepare for the upcoming season. If you are like me, then you don’t view this as a chore. I love all the prep work that is involved before you actually get out there in the fi eld. For most hunters, it is fun to scout for deer sign, and that is going to take up a lot of your time next month.

With practice comes confi dence, and con-fi dence is something you will want to have when it comes time for the real hunt. Your nerves will be rattled enough just watching that big whitetail come closer and closer to you. If you have practiced enough, you are prepared. You are sure of yourself and you are confi dent you will fi ll your freezer this hunting season.

Above all, remember to hunt safe and have fun out there.

Email Lou Marullo atContactUs@fi shgame.com

by LOU MARULLO :: TF&G Hunting Editor


Bare Bones HUNTING

1506 Hunting.indd 35 5/7/15 7:54 PM

“MR. CRAPPIE” IS THE PERFECT NICKNAME FOR WALLY MARSHALL. Yes, he has his own line of top-selling crappie fi shing videos, a tele-vision show and dozens of crappie-related fi shing products to his name. The man lives, eats and breathes crappie fi shing.

“It’s what I do,” he said.A couple of years back at Lake Fork

Lodge, I spoke with Marshall. I had known him for a number of years, but we had never fi shed together so he invited me

out to remedy that and allow me to tap into his knowledge of crappie.

As we idled into a cove loaded with timber, Marshall said that anglers could spend hours trying to fi nd fi sh without

electronics. “You really won’t have an impact on fi shing unless you know how to use electronics,” he said. “It is important for any kind of fi shing, but to consistently locate crappies, it is crucial.


“MR. CRAPPIE” IS THE PERFECT NICKNAME FOR WALLY MARSHALL. Yes, he has his own line of top-selling crappie fi shing videos, a tele-vision show and dozens of crappie-related fi shing products to his name. The man lives, eats and breathes crappie fi shing.

“It’s what I do,” he said.A couple of years back at Lake Fork

Lodge, I spoke with Marshall. I had known him for a number of years, but we had never fi shed together so he invited me

out to remedy that and allow me to tap into his knowledge of crappie.

As we idled into a cove loaded with timber, Marshall said that anglers could spend hours trying to fi nd fi sh without

electronics. “You really won’t have an impact on fi shing unless you know how to use electronics,” he said. “It is important for any kind of fi shing, but to consistently locate crappies, it is crucial.


story by Chester Moore

Fea 3 Crappie.indd 36 5/11/15 2:05 PM

“Side-imaging sonar has changed the way we fi sh,” he said. “You can set it to read out to 200 feet, but I keep mine around 90 feet so the image is clear. In addition there is a split screen option to see what is below the boat. With a fi sh like crappie that holds tight to cover and struc-

ture, that is so important.”Marshall said the spot we were

fi shing was a brush pile that stretched between two trees.

“What we’re going to be fi shing with is a jig I have out through Strike King called The Joker,” he said. “It has incredible action and really lures in the crappie.” We fi shed these lures with six-pound test line on long fl y-style poles Marshall has out through Lew’s.

“Throw right there,” he said pointing to the corner of a tree.

Thump! A keeper black crappie hit my line.

Then a few seconds later Marshall had one on. “Yesterday it was all whites,” he

said.“Interesting that some blacks

moved in.” Black and white crappie are both

structure-loving fi sh, but will sometimes be found in different areas. “These crappie will move to different spots from day to day,” he said. “Not all of them, of course, but they move more than people think.”


“Side-imaging sonar has changed the way we fi sh,” he said. “You can set it to read out to 200 feet, but I keep mine around 90 feet so the image is clear. In addition there is a split screen option to see what is below the boat. With a fi sh like crappie that holds tight to cover and struc-

ture, that is so important.”Marshall said the spot we were

fi shing was a brush pile that stretched between two trees.

“What we’re going to be fi shing with is a jig I have out through Strike King called The Joker,” he said. “It has incredible action and really lures in the crappie.” We fi shed these lures with six-pound test line on long fl y-style poles Marshall has out through Lew’s.

“Throw right there,” he said pointing to the corner of a tree.

Thump! A keeper black crappie hit my line.

Then a few seconds later Marshall had one on. “Yesterday it was all whites,” he

said.“Interesting that some blacks

moved in.” Black and white crappie are both

structure-loving fi sh, but will sometimes be found in different areas. “These crappie will move to different spots from day to day,” he said. “Not all of them, of course, but they move more than people think.”



The day was overcast and Marshall said he hoped the sun would come out. “When it is overcast the fi sh are scattered, but when the sun is bright they hold tighter to the cover.”

And he was right.As soon as the sun came out the bite

turned on, I caught a two-pound white crap-pie. A few minutes later, Marshall did the same thing.

“I told you there are some big fi sh here,” he said.

Marshall said Lake Lavon is “bar none” the best crappie fi shery in the state right now, but that he just returned from a 100-fi sh day on Rayburn and that Lake Fork is real sleeper for slabs. “This lake not only produces big bass but also big crappie and lots of them,” he said.

My time with Marshall reminded me how underap-preciated the “intel-ligence” of crappie is among anglers, and my own experience showed me just how tuned-in Mr. Crappie is to these

great fi sh.Back in 2005, I had the amazing oppor-

tunity to dive with and hand-feed “Splash,” the 121-pound blue catfi sh caught by angler Cody Mullenix on Lake Texoma.

The fi sh was brought in alive and housed at the Texas Freshwater Fisheries Center in

Athens. My goal for the dive was to estab-lish the perspective of a diver encountering a catfi sh of record proportions for an article I was doing about the legends of giant catfi sh below dams.

Before the dive, the dive master handed me a mesh bag with a few koi and a rainbow trout to feed “Splash” and another full of shiners and crickets to feed the bass and

As soon as the sun came out the bite turned on, I caught a two-pound white crap-pie. A few minutes later, Marshall did the same thing.

“I told you there are some big fi sh here,” he said.

Marshall said Lake Lavon is “bar none” the best crappie fi shery in the state right now, but that he just returned from a 100-fi sh day on Rayburn and that Lake Fork is real sleeper for slabs. “This lake not only produces big bass but also big crappie and lots of them,” he

My time with Marshall reminded me how underap-preciated the “intel-ligence” of crappie is among anglers, and my own experience showed me just how tuned-in Mr. Crappie is to these

at the Texas Freshwater Fisheries Center in me a mesh bag with a few koi and a rainbow trout to feed “Splash” and another full of shiners and crickets to feed the bass and


Guides Roger Bacon and Ron-nie Burnett with a huge strap of

crappie caught on Sam Rayburn.

A nice,fat blackcrappie.

PHOTOS: CHESTER MOORE; STEVE OEHLENSCHLAGER, DPC; DCW CREATIONS, CS


perch. After achieving the goal of hand-feeding the giant catfi sh and having someone photograph to show the scale of such a huge catfi sh and a grown man, I took a few min-utes to feed the other fi sh.

My eyes were imme-diately drawn to a mas-sive crappie in the tank. The fi sh had to be every bit of three pounds, and as soon as I broke out the food, it started my direction. I held out a shiner toward it and was amazed as the fi sh slowly swam up to it, stopped and then blew a hard jet of water over my shiner (and my fi n-gers) a second or two before lunging forward and inhaling it.

The fi sh repeated this process every time as I observed with astonishment. It was

extremely cautious on the approach. Then came the blast of water, followed by the attack.”

After catching a few of these super-sized slabs on Sam Rayburn, it did not take long to connect the dots between my diving expe-

rience and the bites of these big fi sh. These trophy crappies, in my opinion, were either testing or shocking the bait before the strike.

My fi shing guide friend Roger Bacon often feeds the crappie a little line by peeling it off the spool of his Falcon spinning reel. He then sets the hook when he thinks it is a big one.

“We catch a lot of the bigger fi sh like that,” he said.

Now I know why.Crappie fi shing is gaining in popularity

in Texas and Marshall said that is because of access. “Most lakes have a good crappie population,” he said. “There is nothing more fun than catching a mess of slabs for the frying pan with your family. If you have not been in awhile go. The fi shing is great in Texas right now.”

“If you haven’t started, get after it. You will have loads of fun and at the end of the day that is what fi shing is all about.”

Wally Marshall, a.k.a. Mr. Crappie.



True GREENTrueTrueTrueTrueTrue GREENGREENGREENGREENGREENGREENGREENGREENGREENGREENGREENGREENGREENGREENGREENGREENGREENGREENGREENGREEN

Contributing Conservationists

HUNTERS AND ANGLERS long have been the greatest con-servationists of natural resources and game species while also

pumping huge revenues into economies at the state and city levels.

Dove hunting in Texas alone is a more than $300 million industry, according to Texas Parks & Wildlife Department fi g-ures. Although that number includes valu-able dollars headed to outfi tters and mom-and-pop shops, the federal taxes generated by the overall hunting and angling industry end up going back into the state coffers ear-marked for needed resource protections.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service annually distributes revenue to each state’s

wildlife agency through the Pittman-Robertson Wildlife Restoration and Dingell-Johnson Sport Fish Restoration programs. These funds come from excise taxes on the sale of sporting fi rearms, ammunition, archery and fi shing equip-ment, electric boat motors and taxes on the purchase of motorboat fuel. This year’s total of $1.1 billion includes $54,850,661 coming to our state, the highest appropria-tion in the country.

The Service’s Wildlife and Sport Fish Restoration Program reimburses as much as 75 percent of the cost of each eligible project. State fi sh and wildlife agencies con-tribute a minimum of 25 percent, generally using hunting and fi shing license revenues

as the required non-federal match. Funding is paid by manufacturers, producers and importers and is distributed by the Service’s Wildlife and Sport Fish Restoration Program to each state and territory.

The Wildlife and Sport Fish Restoration Programs have generated more than $15 billion since their incep-tion—1937 for the Pittman-Robertson Wildlife Restoration Program and 1950 for the Dingell-Johnson Sport Fish Restoration Program. To conserve resourc-es. State agencies have matched these pro-gram funds with more than $5 billion.

Pittman-Robertson funds allow TPWD’s Wildlife Division to offer many services, including technical guid-ance to private landowners who control 94 percent of wildlife habitat in Texas. Other services include TPWD surveys and research for development of hunting regulations, operation and management of Wildlife Management Areas and conduct-ing research and developing techniques for managing wildlife populations and wildlife habitat.

The Sport Fish Restoration Program supports monitoring of sport fi sh popula-tions, their habitats and public use of fi sh-ery resources. Information collected from fi shery management surveys is used to set fi sh harvest regulations, develop fi sh stock-ing plans and design projects that restore and enhance aquatic habitat.

Through support from the Sport Fish Restoration Program, TPWD has devel-oped nationally recognized programs in applied research for the study of freshwater and coastal fi sheries. These programs conduct special investigations of unique problems identifi ed through fi sheries man-agement surveys. They also develop and evaluate projects focused on expanding and improving sport fi shing in the state.

Other programs that benefi t from these funds include projects that increase or improve access to public waters. These funds also fund the operation of freshwater

Edited by WILL LESCHPER TF&G Conservation Editor

Continued on page 42 u

1506 TrueGreen.indd 40 5/11/15 2:57 PM

1506 TrueGreen.indd 41 6/2/15 7:54 AM

Seldon Lake Park Makeover

DUCKS UNLIMITED AND THE Texas Parks and Wildlife Depart-ment are working on continuing improvements to Houston’s popu-

lar Sheldon Lake State Park.Sheldon Lake State Park is a 2,900-

acre nature preserve and low-density educa-tional park, specializing in the introduction of urban youth to the outdoors and wildlife.

The park has almost continual visitation by school groups and others who come to fi sh, bird and receive outdoor and sustainable living education.

The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department is now restoring these lands to pre-settlement conditions for the conserva-tion of native plant and animal populations, and to show visitors an authentic piece of the region’s original landscape. The cor-nerstone of this effort is the restoration of ephemeral and seasonal wetlands that dot-ted the local prairie before being fi lled and leveled for agriculture.

Three phases of this effort have already restored approximately 312 acres of native prairie wetlands and grasslands.

During phase 4 of the Sheldon Lake State Park Wetland Restoration project, Ducks Unlimited will excavate four shallow depressions to create approxi-mately eight acres of restored wetland habitat. DU is cur-rently under contract to provide survey, engineering, bid-ding, and construc-tion management services for this project.

This project is being coordi-nated and sup-ported by Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service with additional funding from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. Construction of the wetlands is sched-uled to be com-pleted this summer. Recently completed park roads and boardwalks, along with a new 82-foot

observation tower, give visitors excellent opportunities to experience the outdoors.

«—Andi Cooper

True GREEN

hatcheries and coastal hatch-eries which produce and stock more than 40 million fi sh annually in state lakes, ponds and bays. Those fi sh are stocked to establish populations and enhance existing ones, support research efforts and maintain put-and-take and put-grow-and-take fi sheries in small urban reservoirs, which is how many youngsters are introduced to the pastime.

These funding streams are vital to future success, and it’s up to hunters and anglers to continue our support of state and federal initiatives. These programs pump millions of dollars into efforts to maintain and improve our hunting and fi shing opportunities.

It also is imperative to stay abreast of any encroachment on those funding streams. Diverting some of these dollars for other projects has been discussed by legislators and other special inter-est groups.

The wildlife and sport fi sh funds were earmarked for specifi c intentions and should always stay that way, plain and simple.

«Email Will Leschper at

[email protected]

hatcheries and coastal hatch-

t Continued from page 40

Conservation

The next phase of wetland restora-tion work on Sheldon Lake State Park will recreate eight acres of historic wetlands in this abandoned ag fi eld.

Previous project phases helped to conserve native plant populations like this pickerelweed, a good food for ducks and pollinators.

PHOTOS: DUCKS UNLIMITED42 | J U N E 2 0 1 5 | T E X A S F I S H & G A M E ®

1506 TrueGreen.indd 42 5/11/15 2:57 PM

Mind Your Own Biz

IT NEVER FAILS—EACH TIME Texas lawmakers get together in Austin, it seems like somebody gets the itch to nose around in Texas Parks Wildlife business

where they have none.More than once the suits have found reason

to freeze money generated by us sportsmen so we can’t use it, or shift our funds around to help bal-ance the budget.

It’s aggravating when they do that.It is equally annoying when a politician fi les

some sort of bill that undermines the department’s regulations policy for no other real reason than to butter the bread of a few voters back home at the expense of everyone else�just because they can.

Just so you know, the Texas Legislature in 1983 gave TPWD full authority to manage our fi sheries and wildlife the best way its staff sees fi t. That’s when lawmakers passed the Wildlife Conservation Act. The law gives biologists the opportunity to be biologists�to set season dates and bag limits on everything from whitetail deer to black bass based on scientifi c research rather than personal interests that are of no benefi t to the majority of the fi shermen and hunters in this state.

TPWD experts take all sorts of biological and sociological factors into consideration before imple-menting or changing game and fi sh regulations. They also take any proposed changes to public hearings to gather input. In most cases it takes the better part of a year for any change to take effect.

State Representative Dade Phelan of Port Neches obviously doesn’t think very much of TPWD’s regulatory process.

Last February, Phelan fi led HB 1979 in the 84th Texas Legislature calling for TPWD to place a special tournament length limit exemption on largemouth bass on the southern stretches of the Sabine or Neches rivers, in the Gulf Intercoastal Waterway, or in the Gulf of Mexico as those bod-ies of water lie within or adjacent to a six county

area including Chambers, Jefferson, Galveston, Hardin, Newton and Orange counties.

These waters are currently governed under the statewide limit of fi ve fi sh, 14 inches, and some of the water is managed under reciprocal agreements with Louisiana.

The way the bill was written, it would apply only to participants in high school and college bass fi shing tournaments. It would allow those anglers to bring fi ve fi sh as short as 12 inches to the scales, whereas everyone else would go by the 5-14.

Furthermore, the bill contained language that clearly illustrates it was meant to circumvent TPWD’s regulatory process. As of this writ-ing, the bill was still under review by the state’s Committee on Culture, Recreation and Tourism.

The bill didn’t have biological roots. Instead, it originated as a favor to a group of citizens from the Orange area who believe a reduced length limit would make the area more attractive to tournament organizations and boost the local economy.

The group is headed by John Gothia of Bridge City. Gothia, who claims he fi shes many of the named waters regularly, says he is pushing for a reduced limit because the waters in question aren’t known for producing big numbers of bass that meet the 14 inch minimum. As a result, most organizations steer clear of the area’s turbid rivers and bayous as a tournament destination in favor of more productive southeast Texas lakes like Sam Rayburn or Toledo Bend.

“The water here is brackish,” Gothia said, “and the river system just doesn’t grow the num-bers of bigger fi sh like a lot of the other waters in Texas do. I know that because I live here and fi sh here all the time. TPWD fi sheries biologists have told me the same thing. These fi sh grow slow, and they just don’t get very big.”

Gothia pointed out that the group’s main goal in pushing for the reduced limit is to make the Orange area more attractive as a tournament venue and to cash-in on the money anglers spend in the process.

“Tournament fi shing is big business, and we’re just trying to do what we can to get a piece of the pie,” he said. “I ran this past our state representa-tive (Phelan), and he thought it was a good idea. That’s how this bill came about.”

Phelan couldn’t be reached for comment, but his legislative director, Zach Johnson, confi rmed the connection between the state representative and Gothia’s group.

Although a tournament exemption might sound like a good idea on the surface to some, my thought is that it’s dirty deal all the way around.

For starters, TPWD has gotten its feet wet with tournament exemptions before and the water got very hot really quick.

“A previous experiment to test the impact of an exemption to a slot length limit for largemouth bass on Lake Fork Reservoir in Texas resulted in substantial confl icts among angling groups in the local area,” said Craig Bonds, TPWD director of inland fi sheries. “The effort to create a perma-nent exemption was abandoned. Following that experiment, TPWD worked with the Professional Anglers Association and other partners to develop the catch-weigh-and-immediate-release procedures used in the Toyota Texas Bass Classic tourna-ment.

By adopting technology and procedures to weigh fi sh onboard the boat, this method negated the need for a size limit exemption and alleviated any concerns over mortality and displacement of fi sh transported to weigh-in activities.”

Another downside is the potential for socio-logical confl icts that might arise with two different angler groups sharing the same water at the same time with differing limits, or the headaches it could create for game wardens in attempts to enforce it.

Biologically, a lesser limit probably wouldn’t do much harm to the overall health of the fi shery. However, it wouldn’t help it, either, because it would likely lead to an increase in the mortality of some smaller fi sh that would otherwise be pro-tected under the 5-14.

Finally, for a legislator to be able to force a tournament exemption, or any other fi shing/hunt-ing regulation change for that matter, would create very bad precedent that could result in others fol-lowing down the same road.

This is bad business, any way you slice it.

Email Matt Williams atContactUs@fi shgame.com

by MATT WILLIAMS :: TF&G Freshwater Editor

Texas FRESHWATER


1506 Freshwater Col.indd 43 5/7/15 8:10 PM

Have you noticed the alli-gator garfi sh has become a media darling?

Jeremy Wade of River Monsters made a trek to

the Trinity River a few years back and caught a big alligator gar on international television. Suddenly, anglers from around the world started looking at the alligator gar as not only respect-able but downright cool.

In my opinion, that is long overdue.

44 | J U N E 2 0 1 5 | T E X A S F I S H & G A M E ® PHOTOS: JEREMY WADE, TEXAS STATE; USFWS;CANSTOCK

Gar, ‘Gou’, Squirrel Brains and Leprosy Risks

STORY BY CHESTER MOORE

Fea 6 Texas Slam.indd 44 5/7/15 7:55 PM

Catching garfi sh has been important to my family for generations. It was the species we pursued most when I was growing up in Orange County.

This got me to thinking about other so-called “trash” fi sh that could use a media makeover. Do other less-than-desirable spe-cies have the potential to be the next break-out star of the fi shing world?

Let’s start with the freshwater drum (gaspergou, gou). Only a handful of anglers pursue these fi sh and most of them live in Louisiana. “Gou” are hard fi ghting and will occasionally hit lures, so there is some fun factor to be had catching them.

In the size and looks department, howev-er, they are lacking. Gou can grow to impres-sive weights but not impressive enough to override their dull looks and lack of fl ash.

Other than the drumming noise they make, they do not have any “it” factor like the gar’s creepy teeth.

The grinnel (bowfi n, choupique) is per-haps a better candidate for a makeover. If a major television program were done detail-ing these fi sh, it could very well move them up the ladder of respect.

They strike lures regularly, fi ght e x t r e m e l y hard, live in cool looking swamps and can even live outside the water for a long period of time. Another thing they have going for them is they look a lot like the snake-head which is a currently media favor-ite. I could see a show called “America’s Original Snakehead” or some other semi-misleading title that would draw in viewers.

The Grinnel has potential. The gafftopsail catfi sh is one that has

many positive attributes, but is overlooked. They are hard fi ghters, have an impressive look with the big sail fi n and are another fi sh that will hit lures.

They have one huge hang-up�slime.Gafftops are�bar none�the slimiest fi sh

swimming southern waters. In fact, they are so slimy, they have made me retire from eating them. Well, that and the consump-tion warning from the health department took them off my list. Fish that ooze are not popular television fare so we will say the gafftop is a no-go.

Maybe it’s something unusual on the game side of things that stirs your interest or

inspires your appetite. Over the years I have eaten many things the general public would consider strange.

FROM RATTLESNAKE TO water buffalo my mind has always been open about the wide variety of unique meats avail-able to those who hunt and fi sh. There are a few things however I would not try unless someone paid me a large sum of money in advance.

Squirrel brains are something many peo-ple enjoy, but this will never be part of my diet.

First off, a squirrel is basi-cally a rat with a cuter face and prettier tail. It is one thing to eat their meat, but their brains is another issue. The fact is there could be a good reason to avoid them.

Researchers at the University of Kentucky are concerned there is a link between mad cow disease and eating squirrel brains. “While

conducting a study of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in south Florida, one of us observed an affected patient who was originally a native of Kentucky and had a history of eating squirrel brains...Several case reports have suggested the possibility of transmis-sion of CJD by consumption of the brains of wild animals.”

Armadillo is another one that is off-limits for this outdoor writer. In fact, they fall into the category of would not eat for any reason ever.

Although numerous people have touted the great taste of armadillo, there are a couple of problems:

A. They stink worse than a feral hog.B. They carry leprosy.

Yes, they have been proved to carry leprosy.

In a joint collaboration between the Global Health Institute at EPFL in Switzerland

and Louisiana State University, “…clear evidence was found that a never-before-seen strain of Mycobacterium leprae (leprosy) has emerged in the Southern United States and that it is transmitted through contact with armadillos carrying the disease.”

The results were published in the April 28th edition of the New England Journal of Medicine.

Researchers suggested frequent direct contact (handling) armadillos and cooking and consumption of armadillo meat should be “discouraged.”

This goes along with a story we ran on these pages in 2006 that showed up to one in six armadillos on the Texas and Louisiana coasts harbor leprosy. This does

not mean you should go out and kill every armadillo you see. However, it should

inspire everyone to scratch armadillo off the grocery list permanently.

On a far less sinister note, while researching this article, a recipe

for opossum roast with liver turned up. The rec-

ipe is very involved and would take a great while to prepare. In fact it looks like some-thing that would air on the Food Network, minus the opossum of course.

I could not however see celebrity chefs like Bobby Flay or Giada de Laurentis touting the palatability of opossum. It may very well taste good (I will never know), but it would probably sink their careers forever.

My wife and I are big fans of Giada and as amazing as her Italian dishes look, a parmesan-crusted opossum somehow just would not seem right.

46 | J U N E 2 0 1 5 | T E X A S F I S H & G A M E ® PHOTO: WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

pursue these fi sh and most of them live in Louisiana. “Gou” are hard fi ghting and will occasionally hit lures, so there is some fun factor to be had catching them.

In the size and looks department, howev-er, they are lacking. Gou can grow to impres-sive weights but not impressive enough to override their dull looks and lack of fl ash.

Other than the drumming noise they make, they do not have any “it” factor like the gar’s creepy teeth.

The grinnel (bowfi n, choupique) is per-haps a better candidate for a makeover. If a major television program were done detail-ing these fi sh, it could very well move them up the ladder of respect.

They strike lures regularly, fi ght e x t r e m e l y hard, live in cool looking swamps and can even live outside the water for a long period of time. Another thing they have going for them

Squirrel brains are something many peo-ple enjoy, but this will never be part of my diet.

First off, a squirrel is basi-cally a rat with a cuter face and prettier tail. It is one thing to eat their meat, but their brains is another issue. The fact is there could be a good reason to avoid them.

Researchers at the University of Kentucky are concerned there is a link between mad cow disease and eating squirrel brains. “While

conducting a study of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease

and consumption of armadillo meat should be “discouraged.”

This goes along with a story we ran on these pages in 2006 that showed up to one in six armadillos on the Texas and Louisiana coasts harbor leprosy. This does

not mean you should go out and kill every armadillo you see. However, it should

inspire everyone to scratch armadillo off the grocery list permanently.

On a far less sinister note, while researching this article, a recipe

for opossum roast with liver turned up. The rec-

Good old gafftop.


E-mail

MUCH TO MY REGRET, I don’t get to answer many of the e-mails readers send me. Time constraints and a variety of obliga-

tions always seem to interfere with getting back to the queries and comments that so many of you take the time to write. I have decided to dedicate an occasional column to the questions, rants, and raves you folks send.

Let’s get on with it, shall we?

Mr. Gonzales,I just started fi shing with lures in saltwater.

There is an old man who lives near me that says that I should use topwaters if I want to catch big trout. Do you have a selections of these lures that I can use as a kind of starter kit?

D. Foster (age 14)

Hi, D.,One of the great things about fi shing is the con-

stant personal evolution every angler goes through as they grow. I guarantee that you are going to love using topwaters. Even the smallest trout looks like a 30-incher when it blasts a fl oating plug.

A good starting point is the same way I began fi shing topwaters�poppers. I started out using the classic Heddon Lucky 13. I caught quite a few nice trout and redfi sh on that old plug.

These days, you have your pick among such plugs as the Strom Chug Bug, the Rapala Skitterpop, Mirrolure’s Poppa Dog, and a host of others. They’re easy to use, too. A tug-tug-pause cadence with an occasional good chug! Is usually good enough to get strikes.

If a fi sh hits and misses, let the lure sit in place for a bit, then start it back a little faster. That’ll bring ‘em back!

CG

Calixto,I’m confused. I went fi shing with an offshore

guide who helped my brother and me catch 8 nice large red snappers. He said the big ones bite

best in the winter. A co-worker told me we could get in big trouble because season is closed on red snappers and we’re only allowed two fi sh per per-son. What gives? Did we hire a captain who was breaking the law?

M. Lucio

I wouldn’t be so worried about your captain as I would be about your co-worker, who doesn’t quite have his facts straight. If the charter captain was fi shing in state waters—which I’m assuming he was—you guys are okay. Texas state fi shing regulations allow for a year-round fi shery for red snapper and a bag limit of four fi sh per person more than 15 inches per day. In federal waters, the season is very short, based on some blindfolded bureaucrat throwing two darts at a July calendar, and allows for two snappers over 16 inches. Don’t ask why. Explaining it will make my brain hurt.

CG

Gonzales,What would you say to someone who kept a

30-inch trout he caught croaker soaking?R. Corby

Congratulations!CG

Mr. Gonzales, Why do we have to pay so much for fi shing

licenses? I thought that fi shing was a right. I hate that I have to pay so much every year to pay for one of my rights.

R. Corby

That’s a fair complaint, but you might want to consider this: The fees you pay for your license are the very reason you can enjoy some of the best fi shing in the country. The redfi sh and trout stamps pay for the hatchery, manpower, research, and re-stocking programs that protect the stocks, rebuild them in historic areas that are depleted, and maintain the genetic diversity that helps maxi-mize a species’s potential for growth and fecundity. The state provides Texas Parks and Wildlife with a very bare-bones spending budget. I’m sure that they could cut licensing fees, but if there are

reciprocal consequences. You have to cut spending somehow. What do you want to sacrifi ce?

CG

Calixto,There are so many different brands of rod and

reels on the market, and they all seem to make the same things. Which one should I choose?

L. Avery

Each product has assets and liabilities. You can’t deny that. Ultimately, when you line up and balance the top products of each company, it comes out as a wash. A lot of it comes down to what you want and what you’re comfortable with.

Do you want speed, or power? Casting distance or accuracy? Line capacity or drag power? When you have an idea what you want, you can start looking for the most suitable products in your price range (always an important factor to consider). The fun part of outfi tting your setup the way you want it is the shopping.

Of course, you could always have a rod custom-built; that’s a whole different can of worms…

CGC,What is your favorite fi shing memory?M. Castille

My son overcoming a horrendous case of food poisoning and braving an impromptu typhoon to win his age division in the 2012 Dargel Owners Tournament.

My boy was sick as a dog, chilled, and soak-ing wet, but he got his fi sh and beat some tough competition. I was prouder then than after any trophy fi sh I ever brought to the net. As much as he hates admitting it, that kid has a lot of his old man in him.

Don’t e-mail him about that. He’ll kill me.Keep your e-mails coming. I may not be able to

answer them right off, but I do read them. Besides, I always need grist for a new column.

CG

Email Calixto Gonzales atContactUs@fi shgame.com

by CALIXTO GONZALES :: TF&G Saltwater Editor


Texas SALTWATER

1506 Saltwater.indd 47 5/7/15 8:56 PM


ChangingDemographicsand the NextSportingGeneration story by chester moore

Fea 5-Hooks and Bullets.indd 48 5/7/15 7:57 PM

Hook and bullet. That is a term members of the mainstream media use to describe the outdoor com-munity, particularly those of us involved in communica-tion, such as yours truly.

Although hooks and bul-lets are certainly a very important part of this page, there is much more to the story.

The wild creatures that drive us to the field are the glue that holds the outdoor community together. After all, there could be no deer season without deer or bass tournaments without—well—bass.

Pigeonholing from so-called proper media types is understandable, but the “hook and bullet community” has dug that hole even deeper, much deeper.

Not every kid is going to become a full-on, camo-wearing, gun-loving hunter nor a passionate wade-fishing fanatic. And we should not expect them to.

T E X A S F I S H & G A M E ® | J U N E 2 0 1 5 | 49COMPOSITE PHOTO: TF&G


I realize that probably caused a few gasps but it is the truth.

There have always been hunters, and there have always been gatherers, and they serve equally important roles.

Because of a constant media barrage of animal rights drivel, hunters in particular have a “if you’re not one of us, you’re against us” attitude. The result is a large number of young hunters and, to a lesser extent, anglers who have very little knowledge of the habitat they hunt, the game they pursue and no interest in anything that cannot be killed.

They would not know a ringtail from a badger, nor a sand eel from a moray.

The outdoor experience for many has been turned into a means to enhance one’s status on social media by posing with kills and catches alone. And while we should celebrate outdoor triumphs (I certainly do) appreciating all wild things is important.

Yes, even stuff we cannot kill.Some kids are just not going to hunt or

fi sh, but it does not mean they cannot go to the family deer lease or enjoy time on the water. However framing the outdoor experi-ence in a macho, mine is bigger than yours, frat-house type of way we can drive away children not bent in that direction. In fact, we have done this to entire generations.

Girls are particularly prone to dislike anything even loosely associated with “red-neck” but like all of us have a God-given spirit for spending time outdoors.

The fi rst time I taught one of my Kingdom

Zoo classes, I was shocked that 75 percent of participants were girls.

After my spring session, I started asking why and then realized it was how the classes were promoted and taught. It wasn’t billed as “come get your tough on” in the outdoor class. It was simply about enjoyment.

The next generation of conservationists needs to be the most passionate and dedi-cated ever because of the growing problems facing our resources.

But where are they going to come from?When reverence is considered weakness,

and we are driven by bag limits instead of sum total outdoor experience who will truly care enough about habitat to stand when trouble comes? The few have always risen to benefi t the many but the few are getting fewer.

A friend of mine and I have talked at length about who will take up the mantle of waterfowl conservation and agree that all it will take to lose about half of the waterfowl hunters under age 30 is a severe drought on the nesting grounds and a three bird limit.

Perspective is extremely important and that demographic has nothing to draw from but big fall fl ights and liberal limits.

In the end that will separate the chaff from the wheat, but it will also greatly decrease the number of duck stamps sold. These are numbers that hunter groups such as Ducks Unlimited and Delta Waterfowl can use to lobby for pro-sportsman and conservation issues, as well as a host of other

problems.As a community, we need to reevaluate

what we are teaching young people and take time to enjoy what is out there.

Your daughter who tags along to deer camp may never become an adult hunter, but if she gets a proper outdoor education including up close and personal wildlife encounters at a formative age, she may become a biologist who makes a real differ-ence in wildlife research.

Your son who seems a little awkward chunking a topwater on the bay may not become an every weekend fi sherman like Daddy, but he may hold public offi ce one day and hold the very key that preserves your fi shing and hunting rights.

The young people whom I work with every week are seeking authenticity per-haps more than anything else. The outdoor industry and we as individuals need to fi gure out how to unapologetically promote our consumption-based, pro-conservation life-style. If we do this and embrace those who do not enjoy fi shing or hunting, they might become our best allies, and we will be much better off.

We live in a complex world. Changing attitudes and socio-economic demographics demand that we take a hard look at ourselves to broaden our base.

50 | J U N E 2 0 1 5 | T E X A S F I S H & G A M E ® PHOTOS: STEVE OEHLENSCHALGER, KIMBERLY REINICK, DPC

Lauren Williams gets a close look at a cougar at the Caldwell Zoo in Tyler. Even zoo trips can be a big inspiration for kids.


An Excellent Question

I’D FORGOTTEN HOW DARK IT gets in central Texas until I went hog hunting with Wrong Willie and Jerry Wayne outside of Hico. It was one of

those jump trips that begins when the phone rings and someone on the other end starts the ball rolling.

I answered, “What?”Wrong Willie responded as usual.

“That’s not the way you answer the phone. Me and Jerry Wayne will be over in an hour. We’re going hog hunting tonight.”

“Aren’t you supposed to ask me if I want to go? I have a life. I might be busy tonight.”

“We’ll be there in fi fty-nine minutes.”“See you then.”It was full dark-thirty when we wrestled

the wire gate out of the way, suffering only one minor wound. Negotiating the pasture without headlights was easy under the full moon. When we got to the lowest part near the creek, the ground bounced us around like seeds in a rattle.

Willie fought the wheel. “That’s why we need to shoot some of these hogs. They’re tearing this place up.”

I held onto the handle attached to the door post. “Park there. We can see most of this open bottom from this little ridge.”

He turned, backed up, and we de-trucked. Each of us grabbed a backpack and a rifl e. Willie provided the million candle-power red light. I didn’t think we needed it, but you never know.

Jerry Wayne sounded like an elephant as he stomped around the bed of the truck.

“Can you move a little more quietly?”He sat heavily onto the toolbox, sounding

as if someone had dropped a sack of cement.

“Fine. I’ll sit right here.” With that declara-tion, he unzipped the loudest zipper I’ve ever heard. The sound of his hand rustling through the pack fi lled the air.

“Shhh.”“I’m being quiet.” Not fi nding what he

was looking for in the pocket apparently full of nothing but crunchy cellophane, he closed the pocket as loudly as possible. Then he unzipped the next pocket.

Willie leaned over and whispered. “What are you looking for?”

“Something to eat.”“Can’t you do that a little quieter?”“I’ll try.”Another zipper about three yards long

riiiipped through the silence. It sounded as if he was intentionally crushing a bag of chips, then it closed. “I know I have snacks in here.”

“Hang on.” Willie picked up his bazil-lion-power candlepower spotlight and fl icked it on….directly in my eyes.

“Jeeze!!!” I nearly fell over the side. “I’m blind!”

“Shhh. Here Jerry Wayne.” He started to aim it toward the offensive backpack when a grunt caught his attention. Willie swung the beam toward a line of cedars and caught the hind end of a hog disappearing.

“Rev, get ready.”“I was ready a long time ago.” I raised

my rifl e and waited. “I can’t see anything but spots now.”

The grunting continued, almost drowned by the noise coming from Jerry Wayne’s backpack. “Found it.”

Cellophane again crackled behind me, followed by a low, satisfi ed moan and the sounds of chewing.

The hogs disappeared, probably because Jerry Wayne didn’t offer them anything to eat, and Willie clicked off the gazillion power light.

As our eyes became accustomed to the moonlight, I saw a deer slip past, about fi fty yards away.

“Did we leave the cooler in the back seat?”

“You left the cooler in there, Jerry.”He grunted over the side and opened the

door. The dome light immediately destroyed our night vision once again. Ice swished as Jerry Wayne lifted the cooler out and bumped it against the fender. The sound was like a dead body plopping into the back. He fi nally piled in again.

Thinking it was over, Wrong Willie fl icked on the mazillion-power red light and scanned the area.

Apparently satisfi ed, Jerry chewed thoughtfully. “You know, I’d have found something to eat faster if I hadn’t been look-ing in your pack, Willie.”

“That’s what we get for buying them at the same time.”

“Hey, it was a great sale. Thanks for the jerky.”

The red light beam stopped its prowl. “Jerry, I didn’t bring jerky.”

“Sure you did. It’s pretty good, too.”“No. I didn’t bring jerky.”“Then what am I eating?”The beam raced from the cedars, across

the pasture, and into the bed of our truck, fi nally lighting the object in Jerry Wayne’s hand.

“That’s not jerky.”We stared for a long moment, then the

beam slowly returned to the cedars.“If this ain’t jerky, then what is it?”Willie and I swallowed, gagged slightly,

and returned to the hunt, leaving Jerry Wayne to ponder what was in his hand.

Email Reavis Wortham atContactUs@fi shgame.com

by REAVIS Z. WORTHAM :: TF&G Humor Editor


Open SEASON

1506 Humor.indd 51 5/7/15 7:58 PM

What is the future of fi shing?

That’s the question outdoors industry pundits have been ask-ing for decades as overall par-ticipation in the great sport has

in good years remained static.I have them answer for them.It’s called high school bass fi shing.According to Bassmaster Elite Series Pro

Alton Jones, this has the potential to shape the future of not only professional fi shing but can serve to inspire a new generation of kids to get serious about all kinds of angling opportunities.

“When you start getting kids focused on this in high school, learning about competi-tion, getting experience, honing their skills and even seeking sponsorships it is easy to see how this will make a positive difference on the future of tournament fi shing,” Jones said.

I recently had the privilege of accompa-nying Jones on a high school team event sponsored by Texas Fish & Game on Lake Bastrop and found he has super high con-fi dence in what the sport will bring to bass fi shing in the long run.

“Many of the pros of the future will likely

come out of high school clubs, go into college and then hit the pro level with much greater experience than those of us currently on the Bassmaster Elite Series did,” he said.

Most Texas teams are part of the Student Angler Federation (SAF), a collaborative effort of The Bass Federation and FLW Outdoors. Cost is only $25/ year and includes full TBF and FLW benefi ts, including FLW Magazine e-Edition and insurance coverage for students and their club.

Through SAF students have many oppor-tunities to excel and get a taste of what high level competition is all about.

My wife Lisa Moore started a in 2013 at Deweyville High School and since then, the Deweyville Pirate Angler’s Club has grown tremendously.

“It’s so exciting as we have so many teams in a relatively small region and it grow super fast. The kids are so into it and what I like is that it gets some kids involved who might otherwise not be into extracurricular events.

Our school district is always happy to get kids involved in things to help mentor and motivate. I have been so impressed with our team and I am so proud of what they have accomplished,” she said.

Jenn Doyle is sponsor of the Little Cypress-Mauriceville High School Bass Fishing Team and said the growth potential in Texas is huge.

“There is no better state for bass fi sh-ing than Texas and there is no place where people are as passionate about the outdoors. We are going to see this grow and see a new generation of highly skilled anglers coming out of our schools. It is an exciting time.”

Indeed it is.The Southeast Texas High School

Fishing Association regularly sees more than 300 teams fi shing on Sam Rayburn.

Think about that. More than 300 teams of young fi shermen excited enough about the sport to invest their time and money and brave all kinds of fi shing conditions. These kids have offi cially traded in the X-Box for the tackle box.

Right now these competitions are fl ourish-ing in some part because the school systems haven’t really gotten their hooks into them.

Fishing’s FutureFishing’s FutureFishing’s Future


Fishing with AltonJones and Last Year’sState High SchoolBass Champs STORY BY CHESTER MOORE

Above: Pro Alton Jones with, from left, Tristan Riddle and Sterlyn Wood of San Angelo, and Will Brady and Joe Beebee of The Woodlands.

Fea 7-HS Bass.indd 52 5/11/15 2:23 PM

For example, they are not part of the UIL system, which regulates everything from foot-ball to cheerleading. In my opinion virtually everything with some sort of educational over-sight gets screwed up.

Right now it’s sort of like the wild west out there with loose bands operating together in isolated pockets. You have large conglomera-tions of schools like SETX and areas with just one or two schools. The tournaments are organized by the team sponsors and much of the work is done by parents and teachers.

It is an amazing thing to watch.There is potential for this to catch on in

coastal areas with redfi sh tournaments and in other states for fi sh like walleye.

Beyond the number of soft plastic worms, line and rods sold, the high school fi shing phenomenon has done something truly mag-nifi cent.

It has made fi shing cool for kids.That’s something no one has managed

to pull off and it is an exciting thing to see, especially in this era.

Where will this trend go?It will probably peak out in Texas in the

next few years but in my opinion it is here to stay. Fishing is in the DNA of many Texans and now it is in the heart and minds of high school students.

I have been blessed to fi sh alongside some of these teams and last fall got to fi sh with two very special teams with Alton Jones on Lake Bastrop.

Joe Beebee and Will Brady of The Woodlands placed fi rst in the state high school championship in 2014 and Sterlyn Wood of Christoval and Tristan Riddle of San Angelo placed second. The event was held at LBJ Reservoir out of Marble Falls and TEXAS FISH & GAME provided them a chance to fi sh with Jones.

As I watched these young men fi sh along-side Jones and absorb his angling wisdom, it was apparent they not only had some skills but a desire to improve their craft and take things to another level.

Texas high school sports have always

revolved around balls with a particular emphasis on pigskins. Our state has had many go to the pros and become legends in the NFL.

Now kids more inclined to fi sh than suit up for football, baseball or basketball have the same kind of opportunity.

They may choose to simply fi sh hard and test themselves, which is noble in its own right or had down the path of becoming a profes-sional angler.

Either way is a win for the industry and in my opinion, it won’t be too long before we see a Bassmaster Classic champion who came out of high school fi shing in the great state of Texas.

For more information on the Student Angler Federation go to highschoolfi shing.org. B.A.S.S. also has a growing youth fi shing division you can learn more about at bassmaster.com/youth.

Ray Roberts Lake RecordIT ALL STARTED WITH MY NEW boat. I had just picked up my new Triton 22 TRX, powered by a Mercury 250 Pro XS two days before. I had taken my fi rst guide trip in it the day before, on March 6th. That day was special in its own right: we had two fi sh over 10 pounds. Not a bad way to break in a new boat.

Well, that was just the beginning.On Saturday March 7, I had Shannon

Elvington, of Pilot Point scheduled for a full day bass fi shing trip. He grew up fi shing, but had gotten away from it for a while. He hired me to help get him back into the swing of things.

We started the day with some quick fi sh, working suspending jerkbaits around main lake rocky points. About 9:45, I caught a fi sh just a little over 10 pounds. Shannon was super excit-ed to see that size of fi sh. He had always wanted to catch a ten, but unfortunately I caught it.

He had wanted to schedule a trip with me the previous July, hoping to get on a big fi sh. But I advised him for the best chance at a big fi sh, was to wait until the spring.

Around 10:45 we pulled up to another main lake point. I actually told Shannon, when we

pulled up this was a big fi sh spot. Boy, was I right that day.

The boat was setting in 22 feet of water. He was casting up on the edge of a drop off, that was around 14 feet deep. After making 4 or 5 casts, Shannon hooked up. He was using one of my Abu Garcia Veracity Medium actions rods, with a Lew’s tournament MG reel, spooled with Berkley 12lb test 100% Fluorocarbon line. He was still throwing the suspending jerkbait. He hooked up and immediately the fi sh came near the surface, but didn’t break it. The water was extremely clear for Ray Roberts. And clearly, this was a very large fi sh.

Shannon did a great job, as the fi sh made a big surge under the boat, and made another run away from the boat. When the fi sh came by the boat, I could see she had all 3 treble hooks and was hooked good. On the next pass, she came by the boat, much shal-lower than before, and I was able to net her. I knew we had something special as I pulled her in the boat.

Shannon immediately said, “I hope she is over ten.”

Not sure what I said, but it was some-thing along the lines of, “she is WAY over ten.”

We weighed the fi sh one time on the boga grips scales and she showed just a

hair over 15 pounds. There were a bunch of high fi ves, and big yells. I’m sure we could be heard from a ways away.

We made a phone call to the TPWD ShareLunker program to get them on the way, to pick her up. Shannon donated the fi sh to the program.

Once they arrived, they weighed her and certifi ed her weight. She weighed in at 15.18 pounds and eclipsed the previous lake record. She was ShareLunker #560 for the state of Texas!

—Dannie Golden

Dannie Golden is a fi shing guide on Lake Ray Roberts. He can be reached at817-228-5999 or online at www.get-bit.com


Shannon Elvington, left, with guide Dannie Golden.

PHOTO: COURTESY DANNIE GOLDEN

Fea 7-HS Bass.indd 53 5/11/15 2:23 PM

Maintenance Mishaps

LOOK OUT FOR THESE BOAT and engine maintenance mishaps, which can put a serious crimp in your boating season.

We hope you give your boat and its engine periodic inspections, keep up with regular maintenance, and fi x things as soon as you notice they aren’t operating at 100-percent.

We say “hope” because the number-one maintenance problem is a lack of said main-tenance. But sometimes, a regular mainte-nance chore that we know we need to take care of goes awry. Try as we might to do

the right thing, the wrong thing happens. Look out for these 10 maintenance mishaps, and the time you spend afl oat will be worry-free�we hope.

1. THE BROKEN BOLT. WE’VE ALL been there. You choose the correct socket or wrench, apply pressure, and… snap! Off comes the head. Broken bolts are a major hassle, not only because removing the bolt just became 10 times tougher, but also because you now need to go to the marine supply store and get a replacement.

How can you prevent this problem? For

starters, don’t over-pressure the bolt in the fi rst place. A spritz of PB Blaster, WD-40, or a similar lubricant can work wonders. Spray it on liberally, then give it plenty of time for the juice to seep in.

Secondly, don’t let bolts get corroded in the fi rst place. Usually a bolt that breaks is one that hasn’t been removed for years, while being subjected to lots of moisture and/or saltwater. As soon as you see one going bad, pull and replace it. Finally, when a bolt’s sticky, moderate pressure and some lube doesn’t do the trick, and you’re at a loss, try applying some heat. A minute or two with a torch is often all it takes to get a bolt moving again.

2. THE HAZY GLAZE. IF YOU HAVE any sort of clear plastic on your boat—and you almost surely do, either in the wind-shield, clear canvas curtains, or opening ports—you probably give it regular cleaning. We hope you also polish it with an appropri-ate product (like Plexus) that replaces the plasticizers, which can leach out over time.

Yet they may still turn hazy; and even-tually, it seems like you’re always looking through a thick fog. The fi rst reason this happens is because people clean the clear plastic with a contaminated rag or cloth. All it takes is a tiny bit of grit to scratch the surface of the plastic. The second common reason is using the wrong cleaning products. Anything containing ammonia, including common window cleaners, will cause the clear plastic to haze up in a fl ash.

3. GEL COAT GLOSS LOSS. YOU say you waxed your boat every spring, yet the gel coat is still deteriorating at a rapid pace? While regular waxing is a must, if you don’t eliminate all oxidation fi rst, you lock it in behind that wax and things will only get worse. When you fi rst get ready to wax the hull sides inspect them closely for any chalky spots. If you fi nd any, hit the hull with a good oxidation remover before beginning that wax job.

by LENNY RUDOW :: TF&G Boating Editor

Texas BOATINGTexas Texas Texas Texas Texas Texas Texas Texas Texas Texas Texas

ALMANAC-1506-Jun.indd 54 5/11/15 2:26 PM

ALMANAC-1506-Jun.indd 55 5/7/15 9:40 AM


4. FILTER’S OUT OF KILTER. FUEL fi lter/water separators go bad with some regu-larity, whether your fuel becomes contaminat-ed with water or not. Every two or three years, you need to swap them out. Aha! We’ve already identifi ed a problem. After two or three years, the threads on fuel fi lter/water separators quite commonly become corroded. Then it becomes a struggle to remove it, and as you struggle, something breaks. A simple solution is to remove and replace the fuel fi lter every spring, regardless of its condition.

5. GETTING GOUGED. IF YOUR boat lives in a slip, repainting the bottom every few years is a must. But fi rst, you have to get rid of the old paint. Unfortunately, the scraping chore often leads to gashes and gouges in your boat’s bottom. Why? Because many people assume a regular paint scraper or a putty knife is the right tool for the job. It’s not, because most paint scrapers are intended to be used on fl at surfaces, not rounded ones like boat hulls. Prevent the problem by grind-ing off the corners of your scraper or putty knife, to avoid gouging the gel coat as you scrape the loose paint free.

6. FUSE FOLLIES. IF YOUR BOAT has fuses instead of breakers, you probably

have perpetual problems with them. In an ideal world you’d replace the system, but in reality, you probably get by with a box of spare fuses and replace some now and again. This works… until it doesn’t. The reason? The market is fl ooded with cheap fuses mass-produced overseas, with poor tolerances. It you have perpetual electrical gremlins, there’s a good chance you got a bad batch of fuses. The solution is simple: throw all those cheap fuses away, and get a selection of high-quality fuses made in the good ‘ol U.S. of A.

7. OUTBOARD MOUNT MANEUVERS. If you have a long history with small out-boards that are mounted with clamps, you’ve almost certainly experienced two things: the clamps becoming too tough to turn because of a lack of lubrication, and the clamps vibrating free, because of the lubrication you gave them. Truth be told, there’s not much of a happy middle ground. You need them lubed a bit, so keep up with that maintenance chore. But prevent them from spinning open, by con-necting the eyes in the two hand-screws of the clamps with a zip-tie.

8. SLICK TRICK. HERE’S ANOTHER double-edged sword: if you don’t wax the deck, it’ll look terrible and become diffi cult

to clean. If you do wax the deck, it’ll become an ice-skating rink. The good news is Woody Wax. This stuff works wonders, without mak-ing the deck slippery. (3M and Meguiar’s also make a wax they claim is non-slip, but I can’t vouch for them since I’ve never used them—Woody Wax is ideal for the purpose, and I operate under the “if it ain’t broke don’t fi x it” school of thought, regarding this matter).

9. DON’T SPOIL THE OIL. REGULAR lower unit oil changes are a must, and if you do this job regularly, you should have one of those handy little pumps that threads onto the neck of the oil bottle. There’s just one prob-lem. Between changes, the pick-up tube of the pump tends to collect dust and grime—which can contaminate the oil the next time you start pumping. Prevent this problem by leaving the pump threaded onto the empty oil bottle the next time you complete an oil change.

10. EEEEEEW, GROSS. AND FOR our fi nal maintenance mishap tip (drum roll, please) let’s address one of the more odious tasks we boat owners face: cleaning out the portable MSD. At least once each season you’ll need to remove it from the head compartment, get it to a toilet, and hold your nose while you evacuate the contents. But the seals on these things are rarely as effl uent-tight as we’d like, and it’s pretty common to have some of the contents leak out as you carry it to the bathroom. True, this probably won’t damage anything. Still, it’s a hideous enough event that we want to take every possible precaution to avoid such sickening spillage. Here’s how: Take a large, heavy-duty lawn-and-leaf garbage bag, open it up, and place it on the deck as close to the head as possible. Then move the MSD onto it as carefully as possible, lift the edges of the bag up and around your portable pottie, and carry it to the bathroom while it’s inside the bag. Whew!—thank goodness that maintenance chore is over with for another year.

Email Lenny Rudow atContactUs@fi shgame.com

Texas BOATING



by PAUL BRADSHAW | TF&G Contributing Editor

Back to Basics

THIS IS A GREAT TIME OF year isn’t it? The birds are singing, the sun is shining, and the kids are out of school. Wait. The kids are

out of school! When did that happen?So now that means you have a house full

of short people, and you have to fi nd a way to keep them busy that doesn’t involve hand-held electronic devices, hours sitting inside air conditioned buildings eat-ing potato chips, and doesn’t require copious amounts of cash.

Well, you’re in luck because I have a way to do that. Just send them off to the closest body of water with a fi shing pole, a little bit of tackle, this article and tell them you’ll see them at sunset. You’re part is done. I’ll take it from here.

OK, kids we’re getting back to basic fi shing�nothing fancy. No soft plastic rigs named after states. No multi-hook concoc-tions that require a PhD to understand how to tie. If you’re looking for a secret on how to win your next bass tournament or expect-ing some earth shattering fi shing revelation, then move along. However, if you’re looking for a way to catch fi sh on just about every cast then stay right here and pay attention because I’m only going to type this once. Of course, you can read it as many times as you want to.

Fish love grasshoppers. More precisely, they love to eat grasshoppers. Sure, they eat other bait too but I doubt you can fi nd a fi sh swimming anywhere that wouldn’t attack a grasshopper as if it insulted its mom.

Many years ago, when I was a youngster, grasshoppers were my bait of choice. Mainly because we had roughly 87 billion of them around the small pond we fi shed in. Lose your bait? No problem, just step out into the tall grass and fi nd some more. The ones that spit on you were the best bait.

I remember one time I caught so many that I kept them in a jar in the house, where I forgot about them for a few weeks…but

that’s a story for a different time.The rig used for fi shing with grasshoppers is fairly straight

f o r w a r d . Start by tying a small hook on the end of your line. I’m a fan of long shanked bait hooks simply because they are easier to unhook once you catch something since the eye will not be very deep in the fi sh’s mouth. If you don’t have long-shanked hooks that’s fi ne, any bait hook will work as long as you match it to the size of the grasshoppers you intend to use.

About three inches up the line from the hook, you will need to attach a split shot. Why? Because grasshoppers fl oat and if you don’t have a weight on the line they’ll fl oat to the top and climb up on your bobber for a nice leisurely sunbath.

This leads us to the last part of this rig, your bobber. Approximately, 12 to 18

inches up the line you will need a bobber in order to keep your bait off the bottom. This also acts as a strike indicator.

I’m a fan of Styrofoam bobbers since they are more durable than the standard red and white plastic kind and don’t break when you bounce them off docks, tree limbs, or the occasional turtle. Just keep in mind that big-ger doesn’t always mean better when select-ing bobbers. Small fi sh cannot pull down big bobbers so don’t choose one the size of a beach ball if you’re chasing bream.

Putting a grasshopper on your hook is fairly simple

as well. Some people

like to hook them through the

head or back but in my opinion this leaves too much of the bait without a hook in

it. I prefer to hook them lengthwise

through the thorax (that’s the chest of

the grasshop-per). Start by pushing the

point of the hook into the section between the chin and thorax, running it down through the body and exiting in the abdomen just behind the thorax. If you do this right, there will be minimal damage to the grasshopper, and it will stay alive and kicking�well, right up until it gets eaten.

Email Paul Bradshaw atContactUs@fi shgame.com

The Practical ANGLERThe Practical The Practical The Practical The Practical The Practical The Practical The Practical The Practical The Practical The Practical The Practical

ing bobbers. Small fi sh cannot pull down big bobbers so don’t choose one the size of a beach ball if you’re chasing bream.

Putting a grasshopper on your hook is fairly simple

like to hook them through the

head or back but in my opinion this leaves too much of the bait without a hook in

it. I prefer to hook them lengthwise

the grasshop-per). Start by pushing the

point of the hook into the section between the chin and thorax, running it down through the body and exiting in the abdomen just behind the thorax. If you do this right, there will be minimal damage to the grasshopper, and it will stay alive and kicking�well, right up until it gets eaten.

your bait? No problem, just step out into the tall grass and fi nd some more. The ones that spit on you were the best bait.

I remember one time I caught so many that I kept them in a jar in the house, where I forgot about them for a few weeks…but

that’s a story for a different time.The rig used for fi shing with grasshoppers is fairly straight

f o r w a r d . Start by tying a small hook on the end of your line. I’m a fan of long shanked bait hooks simply because they are easier to unhook once you catch something since the eye will not be very deep in the fi sh’s mouth. If you don’t have long-shanked hooks that’s fi ne, any bait hook will work as long as you match it to the size of the grasshoppers you intend to use.

About three inches up the line from the hook, you will need to attach a split shot. Why? Because grasshoppers fl oat and if you

Tthe sun is shining, and the kids are out of school. Wait. The kids are

out of school! When did that happen?So now that means you have a house full

of short people, and you have to fi nd a way to keep them busy that doesn’t involve hand-held electronic devices, hours sitting inside air conditioned buildings eat-ing potato chips, and doesn’t require copious amounts of cash.

Well, you’re in luck because I have a way to do that. Just send them off to the closest body of water with a fi shing pole, a little bit of tackle, this article and tell them you’ll see them at sunset. You’re part is done. I’ll take it from here.

OK, kids we’re getting back to basic fi shing�nothing fancy. No soft plastic rigs named after states. No multi-hook concoc-tions that require a PhD to understand how to tie. If you’re looking for a secret on how to win your next bass tournament or expect-ing some earth shattering fi shing revelation, then move along. However, if you’re looking


by STEVE LAMASCUS | TF&G Shooting Editor

Battle Rifl es, Pt 2

BETWEEN THE KOREAN War and the Vietnam war, the M1 Garand was replaced as the main battle rifl e of the U.S. military by the

M14, a select-fi re weapon that used a shorter .308 caliber (7.62x51 or .308 Winchester) round and was loaded with a 20-round box magazine inserted into bottom of the rifl e. It was a fi ne battle rifl e. So good, in fact, that when the M16 was adopted there was almost a mutiny in the Marine Corps when they began trying to replace the big, powerful M14 with the toy-like M16.

Today a popular rifl e with on the civilian market is the semi-auto version of the M14, the M1A, which is used in military-style target matches. Unlike the M1, the M14 made a very good sniping rifl e because a scope could be mounted centrally over the bore. Equipped with a Starlight scope, it was very popular as a night-time sniping rifl e.

When the M16 entered service during the Vietnam War, it had many teething pains. When the M16 was shipped to Vietnam, the troops were told it was “self cleaning,” and were provided no cleaning kits.

It was not.This caused stoppages at critical moments

in combat and the M16 got a bad reputation that it did not deserve. The troops claimed that the “M” in M16 stood for the manufacturer, Mattel, the toy maker. This was untrue. The actual innovator of the M16 was Armalite.

After the military began shipping cleaning kits to the war zone, the gun began to work as it was intended, and by the end of the war it was gaining in popularity with the troops.

Today the latest version of the M16 is still in service, over 50 years after the fi rst one saw com-bat. The AR15, the semi-auto civilian version is so popular that almost every major manufacturer

makes some version.As part of the preparation for this article, I

did accuracy tests with all the above, or civilian versions of those I did not have access to, with the exception of a .30-40 Krag. I could not fi nd a Krag in what I thought was condition suffi cient to test.

I will readily admit that I was pretty certain from the start that I could not expect much from combat rifl es, especially those that in some cases were approaching a hundred years of age. I was, of course, wrong.

I did 100-yard bench tests of a 1903A3 Springfi eld, two Springfi eld M1 Garands, a 1917 Eddystone Enfi eld, and an Inland M1 Carbine; also Smith and Wesson AR15 M4 version and a Springfi eld M1A. Except for the M1 Carbine, the guns were not tested with military ammunition.

In the M1 Garands, the 1903A3, and the 1917 Enfi eld, I fi red handloads using 150-grain full metal-cased bullets, loaded to military WWII specifi cations. In the AR15 and M1A I used handloads of current specs. In the M1 Carbine I fi red what I believe was Lake City arsenal ammunition of 1971 manufacture, but I would not bet the bank on it since the head-stamps were almost impossible to read.

I thank Hornady for providing the bullets and the brass for these tests and Springfi eld Armory for use of their fi ne M1A. For the use of the M1 Carbine and ammunition I thank Rodney Deorsam of Oasis Outback in Uvalde, Texas. Rodney is an old buddy of mine and Oasis Outback is a large sporting goods store, fi rearms dealer, and has a fi ne restaurant on site.

The 1903A3 and both Garands would regularly group inside three inches for three shots, and sometimes less. One of the Garands, a parts gun using a reconditioned receiver and a new barrel, often managed groups of two inches. They all beat the factory specs. which called for four-inch groups at 100 yards. The 1917 Enfi eld had been “sporterized” by cutting away all the excess military wood, and was not as accurate as the others, but did manage four-inch 100-yard groups.

The M1A was more accurate than I am

with my aging eyes, using the peep sights that come on the rifl e. It was suffi ciently accurate to deserve a scope. I tried to mount a scope on the rifl e using the Springfi eld mount, but could not make it fi t properly and eventually destroyed the threads on the mounting bolt.

The AR15 was fi tted with a Bushnell 3x9 scope and would regularly shoot three shots right at one inch. This was not really surpris-ing, as I have actually come to expect such accuracy from the better AR15s. They tend to shoot about as well as a modern, off-the-shelf bolt-action.

The little M1 Carbine, as I suspected it would be, was the loser in the accuracy depart-ment. At 50 yards it was adequate, posting groups of about two inches. But when I backed off to 100 yards it fell apart; 100 yard groups were all four inches to six inches, not good, but good enough for its intended purpose.

However, it functioned poorly, jamming after every one or two shots. I believe it needs either a different magazine, a new mainspring, or both.

These are not all the weapons in the U.S. arsenal. I had no way to test the various full-auto weapons, such as the Thompson submachine gun, and the special operations units, such as the SEALs and Delta Force, use a great many specially built weapons that fi t the needs for their very special purposes. These are, however, the weapons that G.I. Joe carried through four major wars and numerous other armed confl icts.

The bottom line is that the U.S. soldiers in the 20th Century had always been armed with weapons that were well-made and serviceable. They shoot very well and were at least the equal and usually superior to any other weapon on the battle fi eld. I just hope the military continues to provide our soldiers and Marines with such superior weaponry. Uncles Sam’s fi nest deserve the best we can give them.

Email Steve LaMascus atContactUs@fi shgame.com


Texas GUNS


62 | J U N E 2 0 1 5 | T E X A S F I S H & G A M E ® PHOTOS: COSTA DEL MAR

Industry INSIDERIndustry Industry Industry Industry Industry INSIDERINSIDERINSIDERINSIDERINSIDERINSIDERINSIDERINSIDERINSIDERINSIDERINSIDERINSIDERINSIDERINSIDERINSIDER

Costa and Kenny Chesney Team Up for CCACOUNTRY ICON KENNY CHESNEY, who recently topped the charts with “Til It’s Gone” and the Grammy-nominated multiple week No. 1 “American Kids” from his brand new Big Revival album, again teams with Costa for another series of limited edition sun-glasses to benefi t the Coastal Con-servation Associa-tion (CCA). This year’s fi ve styles arrive just in time for Chesney’s Big Revival 2015 Summer Tour, hit-ting the road and 23 stadiums before the end of August.

The fi ve popular sunglass styles in this year’s limited edition line include Cut, Caballito and KC, as well as two new styles for 2015, La Mar and Loreto. Cut, Caballito and La Mar feature Costa’s nearly indestructible co-injected molded nylon frame construction, with hypoallergenic no-slip nose pads and sturdy integral hinge technology. In keeping with the bold, bright vibe from this year’s tour, these limited edition Kenny Chesney Costa sunglass frames are avail-

able in mellow yellow, cherry berry and a tri-color fusion technology that creates a tortoise/white/aqua option.

Two metal sunglass styles are also available: the

KC named for Chesney’s ini-tials, and Loreto.

Both feature optically adjust-

able no-slip silicone nose tials, and Loreto. optically adjust-

able no-slip silicone nose

T E X A S F I S H & G A M E

Both feature optically adjust-

Music icon Kenny Chesney has partnered with Costa for another series of limited edition sun-glasses benefi tting CCA.

sunglass styles

available: the

Two metal sunglass styles

La Mar

KC

Caballito

Cut (yellow)


pads and integral hinges. Frame colors include choices such as palladium, rose gold and gunmetal with crystal temples.

All of Kenny Chesney’s limited edi-tion Costa sunglasses are meant for people who savor the outdoors, especially being on the water. Available in the full array of Costa’s 580P™ lens technology, these options selectively fi lter out harsh yellow and harmful high-energy ultraviolet blue light. By fi ltering yellow light, they enhance reds, blues and greens and produce better contrast and defi nition, while reducing glare and eye fatigue. Absorbing high-energy blue light also cuts haze, producing greater visual clarity and sharpness.

Each of the 8-time Academy of Country Music and Country Music Association Entertainer of the Year’s Costa sunglasses come with a free gift pack that includes a custom hat, cleaning cloth and sunglass case. All the kit’s components feature a unique design with bold colors inspired by the painted school bus featured in Chesney’s “American Kids” video.

A portion of the proceeds generated from the Kenny Chesney Costa sunglasses will directly benefi t the CCA in their reef restoration and coastal rebuilding efforts. So far, the program has raised more than $119,000 for the CCA.

Go here to see a video about the proj-ect: http://bit.ly/kennycostayt.

“Our programs focus on rebuilding vital oyster reefs and marshes to improve water quality and provide critical habitat for fi nfi sh and other aquatic creatures,” said Pat Murray, president of the Coastal Conservation Association. “It is inspiring to see how much we have been able to expand and enhance our coastal restoration efforts, especially along the Gulf Coast, as a result of the partnership between Kenny Chesney and Costa.”

“Our brand was born on the water and lives for the water,” said Al Perkinson, vice president of marketing for Costa. “We work to partner with like-minded people, like Kenny, who share our goal to make the oceans a cleaner, more sustainable place for us all to enjoy.”

The limited edition Kenny Chesney Costa sunglasses start in retail at $149, and are available at www.costadelmar.com.

“Proceeds

from Chesneysunglasses so far

have raisedmore than $119,000

for CCA.“

La Mar

KC

Caballito

Cut (yellow)


Livingston Lures Walking BossLIVINGSTON LURES’ WALKING Boss is a new twist on the tried-and-true walking bait. What’s the twist? Well, there are actually two: Livingston’s Electronic Baitfi sh Sounds (EBS) MultiTouch technology – which emits the sounds of actual baitfi sh in distress – and the ease with which anglers

can achieve the

“sashaying” walk-the-dog action that make this style of bait so effective for both largemouth and speckled trout.

The 5-inch Walking Boss settles in the water at an 80-degree angle, with a slightly-concave chugger mouth that throws off a sharp spitting action at the start of the retrieve. The elongated shape and con-struction of the body provide an exag-gerated side-to-side, walk-the-dog action, and as Team Livingston pro Stetson Blaylock points out: “It’s not always easy to make a walking bait actu-ally walk the dog, but with the Walking Boss, all you have to do is ‘twitch, reel, twitch, reel’ and you get great topwater action.”

Add to that the power of Livings-ton’s EBS Multi-Touch, which allows the angler

to “program” the bait to four different settings to best match an angler’s unique needs: EBS Original (gill-plate compres-sions), EBS Shad (fl eeing shad in dis-tress), EBS Craw (clicking of a shellfi sh) and an EBS Silent mode, which provides a “stealth” setting for highly pressured fi sh.

The Walking Boss is outfi tted with premium Daiichi hooks

(4x strong, chemi-cally

sharp-ened),

and pre-mium black-nickel-plated,

stainless-steel split rings. It’s available in 17 colors and retails for $16.99.

Visit livingstonlures.com.

TRUGLO New BriteSite

TRUGLO INC., MANUFACTURER of the world’s most advanced line

of fi ber-optic sights and accessories for

the

shoot-ing sports indus-

try introduces its next generation of their awarding win-

ning TFO (Tritium/Fiber-Optic) hand-gun sights, the newBrite-Site TFX (Tritium/

Fiber-Optic Xtreme).The patented TFX (Tritium/Fiber-

Optic Xtreme) sighting system is an enhanced version of TRUGLO’s fi eld proven TFO (Tritium/Fiber-Optic) sights. This sight’s hermetically sealed TFX capsule provides maximum protection for the integrated Swiss tritium GTLS and fi ber-optic element against oils, chemicals, cleaning solvents and ultra-sonic clean-ing processes for the utmost in durability. The sight set offers the combination of the premium-grade “glow-in-the-dark” Swiss tritium producing extreme brightness with a white focus ring that surrounds the front sight fi ber assisting in low-light visibility while increasing target acquisition speed. The TFX handgun sight family, like all of TRUGLO’s handgun sights, utilizes a snag-free design for quick holster deploy-ment. Available for many of today’s popu-lar handgun models the new TFX sights are backed by a 12-year limited warranty. Retail price $172.00.

For more information on TRUGLO’s new Brite-Site TFX sights, visit www.TRUGLO.com.

Boss is outfi tted with premium

Livingston Walking Boss Lure

TruGlo Brite-Site TFX sights

64 | J U N E 2 0 1 5 | T E X A S F I S H & G A M E ® PHOTOS: LIVINGSTON LURES; TRUGLO; BEAR & SON CUTLERY

Fish and Game GEAR

struction of the body provide an exag-gerated side-to-side, walk-the-dog action, and as Team Livingston pro Stetson Blaylock points out: “It’s not always easy to make a walking bait actu-ally walk the dog, but with the Walking Boss, all you have to do is ‘twitch, reel, twitch, reel’ and you get great topwater action.”

Add to that the power of Livings-ton’s EBS Multi-Touch,

TRUGLO INC., MANUFACTURER of the world’s most advanced line

of fi ber-optic sights and accessories for

the

shoot-ing sports indus-

try introduces its next generation of their awarding win-

ning TFO (Tritium/Fiber-Optic) hand-gun sights, the newBrite-Site TFX (Tritium/

gun sights, the newBrite-Site TFX (Tritium/

TruGlo Brite-Site TFX sights

| J U N E 2 0 1 5 | T E X A S F I S H & G A M E ® PHOTOS: LIVINGSTON LURES; TRUGLO; BEAR & SON CUTLERY

new Brite-Site TFX sights, www.TRUGLO.com.

technology – which emits the sounds of actual baitfi sh in distress – and the ease with which anglers

can achieve the

“sashaying” walk-the-dog action that make this style of bait so effective for both largemouth and speckled

with premium Daiichi hooks

(4x strong, chemi-cally

sharp-ened),

and pre-mium black-nickel-plated,

stainless-steel split rings. It’s available in 17 colors and retails for $16.99.

with premium Daiichi hooks

Boss Lure


New Push-Button Auto Stiletto from Bear OPSALL IT TAKES IS A FIRM PUSH ON the recessed button and the blade of the new Bear OPS AC-300-ALBK-S Stiletto swings open, ready for action.

The 3-1/4-inch modifi ed spear-point blade is made of premium grade CPM-S30V stainless steel, heat-treated to a Rockwell hardness of 58-60. Known for its superior edge quality, this blade steel also is rust- and corrosion-resistant.

“We stress a ‘fi rm push’ because it is important that the blade swings smoothly open only when you want it to, not by acci-dent,” said Ken Griffey, president of Ala-

bama-based Bear & Son Cutlery.

The handle is black T-6 aircraft aluminum, with a steel pocket clip for tip-up carry and easy access. Locked open, the

AC-300 is 7-5/8”; closed it is 4-1/2”;

and it weighs only 4.3 oz. Made in the USA and backed by

Bear’s Lifetime Warranty, it retails for $170.00.

For more information on this and the full line, visit bearandsoncutlery.com.

CHECK OUT OUR ONLINE STORE for an expanding selection of

innovative, new and hard-to-fi nd outdoor gear.

Visit

FishandGameGear.com

Bear OPS push-button stiletto

black T-6 aircraft aluminum, with a steel pocket clip for tip-up carry and easy access. Locked open, the

AC-300 is 7-5/8”; closed it is 4-1/2”;

and it weighs only 4.3 oz. Made in the USA and backed by

Auto Stiletto from Bear OPSALL IT TAKES IS A FIRM PUSH ON the recessed button and the blade of the new Bear OPS AC-300-ALBK-S Stiletto swings open, ready for action.


Long, Hot Summer Begins

RIDING INTO TOWN ALONG with the month of June comes long, hot days, mostly mild winds, pretty water and lots of fi sh.

Catching fi sh on Sabine Lake in June is really pretty easy. Let’s take a look at some of the top tactics for catching the big three on Texas’s northernmost bay system.

For trout, we spend a lot of time in the surf. The beachfront is a popular and proven destination for many along the Texas Coast. Light winds and sandy, (trout green) water usually adds up to lots of fi sh in the box. Hungry trout looking for an easy meal while cruising the guts will be more than willing to

take topwaters, plastics, spoons, jerk baits, and live bait.

A lot of our time this month is spent drifting the fi rst and second guts catching hefty stringers of trout. When the winds are favorable and the green water has made its way to the sand and it’s almost hard not to score big. If there is bait present and surface activity your odds should really go up.

For redfi sh, we like to throw topwaters early toward the rock wall at Willow Bayou

and work our way northward to East Pass. When the sun gets up and the bite tapers a bit, make the switch to soft plastics. Cocahoe minnows, Bull minnows and Egret 3.5-inch Bayou Chub are excellent choices when rigged with 1/4 or 1/8 oz. jig heads. Another killer setup for nice slot reds is a four-inch GULP Shrimp with 18-24 inches of leader under a nice loud popping cork. Look for areas that are holding bait and give it some good hard pops, then pause.

Have your binoculars handy and keep an eye out for gulls or terns working in the open bay. A lot of times it only takes a few birds diving or picking to put you right in the middle of some of the biggest schools of redfi sh you’ve ever encountered.

For fl ounder, a great place to start is the causeway bridge located on the extreme south end of Pleasure Island. Both the Texas and Louisiana sides of the bridge hold lots of nice fl ounders in June. Anchor on either side near the boat ramp and drag mud minnows or curl tailed jigs like Gulp Swimming Mullet. Tipping with fresh, dead shrimp is never a bad idea. We also like to work the mouths of the bayous on the Louisiana shoreline. From there, move down the bank keying on areas where there is Roseau cane, especially those areas where the cane meets salt grass. Also work any small cuts or points thoroughly.

THE BANK BITE

LOCATION: McFaddin Beach

SPECIES: Speckled Trout, Redfi sh

BAITS/LURES: Topwaters, spoons, plastics, mud minnows

BEST TIMES: Morning and late afternoon

Email Eddie Hernandez atContactUs@fi shgame.com

Hotspot Focus :: by Capt. EDDIE HERNANDEZ

SABINE Area


“For trout, we

spend a lot of time in the surf.“


Off to a Good Start

FISHING PUTS YOU MORE IN touch with the weather than just about any other activity, and saltwa-ter fi shing is doubly so.

Of course, if you also fi sh the Texas coast you will likely experience more variations of weather than you really want to see. We sel-dom get extreme cold in our area, but having lived here pretty much all my life I have seen 12 inches of snow, coastal bayous and marina harbors frozen across, and even ice covering large portions of the bays around Galveston. Doesn’t happen often, of course, but it CAN happen.

Warmer weather is the more common extreme, and it can get very hot on our coast. Warm weather has off-shoots that are as violent as a hurricane, or as non-violent as fog. In spite of the very real problems thick fog can cause, I like it, and have seldom let it stop me from enjoying our great Texas outdoors.

An instance of a pleasant day in the fog was on a surf fi shing trip to near San Luis Pass. The sky was bright, clear, and sunny driving down 61ST, but when I topped the seawall I could not even see the beach, because the fog was so thick. Once on the beach, I could not see the surf.

Once in the surf, when I heaved a heavy spider-weight sinker and a big chunk of mul-let toward the third bar, I realized the dream of most surf casters�I cast that bait seemingly so far out I could not see it when it fi nally splashed down in the Gulf. I was casting farther than I could see.

Lately it seems that federal fi sheries man-agers are “fogged in” most of the time, and groping for solutions they can only partially see. Last year, in the face of hard evidence that redfi sh were so numerous they were

threatening other fi sh populations, the nine-day season certainly seems to demonstrate impaired vision.

Projections for the 2015 red snapper season, based on estimates of last seasons estimated catch�in nine days, remember?�are 25 days if the recreational catch limit is kept at two fi sh per angler per day. If the limit is dropped to one fi sh per day, the season could last 45 days.

NMFS personnel still expect the quota to be exceeded. This would cause the season to be closed earlier than the 25 or 45 days. I expect this will happened regardless of the actual catch, because NMFS always says recreational anglers overfi sh their quota.

If a one fi sh limit is instituted, or even a two-fi sh limit for that matter, expect wide-spread “culling” to happen.

Red snappers have a very poor release survival rate. A similar move several years ago that raised the minimum size limit to 18 inches resulted in dead 14- to 16-inch snap-pers fl oating all over the surface of the Gulf.

Until those responsible for managing our

fi sheries clear out the fog that keeps them from seeing such things, efforts to conserve and restore will seem to be a bit hazy.

THE BANK BITE

LOCATION: The surf will heat up fi rst in June, also passes leading to the Gulf.

SPECIES: Redfi sh, speckled trout, fl ounder, croaker.

BEST BAITS: Live shrimp, dead bait or small baitfi sh caught in a cast net.

BEST TIMES: June tides usually give good water movement – coming in or going out.

Email Mike Holmes atContactUs@fi shgame.com

Hotspot Focus :: by Capt. MIKE HOLMES

GALVESTON AreaGALVESTON GALVESTON GALVESTON GALVESTON GALVESTON GALVESTON GALVESTON GALVESTON GALVESTON GALVESTON GALVESTON



Surf Guts and Sand Bars: Ideal Habitat

LATE ONE JUNE AFTERNOON I checked the weather and discovered that a rare event in the world of surf fi shing was going to take place

the next morning�a light north wind and an incoming tide at sunrise. This caused me to drop all previous plans and head for Matagorda Beach well before fi rst light the next day.

At 5:15 a.m., as my four-wheel drive SUV rolled onto the sand, I set the odom-

eter to zero and headed several miles down the beach to a cove that I had observed at low tide on a previous trip. While it was still dark, I waded to the east side of the cove and started casting. The fi rst cast yielded a fi fteen-inch trout but the following casts were not touched.

As the sun rose and illuminated the water on the opposite side of the cove, I could see that predators were ripping bait fi sh, so I

moved over there. Hits started immediately, and I soon had a couple of trout on the stringer. I studied the spot where the fi sh had concentrated and realized that it was an eddy created by a buildup of the sandbar next to a gut running perpendicular to the beach. Identifying an eddy, which is a place where movement of the water is different from surrounding current (usually circular), is a good place to fi sh because predators use it as a place from which to ambush prey.

In this situation, water was coming into the beach over the sandbars, and then rushing back offshore through an opening between sandbars creating a rip current. Be aware of rip currents; if you get caught in a rip current, and cannot wade to safety, just infl ate your life jacket and ride with the current. Once beyond the opening in the sandbar, the current will dissipate and you can make your way back to the beach.

You may not be able to fi nd or identify an eddy in the surf because the waves obscure them, but guts that run parallel to the beach between sandbars are what make up the ter-rain in the surf. Predators swim these guts looking for bait fi sh and other prey being fl ushed into them by waves and currents.

Small fi sh, crabs, and shrimp are attracted to the guts to feed on worms, eels, and other marine organisms on the bottom and the plankton suspended in the water. Casting to the area offshore where waves are breaking will drop your lure on a sandbar. Slowly working the lure towards you will allow the lure to fall into the gut, and predator fi sh like to hit the lure as it drops. When the water is clear, I like to use a fi ve-inch glow/chartreuse tail Salt Water Assassin from Bass Assassin on a ¼ ounce jig head.

Some surf fi shermen and women like the advantage of using live shrimp in the surf. One evening when I was walking with my dog on the beach I talked with John Reynolds while he got ready to wade into the surf. John was using a light American Rodsmith six-foot, fi ve-inch rod with a

Hotspot Focus :: by MIKE PRICE

MATAGORDA AreaMATAGORDA MATAGORDA MATAGORDA MATAGORDA MATAGORDA MATAGORDA MATAGORDA MATAGORDA MATAGORDA MATAGORDA MATAGORDA



Shimano Curado bait caster reel rigged with 20-pound-test, braided line, an Inticer pop-ping cork and about three feet of 15-pound-test fl uorocarbon leader and a small, sharp # 4 Owner treble hook.

He waded out until he was waist to chest deep, and started casting and popping. I could tell by the way he moved his fi shing rod and watched his cork that he had done this many times before. When a fi sh took off with the bait he deftly set the hook, and thoroughly enjoyed every run the fi sh made. I watched him fi sh for ten minutes, and he put two trout on the stringer.

There are days in June when the wind is too strong to consider fi shing in the surf, but you will be able to fi nd leeward fi shing spots in both East and West Matagorda Bays. In late June my wife and I went to the south shore of West Matagorda Bay on a day when the wind was blowing from the east-southeast at 15 to 25 mph. With my fi shing rod at the ready, lying in front of me in my kayak, I quietly paddled into the bayou, scanning the shoreline for any sign of

redfi sh herding bait. I heard a loud splash, like the sound of a bowling ball hitting the water, and continued moving stealthily in that direction. Sunlight refl ected off the red dorsal fi ns and tails of four redfi sh.

I laid the paddle down softly, picked up my rod and tossed my Texas Tackle Factory four-inch Texas Red Killer lure on a 1/16 ounce jig head just in front of the feeding fi sh. It took about a half of a second for a redfi sh to grab the soft plastic and start running. I reared back to set the hook, the redfi sh (about 23 inches) jumped almost completely out of the water, shook its head, spit out the lure and swam off. I just laughed, enjoyed the moment, and went looking for another redfi sh.

It usually gets up to around 90°F by 10:30 or 11 a.m. in June, so you may want to get to your fi shing spot early and head back before it becomes too uncomfortably hot. The water temperature in late June on the day I missed the redfi sh was 90 degrees.

If the wind is light and the tide is incom-ing, give the surf a try. If you have strong winds and the surf is blown out, head for

the bays. Either way, there is a good chance that you will come upon hungry fi sh in June.

THE BANK BITE

PARKER’S CUT FOR KAYAKERS: Parker’s Cut is located on the west side of the Old Colorado River. It is fairly physically challenging to get there, but worth the effort.

Park at the fi rst fi shing pier you come to on 2031, which is ½ mile from the Matagorda Nature Park sign, N28°36.728’ W95°68.480’, and paddle across the river to a fence, N28°37.018’ W95°58.644’, follow the path on the right side of the fence and portage across about 150 yards until you reach a bayou connecting to West Matagorda Bay. Be prepared for mosquitoes when you portage.

Email Mike Price atContactUs@fi shgame.com


Top Fun in June

JUNE IS AN EXCITING TIME for a lot of us in that it often rep-resents the offi cial start of our sum-mertime fun.

Many folks who have been juggling hec-tic schedules at home and at the offi ce will now be planning to spend some quality time together with family and friends amid all the great Texas outdoors has to offer. For some, this may mean camping adventures along a river or lake, or visiting some of our state’s

many historical landmarks.Some will opt for taking in one or more of

the large amusement or water parks. Others may simply settle for making their way to the nearest beach.

Whatever your summertime passion may be, June in Texas can certainly fulfi ll all your outdoor desires.

For those whose outdoor passion is coast-al fi shing, the month of June takes on special meaning in a couple different ways. It is the beginning of the warmer months of the year, which means more activity on the water.

Because June can become extremely hot, it will also be essential to take personal precautions. Anglers will need to apply sun-screen to exposed skin areas before leaving the dock and will need to re-apply it again, and again, as needed. It’ll also be important to wear long pants, a long-sleeved shirt, and a hat to protect body parts from damaging sun.

Equally important is to hydrate often with water or sports drink (the non-alcoholic type, of course).These basic precautions will allow a much better experience on the water.

Another thing June means is that coastal anglers should now alter their daily fi shing routine. Bay water temperatures are now within the 80+ degree range, so great con-centrations of baitfi sh will be working their way up and down sandy, grassy shorelines and guts where they have massed during the overnight hours.

With this being the case, you should now be in your preferred wading spot before the sun rises, and start your fi rst wade session in the shallows. Huge schools of baitfi sh, sometimes one right after another, naturally attract greater numbers of game fi sh, espe-cially redfi sh. Coastal anglers should see large schools of redfi sh, as well.

A lot of times several different groups, or schools, of redfi sh will be in very close prox-imity of each other.As the water tempera-tures continue to soar, so shall the redfi sh. They’ll soar to the water’s surface in a fury, revealing their presence more and more each day as they prey upon the surface-roaming

pods of baitfi sh.As a suggestion, you might rig one of

your preferred top water baits to the end of your line for your initial wade session because as the warmth increases, so will top water lure results.

The heat of the summer driveshigher salinity levels in our bay systems, and large trout just love elevated salinity saturation numbers and percentages. So, it may not come as a surprise to anyone if we start see-ing some extremely nice fi sh landed as early as this month.

When working calm shallows containing trout-green water with absolutely no cloud cover, anglers should toss small, bright-colored surface baits to entice the trout. On overcast days and in stained water conditions, anglers may have greater success presenting darker lure colors.

Whenever forced to work in choppy water, anglers might benefi t from much larg-er, much noisier, top water baits.Although the start of June can still require hard surface grinding with small rewards, those who stick with it might just be surprised with the outcome.

Given the amount of springtime rainfall we received this year, we could very well be in store for one of the most productive sum-mers in a long time.

Good luck, and keep grindin’!

Contact Capt. Chris Martin at bayfl [email protected] visit bayfl atslodge.com

Hotspot Focus :: by Capt. CHRIS MARTIN

UPPER MID CoastUPPER MID UPPER MID UPPER MID UPPER MID UPPER MID UPPER MID UPPER MID UPPER MID UPPER MID UPPER MID UPPER MID



Bait Chase Debate

IT WAS THE END OF MARCH. I had eaten breakfast with a good friend and decided to pursue some fi sh fi lets as, my wife had informed me, were in

short supply in our freezer. I eat fi sh two to three times a week and have even been known to make a quick breakfast out of last night’s left over fi shy morsels.

Live shrimp was the right bait combina-tion for the day. I pulled my boat to the one and only game in town that time of year and luckily was the only customer at the eerily vacant bait stand. I was familiar with the owner though he was not my regular supplier of live bait. He said hello and I asked him how the bait looked this morning.

He grimaced. “It doesn’t look at all, for I have none,” he said. “My boat is on the way in and should be here in about 20 minutes with about 40 pounds of shrimp.”

“Great!” I said, “I will take a quart.”He rang me up to kill time. I heard the

bait stand phone ring as I walked outside to fi ll my live well with saltwater. Once outside I heard it ring again, then it rang again. It rang four more times in the span of 10 minutes.

With a look of frustration the owner came out and said “Jesus! That thing is ringing off the hook this morning! Everyone needs bait when I don’t have any! There will be some unhappy people here again this morning!”

“Again?” I asked.“Yeah, seems like it’s getting pretty com-

mon. What I now have coined The Bait Debate by all the Master Baiters in the area.”

I laughed thinking well, at least business is good.

It seemed like just a minute had passed during which time I had my head down inside my rigging box, fi ddling with a pesky

leaking fi tting. When I lifted my head, confi -dent the leak was fi xed, I was amazed at the number of people at the bait stand. There was now a line running out the door, 10 anglers deep and growing. Trucks, boats, cars and more people were converging on the small bait shack like gold had been discov-ered at the bottom of the bait tanks.

I glanced out on the water and could see an old battered shrimp boat slowly making its way home to the bait stand. Having fi lled my live well, I made my way to the now out-the-door line of people waiting for bait.

I don’t believe much in sixth sense, ESP or crystal balls but something in my brain added all the elements I was seeing, and I felt a fi ght or fl ight situation was impending. I would have walked away for sure but hav-ing already paid I went for the/my bait.

The decision proved to be, shall we say, a learning experience. Not wanting to walk around, through, or over the now long-formed line, I hesitated, thinking I will explain in a loud, but kind and clear voice I had already paid for my bait before I ven-

tured into the now ever-growing impatient baiters horde.

This thought was short lived as the owner, now carrying fi ve gallon buckets of shrimp from the newly arrived shrimp boat, waved me forward, and hurriedly was trying to divvy out my golden quart of shrimp.

“That’s BS!” one guy in line said.“We were here fi rst!”

“No you weren’t!” the crusty bait stand owner said. “He was here 20 minutes ago.”

“Well, he wasn’t in line,” another said.“He’s a guide!” yet another chimed in,

“They get special treatment, now don’t they, Mister bait stand owner!?”

“Did you see how much bait he gave him? If that’s just a quart I’ll kiss your back-side and give you thirty minutes to draw a crowd!” yet another shouted.

“He doesn’t have to be in line, and a quart is a quart is a quart!” the stand owner shouted. “This is not grade school!” He and I regretted the remark as the line now broke rank and crowded toward the bait tanks.

“No one past that line” the bait stand

Hotspot Focus :: by Capt. MAC GABLE

ROCKPORT Area



owner said.“Thought this was not kindergarten!”

was the response.“He’s past the line!” an angry bait-less

angler shouted, pointing at me.I tried to respond, but was cut off. “Well,

yeah!” another said. “He can go where he wants he’s a guide!”

At this point I am calculating my odds of getting out the door alive with my quart of shrimp. Bait bucket in hand I made my way past the now livid crowd hoping no one broke my boat.

I was almost out when one guy said “See, he doesn’t even have to pay. They are thick as thieves these guides and bait stands.

Hey man, call the cops. He’s stealing your bait!” came another angry response.

Enough! I said to myself, falsely accused and now being called a thief! I spun and confronted the guy. Digging into my pocket I pulled out my receipt, and stuck it in the guy’s face. It read One quart of shrimp PAID.

“Leave it alone,” one guy said. “He was here before any of us!”

Outside at my boat I took a deep breath and counted to ten as my anger subsided. In a rush, I saw the crowd making its way back out the door as the live bait had quickly sold

out leaving most without bait.The comments kept coming. “Why did

that one guy need 10 quarts?”“There ought be a law,” another

remarked. “This just ain’t fun no more!”As I started to dump the/my shrimp into

my live well, another boat pulled up. It was a small john boat pulled by a Nissan truck. I recognized it, but couldn’t remember why. An elderly lady got out and walked directly towards me and my boat. “Capt. Mac” she said.

Ah yes, I recognized her and remem-bered her as one of my clients.

“Is there any bait left?” she asked.“No ma’am, I do believe it’s all gone.”“The story of my life,” she laughed. “I’m

the last in line.” “They might have some fro-zen if that helps” I said weakly. “No, I just can’t fi gure out how to catch fi sh on that” she smiled. “My goodness!”

“You might try some other bait stands.”“I did already,” she replied, “but they

don’t have any and probably won’t for a couple of days. Frustrating isn’t it? Get all excited, get up early, do all the work to get ready only to have to jockey for bait. Oh well, perhaps another day.” She smiled and started back to her small truck.

I felt bad, should I offer her my services as

a guide? No, I got the sense she needed her own company that day. The truth is I wasn’t much in the mood to fi sh anymore. The debacle that morning just seemed to take my desire away, and if I were honest, I know I get to fi sh a whole lot more than she does.

“Ma’am!” I shouted across the parking area, “how about taking my shrimp? I’m not feeling up to fi shing today.” “Excuse me?” she said. “My shrimp. Would you like them? I can’t fi sh today.”

“Oh,” she said, “something broke?”“Yes Ma’am, guess you could say that,

and these shrimp are just aching to jump in a fi sh’s mouth!”

“Is your misfortune to be my fortune?” she asked guiltily.

I laughed. “That makes better sense than most of what I’ve seen today.”

She looked puzzled. “Well, great! What do I owe you for them?”

“How about some fi lets if you catch a bunch?”

“Now Capt. Mac, you know I only keep the fi rst three fi sh I catch, no matter if they are reds, trout, black drum, gaff top, sheeps-head. They all taste good if you know how to fi x them and three are more than I alone can eat!”

“Yes, I do recall” I said. “Catch a few more for me if they are biting and we’ll call it even. How does that suit you?”

“Right down to the ground,” she smiled. “Of course, I’ll call you if I have fi sh for you; I still have your number.”

Even in the storms of debate one can fi nd beauty. I remembered now why I remem-bered her.

• • •

HINT: this time of year fl uorocarbon leaders work well. They don’t hold up as well as regular mono, but if you don’t mind replac-ing a few rigs they can be very productive.

COPANO BAY — Croakers on Lap Reef are good for trout on a free-line rig. There is some good red action off Newcomb Point using fi nger mullet on a light Carolina rig. In the early morning fi sh shallow (close to shoreline), mid-day the deeper edges are more productive.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 74 u


Focus: ROCKPORT


Flat Outlook

FLOUNDER HAVE BEEN UP and down along the Lower Laguna Madre the past couple of years.. The fl atties just seemed to disappear

from their regular haunts for a few years. At best, a handful of them would come to the dock every month, and rarely more than one on the same stringer.

Things turned around about four years ago, however. Better and better catches of keeper-sized fl ounder were reported after the hard freeze of February, . The gigging seasons in summer, which had been pretty think, saw a steady rise of landing, and rod and reel fi shermen are fi nding enough fi sh to actually focus fi sng trips on the tasty fl atfi sh. Though numbers aren’t as impressive as a few years ago, fl ounder fi shing is still in very good shape on the LLM.

Many of the fl ounder have also been pretty hefty, too, some over three pounds. Anglers who would like to get a fl ounder to stuff with crab meat and bake or pan fry in butter can reasonly hope to succeed.

Anglers who pick up their mail in Port Mansfi eld won’t burn too much gas looking for fl ounder. There are plenty of spots a short run across Lower Laguna Madre in the East Cut. The side channels that feed into the back bays attract fl ounder on both the incoming and outgoing tides. The fi sh settle on thin drop-offs along the pass on an outgoing tide, then work their way into the inside edges on an incoming tide. The easi-est way to for Mansfi eld fl atties is to work live bait ofr a soft plastic along the edges. A live shrimp or mullet is an ideal bait. Fish them on a spit-shot or fi shfi nder rig and a 1/0 short-shanked or Khale hook.

If you are going to hop a shrimp or shad tail (the venerable Norton Bull Minnow is a great standard), use a ¼ ounce jighead and

hop the bait. This is akin to fi shing for bass with a jig/pig combo. Hop with the rod tip up until you feel the resistance of a pick-up. Lower the rod tip, reel in the slack, and set the hook. Hard. If you miss, start over. Nothinig to it, right?

The channels that lead into the back of Cullen Bay hold fl ounder around the edges in June. Fishing for them is very straight-forward. Use a fi sh-fi nder (Carolina) rig with a ¼ ounce sinker and a live shrimp or fi nger mullet on a #1/0 short-shanked single hook (the Owner SSW in blood red, for example). If you’d rather fi sh with lures, then try a 3” Gulp! Shrimp or Mud Minnow in New Penny or Pearl pinned to a ¼ ounce jighead and bounced along the bottom. If the fl ounder are there—and they should be—they’ll nail it with gusto.

Moving south, an underutilized fl ounder area is the channel into South Bay. Most ignore the gateway for the riches on the other side, but they miss out on the treasure that abounds. On a fl ood tide, the narrow fl ats on either side (especially the ones on the south side) hold plenty of fl ounder to keep you happy. This is an especially effective area to fi sh at night under a full moon. The only problem is to pay attention to the tides, or you may be stuck for awhile on the ebb.

The mainland shoreline on the island at the intersection of the Brownsville Ship Channel and the Port Isabel Channel (also known as the Y) is another good fl ounder hole. A trolling motor allows you to fi sh this area the most effectively. Work paral-lel to the dropoff and cast your bait or lure towards shore and work back to the boat slowly. Again, either live baits on a Carolina rig or soft plastics are the trick. Don’t be surprised to latch onto some trout and the occasional redfi sh. These fi sh tend to share space with the fl ounder.

A classic, but unused technique for work-ing these shoreline edges is the classic bucktail jig. A ¼ ounce pink bucktail, such as the one produced by Bomber Saltwater Grade, with a live shrimp to sweeten the deal is one of the most effective combos I’ve

ever used for fl ounder. Break the horn off the shrimp so that it will ride straight on the hook, then pass the jighook through the bug’s head from bottom to top (as usual, avoid the black spot on the shrimp’s head, or you’ll kill it instantly). If you want to add scent, snip the tailfan off. Cast the rig up to the shallows, and bounce it back to you. When you feel the heavy “thump!,” count to three and set the hook. I’ve been experimenting with the hot pink Gulp! curlytail minnow, and I’ve been encouraged with the results.

If live shrimp are hard to come by, try a 3” Gulp! Shrimp of DOA Shrimp as alternatives to real meat. Flounder don’t seem to be very discriminating when they’re on the feed. Adherents to the DOA brand will fi nd that the CAL Minnow is another deadly weapon during fl ounder missions.

Don’t overlook fl ounder when you are on Lower Laguna Madre. They make a wel-come addition to the summer get-togethers that you usually invite specks and redfi sh to.

THE BANK BITE

LOCATION: Coast Guard StationSPECIES: Speckled Trout, redfi sh.TIPS: Wadefi shing with live shrimp/soft plastifcs under a Mauler.

Email Calixto Gonzales atContactUs@fi shgame.com

Hotspot Focus :: by CALIXTO GONZALES

LOWER Coast



UPPER COAST

by TOM BEHRENS

Specks, Specks & More Specks

LOCATION: Caranchua BayHOTSPOT: PipelineGPS: N 28 42.6, W 96 23.8159 (28.7100, -96.3969)SPECIES: Speckled troutBEST BAITS: Topwaters and soft plasticsCONTACT: Capt. Tommy [email protected] shing.comTIPS: “If I’m wade fi shing I will be in West Bay fi shing the grass beds, throwing a topwater early and then switching over to a soft plastic.” Capt. Countz

LOCATION: Galveston East BayHOTSPOT: Willies Head IslandGPS: N 29 32.155, W 94 48.5239 (29.5359, -94.8087)SPECIES: Speckled troutBEST BAITS: Super Spook & Baby SpooksCONTACT: Capt. Paul Marcaccio281-788-4041captpaul@gofi shgalveston.comwww.gofi shgalveston.comTIPS: “Fish the Super Spook in water that is choppy; fi sh the Baby Spook on calmer water.” Capt. Marcaccio

LOCATION: Galveston East BayHOTSPOT: Deep ReefGPS: N 29 30.802, W 94 40.581 (29.5134, -94.6764)SPECIES: Speckled troutBEST BAITS: Soft PlasticsCONTACT: Capt. Paul Marcaccio281-788-4041captpaul@gofi shgalveston.comwww.gofi shgalveston.comTIPS: “June is a wade-drift month. Wade early, starting about 5 a.m. and move out to deeper water as the sun comes up.” Capt. Marcaccio

LOCATION: Galveston East BayHOTSPOT: Little Pasture BayouGPS: N 29 31.254, W 94 32.3179 (29.5209, -94.5386)SPECIES: Speckled troutBEST BAITS: She Dog & She PupCONTACT: Capt. Paul Marcaccio281-788-4041captpaul@gofi shgalveston.comwww.gofi shgalveston.com

Texas HOTSPOTS

ARANSAS BAY — Jay Bird Reef is good for trout using croakers or piggy perch on a light Carolina rig. On high tide don’t be afraid to throw on top of the reef, working your bait off the reef’s edge. Drifts down Long Reef are good for trout using soft plastics Norton Sand eels in pumpkin/ chartreuse or black magic chartreuse. The south shoreline off Blackjack is a good wade for reds using fi nger mullet or Jerk Shad in new penny color.

ST CHARLES BAY — The mouths of Little or Big Devil bayous are a good place for reds using mud minnows or cut mullet. The key here is to approach silently, set up and be patient. Still some black drum close

to Salt Creek. The shorelines adjacent to the area are a good place to fi sh peeled shrimp on a light Carolina rig.

CARLOS BAY — On high tide, drifts across Carlos Lake are good for trout and reds using free-lined live Shrimp. Cut mullet on a light Carolina rig is good for reds on the shell that parallels Carlos Dugout.

MESQUITE BAY — Wades at the mouth of Cedar Bayou are good for trout using top waters like the Badonk-A-Donk in silver mullet and speckled trout colors. The west shoreline is a good wade for reds and trout using a live croaker on a free lined rig. This can be muddy bottom mixed with sand, so move slowly and be patient.

AYERS BAY — Ayers Reef is good for

reds using fi nger mullet on a light Carolina rig. Try not to reel until you get a bite as this is sharp shell and break-offs can be frequent with too much reeling. Second Chain is good for trout using croakers on a free-lined rig.

THE BANK BITE

THE AIRPORT SHORELINE on Copano Bay is good for black drum using a popping cork and shrimp. Move slowly and quietly, wading about 30 yards off, working / casting parallel to the bank.

Contact Capt. Mac Gable at Mac Attack Guide Service,

512-809-2681, [email protected]

to Salt Creek. The shorelines adjacent to the reds using fi nger mullet on a light Carolina

HOTSPOT FOCUS: ROCKPORT

t CONTINUED FROM PAGE 72

GPS COORDINATES are provided in two for-mats: “Decimal Degrees” (degrees.degrees) and “Degrees and Minutes” sometimes called “GPS For-mat” (degrees minutes.minutes). Examples (for Downtown Austin): Decimal Degrees: N30.2777, W97.7379; Degrees and Minutes: N30 16.6662, W97 44.2739. Consult your manual for information specifi c to your GPS device.


UPPER COAST

Specks, Specks & More Specks& More Specks& More Specks& More Specks& More Specks

LOCATION: Galveston East BayHOTSPOT: Deep ReefGPS: N 29 30.802, W 94 40.581 (29.5134, -94.6764)SPECIES: Speckled troutBEST BAITS: Soft Plastics

Texas Texas Texas Texas Texas HOTSPOTSHOTSPOTSHOTSPOTSHOTSPOTSHOTSPOTSHOTSPOTSHOTSPOTSHOTSPOTSHOTSPOTSHOTSPOTSHOTSPOTSHOTSPOTSHOTSPOTSHOTSPOTSHOTSPOTS

GPS COORDINATES are provided in two for-mats: “Decimal Degrees” (degrees.degrees) and “Degrees and Minutes” sometimes called “GPS For-mat” (degrees minutes.minutes).


Texas HOTSPOTS

HOTSPOT FOCUS: ROCKPORT

TIPS: Concentrate on drains early that have tidal movement.

LOCATION: Galveston East BayHOTSPOT: Elm LakeGPS: N 29 27.1469, W 94 41.691 (29.4525, -94.6949)SPECIES: Speckled troutBEST BAITS: Heddon Spooks or MirrOlure She Dogs or PupsCONTACT: Capt. Paul Marcaccio281-788-4041captpaul@gofi shgalveston.comwww.gofi shgalveston.comTIPS: “Anticipate on arriving at the drain you have targeted one hour before an outgoing or incoming tide. If I don’t get a strike in about a half-an-hour, I will move on to another location.” Capt. .Marcaccio

LOCATION: Galveston East BayHOTSPOT: Yates BayouGPS: N 29 29.55, W 94 36.0109 (29.4925, -94.6002)SPECIES: Speckled troutBEST BAITS: Topwaters

CONTACT: Capt. Paul Marcaccio281-788-4041captpaul@gofi shgalveston.comwww.gofi shgalveston.comTIPS: “If possible, select drains and bayous that have reefs close by. Wadefi sh early with topwater baits and then move out into deeper water over shell and drift fi sh for the trout.” Capt. Marcaccio

LOCATION: Galveston Trinity BayHOTSPOT: Trinity WellsGPS: N 29 42.9829, W 94 43.138 (29.7164, -94.7190)SPECIES: Speckled troutBEST BAITS: Soft PlasticsCONTACT: Capt. Paul Marcaccio281-788-4041captpaul@gofi shgalveston.comwww.gofi shgalveston.comTIPS: “By midday the water temperature should be getting in the 80s and the fi sh are going down deep. Use a 1/2 or 3/8 ounce jig head.” Capt. Marcaccio

LOCATION: Galveston Trinity BayHOTSPOT: Hodges

GPS: N 29 34.963, W 94 44.574 (29.5827, -94.7429)SPECIES: Speckled troutBEST BAITS: Soft PlasticsCONTACT: Capt. Paul Marcaccio281-788-4041captpaul@gofi shgalveston.comwww.gofi shgalveston.comTIPS: Marcaccio’s rule of thumb for the correct color in a soft plastic: “Clear baits on clear days and dark baits on dark days.

LOCATION: Galveston Trinity BayHOTSPOT: Little Hodges ReefGPS: N 29 39.261, W 94 43.0759 (29.6544, -94.7179)SPECIES: Speckled troutBEST BAITS: Soft PlasticsCONTACT: Capt. Paul Marcaccio281-788-4041captpaul@gofi shgalveston.comwww.gofi shgalveston.comTIPS: Determining tidal fl ow: “Check the crab traps and PVC pipes sticking out of the water. If there is water movement around them, going in one


Texas HOTSPOTSTexas Texas HOTSPOTSHOTSPOTSHOTSPOTSTexas HOTSPOTSHOTSPOTSHOTSPOTSHOTSPOTSHOTSPOTSHOTSPOTSHOTSPOTSHOTSPOTSHOTSPOTSHOTSPOTSHOTSPOTS

direction or the other, there is tidal fl ow.” Capt. Marcaccio

LOCATION: Galveston Trinity BayHOTSPOT: Ving-et-unGPS: N 29 32.92, W 94 46.419 (29.5487, -94.7737)SPECIES: Speckled troutBEST BAITS: Soft PlasticsCONTACT: Capt. Paul Marcaccio281-788-4041captpaul@gofi shgalveston.comwww.gofi shgalveston.comTIPS: Marcaccio’s favorite soft plastic colors: pumpkin, plum and black if water muddy or stained. Fire Tiger, Limetreuse and Salt&Pepper for good water clarity.

LOCATION: MatagordaHOTSPOT: JettiesGPS: N 28 25.0529, W 96 19.3799 (28.4176, -96.3230)SPECIES: Redfi shBEST BAITS: Live shrimp or soft plasticsCONTACT: Capt. Tommy [email protected] shing.comTIPS: Tidal movement along the jetties is critical. Countz’s favorite is an outgoing tide. “When the tide starts falling it pulls a lot of the fi sh off the rocks.

LOCATION: Matagorda East BayHOTSPOT: Half Moon ShoalGPS: N 28 43.345, W 95 46.392 (28.7224, -95.7732)SPECIES: Speckled troutBEST BAITS: Topwaters and soft plasticsCONTACT: Capt. Tommy [email protected] shing.comTIPS: Look for bait or slicks. “We will start in early on the beds and then later in the day we will go out and start working some of the drains.” Capt. Countz

LOCATION: Matagorda East BayHOTSPOT: Long ReefGPS: N 28 40.3879, W 95 53.0899 (28.6731, -95.8848)SPECIES: Speckled troutBEST BAITS: Soft PlasticsCONTACT: Capt. Tommy [email protected] shing.comTIPS: “If I’m drift fi shing and the winds are up, I will be in East Matagorda Bay. In June we drift an

area that we call the Log, which is south of Half Moon Shoal, not to be confused with Half Moon Reef.” Capt. Countz

LOCATION: Matagorda East BayHOTSPOT: Three Mile ReefGPS: N 28 38.1, W 95 56.449 (28.6350, -95.9408)SPECIES: Speckled troutBEST BAITS: Soft PlasticsCONTACT: Capt. Tommy [email protected] shing.comTIPS: “We will either throwing live shrimp or a 1/4 ounce, maybe a 3/8 ounce lead head in either Black Magic or Chicken-On-A-Chain.” Capt. Countz

LOCATION: Matagorda East BayHOTSPOT: Raymond ShoalGPS: N 28 40.449, W 95 53.898 (28.6742, -95.8983)SPECIES: Speckled troutBEST BAITS: Soft PlasticsCONTACT: Capt. Tommy [email protected] shing.comTIPS: Raymond Shoal on the east end of the bay is like one big reef. “You can drift for over a mile.” Capt. Countz

LOCATION: Matagorda West BayHOTSPOT: Cottons BayouGPS: N 28 30.45, W 96 12.3816 (28.5075, -96.2064)SPECIES: Speckled troutBEST BAITS: Skitter WalkCONTACT: Capt. Royce [email protected]: Macha concentrates on grass pockets on the shorelines

LOCATION: Matagorda West BayHOTSPOT: GreensGPS: N 29 44.8302, W 95 10.1628 (29.7472, -95.1694)SPECIES: Speckled troutBEST BAITS: Skitter WalkCONTACT: Capt. Royce [email protected]: Macha’s favorite topwater color is char-treuse/silver. “If the water is off-color I will go to a darker color, but I wouldn’t rule out Bone White.

LOCATION: Matagorda West BayHOTSPOT: Airport FlatsGPS: N 28 27.532, W 96 18.3809 (28.4589, -96.3064)SPECIES: Speckled troutBEST BAITS: Skitter WalkCONTACT: Capt. Royce [email protected]: “After the sun comes up, while wading, I will start working my way back out into deeper water. If I am waist deep and can’t hit the deeper guts on my casts, it’s time to quit wading and climb back into the boat.” Capt. Macha

LOCATION: Matagorda West BayHOTSPOT: SurfGPS: N 28 24.319, W 96 21.3149 (28.4053, -96.3553)SPECIES: Speckled troutBEST BAITS: 4 Inch Saltwater AssassinsCONTACT: Capt. Royce [email protected]: Macha normally likes to use a 1/8 ounce jig head

LOCATION: Matagorda West BayHOTSPOT: New Half Moon ReefGPS: N 28 33.7999, W 96 14.5309 (28.5633, -96.2422)SPECIES: Speckled troutBEST BAITS: Soft PlasticsCONTACT: Capt. Tommy [email protected] shing.comTIPS: “Normally I’m throwing an 1/8 ounce lead head with one of the darker colored baits, like the Black Magic or Chicken-On-A-Chain … my two favorites.” Capt Countz

LOCATION: Port O’ConnorHOTSPOT: Pass CavalloGPS: N 28 21.805, W 96 24.0289 (28.3634, -96.4005)SPECIES: Speckled troutBEST BAITS: Soft PlasticsCONTACT: Capt. Royce [email protected]: June is the time of the year when a croaker rigged so it has freedom to move around will attract fi sh.




LOCATION: Sabine JettyHOTSPOT: JettyGPS: N 29 40.0301, W 93 49.8768 (29.6672, -93.8313)SPECIES: Speckled troutBEST BAITS: Wedgetails and Trout Killers soft plasticsCONTACT: Capt. Adam [email protected] shsabine.comTIPS: “The only thing the trout are feeding on at this time are ribbon fi sh. The baits I’m using are 5 inches long and look like ribbon fi sh to the trout.” Capt. Jaynes

LOCATION: Sabine JettyHOTSPOT: Big RocksGPS: N 29 39.4169, W 93 49.501 (29.6570, -93.8250)SPECIES: Speckled troutBEST BAITS: Catch 2000CONTACT: Capt. Bill Watkins409-673-9211

[email protected] shsabinelake.comTIPS: “Early in the morning when fi shing the jetty I will throw a Catch 2000 right up against the rocks, but as the sun starts to come up, the fi sh will start dropping down. Then I will go to a soft plastic with a 1/4 ounce jig head.” Capt. Watkins

LOCATION: Sabine LakeHOTSPOT: Causeway ReefGPS: N 29 47.221, W 93 55.9189 (29.7870, -93.9320)SPECIES: Speckled troutBEST BAITS: Wedgetails and Trout Killers soft plasticsCONTACT: Capt. Adam [email protected] shsabine.comTIPS: “The only place on the lake where I really every use my side scan and down scan on my elec-tronics is around the Causeway Reef. Once you fi nd where the schools of bait are and what depth they are at, that’s where you will fi nd the fi sh” Capt. Adam Jaynes

LOCATION: Sabine LakeHOTSPOT: Sabine PassGPS: N 29 40.0919, W 94 5.76 (29.6682, -94.0960)SPECIES: Speckled troutBEST BAITS: MirrOlure Mirrodine or MirrOlure Lil JohnCONTACT: Capt. Bill [email protected] shsabinelake.comTIPS: “Birds are working the lake, the lower half of the lake. The ship channel and Sabine Pass will all be holding trout in June.” Capt. Watkins


MIDDLE COAST

by TOM BEHRENS

Port A Specks Quarantined

LOCATION: Port AransasHOTSPOT: Quarantine ShorelineGPS: N 27 54.733 W 97 03.502 (27.912217, -97.058367)SPECIES: Speckled troutBEST BAITS: Freeline live croakerCONTACT:Capt. Marvin [email protected] shingguides.org/bigmTIPS: In June, Engel switches exclusively to live croaker as bait of choice for speckled trout. “Baitfi sh become so numerous as the water warms up, they will strip a live shrimp off a hook in 10 seconds.” – Capt. Marvin Engel

LOCATION: Port AransasHOTSPOT: Traylor IslandGPS: N 27 56.610 W 97 04.263 (27.9435, -97.07105)SPECIES: Speckled troutCONTACT:Capt. Marvin [email protected] shingguides.org/bigmBEST BAITS: Freeline live croakerTIPS: Capt. Engel’s freeline rigging: 4/0 croaker hook, 2 foot shock leader made up using 30 lb. test Berkley Trilene, clear color

LOCATION: Port AransasHOTSPOT: Mud IslandGPS: N 27 56.380 W 97 00.763 (27.939667, -97.012717)SPECIES: Speckled troutBEST BAITS: Freeline live croaker CONTACT:Capt. Marvin [email protected] shingguides.org/bigm

TIPS: Hook the croaker right above the anal fi n so he can swim around naturally, won’t be upside down or sideways in the water.

LOCATION: Port AransasHOTSPOT: Super FlatsGPS: N 27 54.669 W 97 02.196 (27.91115, -97.0366)SPECIES: Speckled troutBEST BAITS: Freeline live croakerCONTACT:Capt. Marvin [email protected] shingguides.org/bigmTIPS: Pop your line about every 15-20 seconds, reel 2-3 cranks to get slack out of the line.

LOCATION: Port AransasHOTSPOT: East FlatsGPS: N 27 48.991 W 97 07.139 (27.816517, -97.118983)SPECIES: Redfi shBEST BAITS: Freeline live pin perch or cut mul-let CONTACT:Capt. Marvin [email protected] shingguides.org/bigmTIPS: Hook the pin perch under the anal fi n, the same way as if you were using croaker for trout.

LOCATION: Redfi sh BayHOTSPOT: Dagger FlatsGPS: N 27 49.754 W 97 10.610 (27.829233, -97.176833)SPECIES: Redfi shBEST BAITS: Freeline live pin perch or cut mul-letCONTACT:Capt. Marvin [email protected] shingguides.org/bigmTIPS: If the wind is blowing hard and the trout water is muddy, switch off to fi shing water, 1-3 feet deep in one of the fl ats areas.

LOCATION: Port AransasHOTSPOT: Outside DaggerGPS: N 27 50.217 W 97 09.967 (27.83695, -97.166117)SPECIES: Speckled trout

BEST BAITS: Freeline live croakerCONTACT:Capt. Marvin [email protected] shingguides.org/bigmTIPS: A croaker should last 10-15 minutes before he becomes fatigued and needs to be replaced.

LOWER COAST

by CALIXTO GONZALESand TOM BEHRENS

Ship Ahoy: Laguna Snook

LOCATION: Lower Laguna MadreHOTSPOT: Brownsville Ship ChannelGPS: N 26 2.124, W 97 13.108 (26.0354, -97.2185)SPECIES: SnookBEST BAITS: Topwaters in Bone, black/Silver, live pinfi sh, live mullet, large shrimp.CONTACT: Captain Jimmy Martinez956-551-9581TIPS: Anchor or drift about 30-50 feet off the shoreline to give yourself some casting room and work topwaters. If fi sh aren’t rising to your topwa-ter, fi sh along the drop-off with large live shrimp on a split shot rig. With all the snags in the area, a fl ourocarbon leader is a very good idea.

LOCATION: Lower Laguna MadreHOTSPOT: Marker 124GPS: N 26 3.83, W 97 9.92 (26.0638, -97.1653)SPECIES: Speckled TroutBEST BAITS: Live Shrimp, soft plastics in Electirc Chicken, Chartruese, Watermelon/ChartreuseCONTACT: Captain Jimmy Martinez956-551-9581TIPS: Fish the gut formed between Long Bar and the submerged spoil banks along the ICW. You can drift the entire length of the gut. Focus on the color change (clear to sandy-green) along the spoils.

LOCATION: Lower Laguna MadreHOTSPOT: South BayGPS: N 26 1.583, W 97 11.101 (26.0264, -97.1850)SPECIES: SnookBEST BAITS: Topwaters, soft plastics in red/

Texas HOTSPOTSTexas Texas HOTSPOTSHOTSPOTSTexas HOTSPOTSHOTSPOTSHOTSPOTSHOTSPOTSHOTSPOTSHOTSPOTSHOTSPOTSHOTSPOTSHOTSPOTSHOTSPOTSHOTSPOTS



white, Bpne glitter, Bone/ChartreuseCONTACT: Captain Jimmy Martinez956-551-9581TIPS: Snook spread out over the fl ats sa the water tops 75 degrees. Topwaters and soft plastics are best. Fish with a faster cadence.

LOCATION: Lower Laguna MadreHOTSPOT: Marker 11GPS: N 26 5.137, W 97 9.993 (26.0856, -97.1666)SPECIES: Redfi shBEST BAITS: Live bait, cut bait, gold spoonsCONTACT: Captain Jimmy Martinez956-551-9581TIPS: Watch for tailing reds and nervous bait near the shoreline. Set yourself up on an intercept to the prowling reds and pitch a weightless tail or a ¼ gold spoon across their paths.

LOCATION: Lower Laguna MadreHOTSPOT: The SaucerGPS: N 26 27.652, W 97 21.702 (26.4609, -97.3617)SPECIES: Speckled TroutBEST BAITS: Topwaters, soft plastics in red/white, Bpne glitter, Bone/ChartreuseCONTACT: LG Outfi tters956-971-0220lgonzales@lgoutfi tters.comlgoutfi tters.comTIPS: Start off in shallow water early in the day, and move back deeper near the ICW as the sun rises. If the wind begins to pick up around mid morning, then watch either for a color change to form, or look for potholes to fi sh around.

LOCATION: Lower Laguna MadreHOTSPOT: North Brazos Santiago Jetties GPS: N 26 04.080 W 97 09.280 (26.068, -97.154667)SPECIES: snookBEST BAITS: fi nger mullet; soft plastics in char-treuse, smokeCONTACT:Captain Carlos Garcia956-433-8094southtexasredfi [email protected]: Toss soft plastics or live baits parallel to the granite, especially in areas that have rock groins. Let the bait fall along the edges. A sharp jerk/fall technique is best to tempt snookums into coming out to play.

LOCATION: Lower Laguna MadreHOTSPOT: Boca Chica Beach (bank access)GPS: N 26 02.979

W 97 09.103 (26.049649, -97.151721)SPECIES: Speckled trout, BEST BAITS: live mullet, ballyhoo; gold spoons; soft plastics in red and whiteCONTACT:Captain Jimmy Martinez956-551-9581TIPS: Speckled trout will cross the bars and cruise the guts along the beach across from South Padre Island. Live bait is the best bet for surf predators, but it’s easier to work up and down the beach if you take a small boxful of spoons, 1/4 ounce jigheads, and a couple of bags of plastics. Fish the wade gut early in the morning, especially on a high tide.

LOCATION: Lower Laguna MadreHOTSPOT: South Bay ChannelGPS: N 26 02.692 W 97 10.974 (26.044867, -97.1829)SPECIES: FlounderBEST BAITS: live bait; topwaters; soft plastics in red/white, New PennyCONTACT:

Captain Carlos Garcia956-433-8094southtexasredfi [email protected]: Fish the mouths of the channel during mov-ing tides. Fish the interior on an incoming tide, and outer fringes on an outgoing. Live bait under a popping cork produces well when fl ounder are very active. Hopping soft plastics on a 1/8-ounce jig-head along the channel edges will also produce.

LOCATION: Lower Laguna MadreHOTSPOT: Railbed (bank access)GPS: N 26 03.849 W 97 12.016 (26.064147, -97.200268)SPECIES: speckled troutBEST BAITS: live shrimp; Gulp! shrimp in Nuclear Chicken, Lime Tiger; soft plastics in char-treuse patterns; gold spoonsCONTACT:Captain Jimmy Martinez956-551-9581TIPS: Two rows of base stones that disappear into Laguna Madre along the shoreline of Brazos Island don’t look like much, but the hold both trout. Free-




line a shrimp or fi nger mullet If the fi sh movement occurs later in the day, fi sh the deeper water with bottom bouncing jigs or fi sh-fi nder bait rigs.

LOCATION: Lower Laguna MadreHOTSPOT: Green IslandGPS: N 26 23.310 W 97 19.876 (26.3885, -97.331267)SPECIES: Redfi shBEST BAITS: live shrimp/popping cork; topwa-ters; gold spoons, red spinnerbaits; soft plastics in clear/red, red/white, Pearl/redCONTACT:Captain Jimmy Martinez956-551-9581TIPS: Smaller topwaters such as Top Dog Jr and Saltwater Chug Bug can be aggressively fi shed in sand pockets and along spoil banks. As the day warms up, move to deeper water and use a shrimp/popping cork rig or a spinnerbait fi shed near the bottom. Gold blades work best.

LOCATION: Lower Laguna MadreHOTSPOT: Stover PointGPS: N 26 12.150 W 97 17.480 (26.2025, -97.291333)SPECIES: speckled troutBEST BAITS: topwaters; soft plastics in clear/red, red/white, Pearl/red; cut baitCONTACT:Captain Jimmy Martinez956-551-9581TIPS: Drift just east of the point and watch for potholes. Topwaters fi shed around the edges of the holes will get ambushed. As the day grows long, fi sh near the spoils of the ICW to fi nd trout lurking around the drop-offs. Night fi shing is also a good tactic for June, especially around the full moon. Anchor up and cast toward the shoreline with chunks of ballyhoo or mullet.

LOCATION: Baffi n BayHOTSPOT: Tide GaugeGPS: N 27 18.248 W 97 27.593 (27.304133, -97.459883)SPECIES: speckled troutBEST BAITS: live croaker; topwaters early; soft plastics in Strawberry/black back, Plum/chartreuse, Rootbeer/red fl ake, Morning Glory, Pumpkinseed/chartreuseCONTACT:Captain Mike Hart361-449-7441TIPS: The greater availability of croaker as summer progresses makes them the focus of hungry trout

in Baffi n. Free-line them on a 3/0 Kahle hook along the drop-offs, giving them a twitch occasionally to prevent them from hiding in structure or weeds. If you prefer lures, the same topwaters and plastics that have worked throughout the spring will work in June.

LOCATION: Baffi n BayHOTSPOT: Center ReefGPS: N 27 16.206 W 97 34.362 (27.2701, -97.5727)SPECIES: speckled troutBEST BAITS: live croaker; soft plastics in Plum/chartreuse, Rootbeer/red fl ake, Morning Glory, Pumpkinseed/chartreuseCONTACT:Captain Mike Hart361-449-7441TIPS: Move to fi shing the outside edges of the reef with free-lined croaker. Trout will be cruising around the rocks, looking for an easy meal. For best hookups, use a wide-gapped hook such as a Kahle or wide-bite circle or octopus hook. Rods with soft tips and sturdy actions are best for live bait applica-tions. Eel and shad tails are also very effective when fi shed on a 1/8- to 1/16-ounce hook.

PINEY WOODS

by DUSTIN WARNCKE

Toledo Whites Play in the Sand

LOCATION: Toledo BendHOTSPOT: Wilson River Bend Sand-BarGPS: N 31 37.242, W 93 49.608 (31.6207, -93.8268)SPECIES: White BassBEST BAITS: Slab spoons, tail spinners, and Rat-L-TrapsCONTACT: Greg Crafts, Toledo Bend Guide Service and Lake Cottages936-368-7151gregcrafts@yahoo.comwww.toledobendguide.comTIPS: As the water continues to warm, the White Bass will be moving further south down the lake following the old river channel, holding and feeding on the inside bend sand-bars. Use your electronics to fi nd the bait-fi sh and the Whites will be close by. Schooling activity will be increasing as the water warms so keep a Rat-L-Trap handy. As the school-

ing increases, look for the Sea Gulls feeding on the bait -fi sh. The Whites have usually pushed the bait-fi sh to the surface.

LOCATION: Caddo LakeHOTSPOT: Main LakeGPS: N 32 41.5919, W 94 4.35 (32.6932, -94.0725)SPECIES: Largemouth BassBEST BAITS: Plastic frogs, buzz baits, fl ukesCONTACT: Caddo Lake Guide Service/Paul Keith [email protected] shing.comTIPS: Fish the frogs over the grass and pads on the 3-4 ft. deep fl ats on the main lake areas. Fish buzzbaits and fl ukes where the cover is a little thin-ner. Also, the fl uke is a great bait to throw when you get misses and short strikes on the frog.

LOCATION: Lake ConroeHOTSPOT: Main LakeGPS: N 30 25.8, W 95 35.61 (30.4300, -95.5935)SPECIES: Hybrid StriperBEST BAITS: Live shad and Storm Swim shadCONTACT: Richard Tatsch (936)291-1277admin@fi shdudetx.comwww.fi shdudetx.comTIPS: The hybrid stripers are in full swing now and this is the time to catch trophy fi sh and possibly lake record Hybrids. They will be all around the lake on submerged points and humps. The use of electronics is a necessity! Find the schools of shad and you will fi nd the Hybrids. This time of year they will range in the water column from 16 foot to 28 feet. fi nd the depth the bait are in and you will fi nd the fi sh. As the weather heats up the early morning bite will be best. Live shad will be the bait of choice but the swim shad will work if you can control the depth.

LOCATION: Lake LivingstonHOTSPOT: 190 Road BedGPS: N 30 45.1319, W 95 10.308 (30.7522, -95.1718)SPECIES: White BassBEST BAITS: Jigging slabs, spoons, troll pet spoon on down rigger, Tsunami Zombie Eyes (1 oz pink/silver glow)CONTACT: David S Cox, Palmetto Guide Service936-291-9602dave@palmettoguideservice.comwww.palmettoguideservice.comTIPS: Key in on ythe old bridge rails and road bed in 11 - 15 foot. Jig slabs and Tsunami Zombie Eyes right off the bottom.




PRAIRIES & LAKES

by DUSTIN WARNCKEand DEAN HEFFNER

Early and Late for Belton Bass

LOCATION: Belton LakeHOTSPOT: Main LakeGPS: N 31.129284 W 97.508142 (31.129284, -97.508142)SPECIES: Largemouth BassBEST BAITS: Crankbaits, spinnerbaits, top water lures, jigs, spoons or deep diving crankbaitsCONTACT:Henry Niemiec254-368-0294surestrikeguideservice@yahoo.comwww.surestrikeguideservice.comTIPS: By now the spawn is over and the days and nights are getting much warmer. The fi sh will have moved back into deeper water and the primetime for catching bass is going to be in the early morning or the evening hours. The bass will move into the shallows in morning and then again in the evening to feed. Crankbaits, Spinnerbaits and Topwater baits are all good choices for this time of the year. If you choose to fi sh other than these times, look for these fi sh on deep fl ats close to deeper water or in the bends of deep creek channels close to shallow water. Here Jigs, Spoons or deep diving crankbaits work great.

LOCATION: Cedar Creek LakeHOTSPOT: North End of the LakeGPS: N 32 23.07, W 96 9.3899 (32.3845, -96.1565)SPECIES: Channel Catfi shBEST BAITS: Punch baitCONTACT: Jason Barber903-887-7896kingscreekadventures@yahoo.comwww.kingscreekadventures.comTIPS: Chum will attract fi sh quickly. Fish straight down or tight line in deeper water and use a fl oat in shallow water.

LOCATION: Fayette County Res.HOTSPOT: South East TreesGPS: N 29 55.044, W 96 43.23 (29.9174, -96.7205)

SPECIES: Catfi shBEST BAITS: Punch bait, shad, wormsCONTACT: Weldon [email protected] shtales-guideservice.comTIPS: Tie to trees. Fish in 18-24 foot water. Chum around the boat. Fish straight down using #6 treble and CJ’s punch bait or cut shad.

LOCATION: Gibbons Creek Res.HOTSPOT: Lotus FlatsGPS: N 30 37.4339, W 96 2.8139 (30.6239, -96.0469)SPECIES: Catfi shBEST BAITS: Punch bait, shadCONTACT: Weldon Kirk979-229-3103


[email protected] shtales-guideservice.comTIPS: Lily pads starting to grow in this area. Anchor out from the lily pads fi sh a slip cork drifting along the pads. Use #4-#6 treble hook with CJ’s punch bait.

LOCATION: Lake GranburyHOTSPOT: Mid LakeGPS: N 32 25.9942, W 97 47.4511 (32.4332, -97.7909)SPECIES: Channel catfi shBEST BAITS: Prepared Stink bait, hot dogs and cut shadCONTACT: Michael Acosta 817-578-0023, Unfair Advantage Charters817-578-0023www.unfairadvantagecharters.comTIPS: Fish near docks and bridges near channel ledges. Fish under the docks, with baited holes producing the best action. Granbury levels continue to be low, so call to make sure access is available. Access continues to be available at the Hilton/City Beach launch, Rough Creek and Pecan Plantation private launch. All species are in their summer pat-terns (all species have spawned out). Lake tempera-tures are in the 80s and warming. No thermoclines as of yet, buy they are sure to start setting up.

LOCATION: Lake GrangerHOTSPOT: Open Main Lake FlatsGPS: N 30 42.048, W 97 20.964 (30.7008, -97.3494)

SPECIES: CrappieBEST BAITS: JigsCONTACT: Tommy Tidwell(512) [email protected]: Right now crappie fi shing is in full swing and they are biting all over the lake in open water brush piles. They are in depths from 4 to 15 feet deep. Every spot has crappie but it can sometimes be a problem fi nding the big keeper fi sh. You might fi nd a spot with a big brush pile in 15 feet of water. The problem is that it has loads of fi sh but none or few that are keeper sized. When this happens you have to fi nd the smaller shallower areas and those will hold less fi sh but better quality fi sh. That is the trick to loading the boat with big keepers. Vertically fi sh a 1/32 or 1/16 oz. marabou jig and be sure to tip it with a Berkley Crappie Nibble. Color doesn’t matter at this lake so use the color that you like and the fi sh will like it . Good luck and good fi shing.

LOCATION: Lake LavonHOTSPOT: Main Lake Humps and PointsGPS: N 33 54.684, W 96 28.7039 (33.9114, -96.4784)SPECIES: White BassBEST BAITS: Slabs and live shadCONTACT: Carey Thorn469-528-0210thorn_alex@yahoo.comTexasOklahomaFishingGuide.com TIPS: Most of the white bass are still up in creeks.

Look for them shallow in 1 to 8 foot of water in the mornings, then back out, fi shing humps and points in 8 to 20 foot of water.

LOCATION: Lake PalestineHOTSPOT: Flat CreekGPS: N 32 11.304, W 95 30.2699 (32.1884, -95.5045)SPECIES: Largemouth BassBEST BAITS: Blue Heron color Shimmy Shakers in white or chartreuse/white, 3/8 oz Ricky’s special spinner baits from the Texas Spinner Bait Company, Big Eye Jig in black/brown/amber color and trail it with a Mister Twister watermelon red 4” Flip’n out trailer, Bomber BD7 Crank BaitCONTACT: Ricky Vandergriff903-561-7299 OR 903-530-2201ricky@rickysguideservice.comwww.rickysguideservice.com TIPS: Fish the fl ats in the back of the creek and up near the shorelines early and as the time of day gets up around 9 or 10 am move over on the creek and pitch the Big Eye Jig. You can also get out on the main lake points and cast a crankbait to catch some nice bass. Fish slow and cover areas well, including all trees and logs.

LOCATION: Lake Ray HubbardHOTSPOT: Chandler’s LandingGPS: N 32 52.326, W 96 29.082 (32.8721, -96.4847)SPECIES: Largemouth BassBEST BAITS: Shaky Head Worms and Drop-Shot rigs, buzz baits and small top water luresCONTACT: The Cajun Guide/Johnny Procell (972) [email protected]: “Bass have fi nished the spawn and have moved off to the deepest drop line on all the long points and to the deeper drops along the I-30 rip-rap. Catch these weary fi sh on shaky head worms and drop-shot rigs. It will take a time for the bass to recover from the rigors of the spawn so slow presentation is the key. There will be a number of schools of smaller bass working the edges of the inundated grass and small trees that grew during the low water periods. Think buzz baits and small top water lures like the Chug bug and the tiny torpedo type lures. Good areas are the grass lines below Chandler’s Landing and at the end of the Power Plant jetty.

LOCATION: Lake Ray RobertsHOTSPOT: Cates PointGPS: N 33 22.659, W 97 3.158 (33.3777, -97.0526)SPECIES: White bass




BEST BAITS: Heddon Torpedoes, RatLTrapsCONTACT: Dannie Golden - Get Bit Guide Service817-228-5999www.get-bit.comTIPS: Look for the white bass to be schooling early in the mornings. Clear Heddon baby torpedoes and 1/4oz chrome blue rattle traps. When not on top, use graph to locate on or near drop off on ridges and long points. 1oz slabs bounced off the bottom will work great. Make sure you watch for both the Blue Herons along the shoreline and gulls working over the main lake. Those are always signs to watch for.

LOCATION: Lake Ray RobertsHOTSPOT: State Park CoveGPS: N 33 21.833, W 97 1.992 (33.3639, -97.0332)SPECIES: Largemouth BassBEST BAITS: Topwaters, plastic worms, buzz-baits/frogsCONTACT: Dannie Golden - Get Bit Guide Service817-228-5999www.get-bit.comTIPS: Topwater Pop-r’s and Spooks worked early around main lake rocky points and shallow grass beds. Buzz frogs and hollow body frogs will work this time of year around the main lake fl ooded new growth along the shoreline. With the lake being up, there is plenty. Look for the button willow bushes near the shore. The off shore deep water bite will be working as well. Big worm’s dragged over the corp. brush piles and deep ledges. Gene Larew El Salto Grande worms in Jalapeno is a good choice to start with. Red bug is also a good color. A blue fl eck 10” Berkely Power worm is also a good choice. I also like a 6XD Strike King crankbait worked around the rocky points, brush piles. pond dams, and ledges. Just make sure you are checking your line every few casts. The zebra mussels are bad and will knick or cut your line.

LOCATION: Lake SomervilleHOTSPOT: White Bass PassGPS: N 20 12.4619, W 96 31.884 (20.2077, -96.5314)SPECIES: Catfi shBEST BAITS: Punch bait, shadCONTACT: Weldon [email protected] shtales-guideservice.comTIPS: Just outside the pass to the east are rocks along the bank. Fish are in these rocks spawning. Use drift cork and fi sh close to bank using punch bait.

LOCATION: Lake TexomaHOTSPOT: The North End of the LakeGPS: N 33 52.068, W 96 41.67 (33.8678, -96.6945)SPECIES: Striped BassBEST BAITS: Slabs, jigs and top water plugsCONTACT: Bill Carey903-786-4477bigfi [email protected]: June is the beginning of the summer fi shing patterns at Lake Texoma. Stripers are schooling in large groups across the lake. For best results this month, cast top water plugs on shallow banks near deep water drop offs early in the morning. The top water bite is exciting fi shing this time of year. The go-to top water plug is the Pencil Popper. When mid-morning rolls around, try tying 1.5 ounce slabs in chrome, white or chartreuse. Track large schools of fi sh in the main lake area and in river channels. The technique of choice this month is a fast retrieve; let your slab free fall to the bottom, reeling quickly to the surface. Pay attention – the stripers will hit on the fall. We call this technique “drop it and rip ‘em”. Look for surfacing topwater action mid-month in the river channels and main lake areas.

LOCATION: Lake WhitneyHOTSPOT: Mouth of Big Rocky CreekGPS: N 31 52.842, W 97 23.64 (31.8807, -97.3940)SPECIES: Largemouth BassBEST BAITS: Live Gizzard ShadCONTACT: Randy Routh817-822-5539teamredneck01@hotmail.comwww.teamredneck.netTIPS: Post Spawn patterns are here and the big fi sh bite is on. Anchor up and use live gizzard shad on a Carolina rig, dropping baits to 24 feet. Quick limits coming early and late in the day. BANK ACCESS: WALLING BEND

LOCATION: Richland Chambers LakeHOTSPOT: Main LakeGPS: N 31 59.1119, W 96 9.18 (31.9852, -96.1530)SPECIES: Largemouth BassBEST BAITS: Rat-L-Traps, Tiny Torpedos, Top Water or shallow running shiny lures.CONTACT: Royce [email protected] shin.bizTIPS: “June is traditionally the month that the top water white bass action kicks in full gear! Once

started, the action only gets better as the weather gets hotter. Look for early morning schooling action on the Main Lake from the Dam all the way back to the Hwy 287 Bridge. The Hwy 309 Flats is the area we usually head for early and start the search for schooling activity. If you’re lucky and get a light breeze and some cloudcover, the top water action can last up to several hours and you’ll often be on several acres of fi sh! This is the time of the year to




take the Kids as the action is fast and easy andmost importantly FUN!!!

PANHANDLE

by DUSTIN WARNCKEand DEAN HEFFNER

Henry Bass in Transition

LOCATION: Lake Alan HenryHOTSPOT: Main LakeGPS: N 33 3.0899, W 101 2.628 (33.0515, -101.0438)SPECIES: Largemouth BassBEST BAITS: “Shaky head jigs, Texas rigged worms, crankbaits, spoons, jigs, spin jigs, drop shots with fl ukes, 10”” worms in dark colors.CONTACT: Norman Clayton’s Guide Services806-792-9220

[email protected]/norman_clayton.htmTIPS: “At the start of June the bass will still be shallow, but as the water begins to warm they will l start moving into the deep sanctuaries in about 25 to 35 feet deep. Before the water starts to really warm up, the bass can still be caught on shaky heads jigs, Texas rigged worms, and crank baits on the steep banks of the main lake. As the bass migrate into deep water, you can fi nd schools of bass starting to chase the schools of shad that have moved into the deep water close to the channels. You can use spoons, jigs, spin jigs, and drop shots with fl ukes. This is also the time to start night fi shing for some really big bass using big 10”” worms in a dark color. When fi shing at night, you will want to concentrate on the clear part of the lake close to the dam. Stay on the steep points and banks. When the shad and bass really get schooled up in deep water, you will need to use your elec-tronics to fi nd the schools of shad that have move into the deep channels. Use the large crank baits now to get to the depth you need to catch bass.

LOCATION: Lake Possum KingdomHOTSPOT: Caddo BayGPS: N 32 51.726, W 98 32.39828 (32.8621, -98.5400)SPECIES: Striped bass & hybridsBEST BAITS: Fresh shad, topwaters, jigsCONTACT: Dean [email protected]: This is mid-lake with a lot of water to cover! The white bass and stripers can come up anywhere here and feed a long ways before going back down. They can end up in Caddo or the mouth of Cedar Creek, so it has everything a schooling fi sh could want! Fresh caught shad is your best bait. Watch your graph and follow the 20-30 foot breaklines, as these are now natural highways. Topwater, we prefer the Pradco Pop-R (no baits with a noisy propeller!) We troll and catch a lot of stripers and hybrids on 1-oz. white hair striper jigs with 6-inch Mister Twister trailer tails. Several clients have caught many 15 to 22-pound fi sh downrigging with us already this year, so reserve your trip now. Jigs and slabs work well. A lot of fi sh are caught on just a plain 1/8-oz. jig with a 3-4 inch white Mister Twister Tail. Virtually anything that resembles a shad will work this time of year. But when fi shing live shad fresh-caught from the lake, we catch 4-6 species.

LOCATION: Lake Possum KingdomHOTSPOT: Caddo Bay BreaklinesGPS: N 32 51.726, W 98 32.39828 (32.8621, -98.5400)

SPECIES: Catfi shBEST BAITS: Cut bait, shadCONTACT: Dean [email protected]: Catfi sh will be on breaklines and up north in the stained water. Twenty to thirty feet is the magic depth. Fresh dead cut bait shad is best. Just look for those breaklines, preferably around the mouths of coves like the bank running south from the mouth of Caddo Bay.

BIG BEND

by DUSTIN WARNCKE

Amistad Bass Head Deeper

LOCATION: Lake AmistadHOTSPOT: Deep Water PointsGPS: N 29 29.67126 W 101 8.2884 (29.494521, -101.138140)SPECIES: largemouth bassBEST BAITS: Crank baits, soft plastic worms, topwater luresCONTACT:Stan [email protected]: Fish the major points that drop-off into 20 feet of water. The bass will be feeding on crawfi sh so crawfi sh-colored lures will produce the best catches. Try topwaters early in the backs of the coves.

LOCATION: AmistadHOTSPOT: Highway 90 AreaGPS: N 29 28.72116 W101 3.2424 (29.478686, -101.054040)SPECIES: largemouth bassBEST BAITS: Carolina-rigged worms, Texas-rigged worms, Senkos, crankbaitsCONTACT:Stan [email protected]: Fish the backs of the multiple coves in this area with Texas-rigged plastic worms, Senkos and




crawdad-colored crankbaits. If the action is slow, move off the points and fi sh the edges of the grass beds with Carolina-rigged soft plastics.

HILL COUNTRY

by DUSTIN WARNCKE

Buch Stripers Hit the Middle

LOCATION: Lake BuchananHOTSPOT: Mid-Lake HumpsGPS: N 30 48.384, W 98 24.942 (30.8064, -98.4157)SPECIES: Striped Bass and HybridsBEST BAITS: Top water Lures, Live ShadCONTACT: Ken [email protected]: Stripers an Hybrids are holding around mid-lake humps in 19 to 35 feett of water. In the early morning and late evening there is a great topwater bite. Chunk anything that will splash and make noise and hang on!

LOCATION: Canyon LakeHOTSPOT: Jacob’s PointGPS: N 29 52.6319, W 98 13.3259 (29.8772, -98.2221)SPECIES: Striped BassBEST BAITS: Jigging spoon in white color CONTACT: Steve Nixon, Fishhooks Adventures210-573-1230steve@sanantoniofi shingguides.comwww.sanantoniofi shingguides.comTIPS: Fish from the point back to the swim beach casting out the spoon and try to maintain a depth of 20 to 40 feet. The Striped Bass like to school in this area this time of year. Tight lines and Fish On!

LOCATION: Canyon LakeHOTSPOT: Up-River AreaGPS: N 29 54.5339, W 98 19.3319 (29.9089, -98.3222)SPECIES: CrappieBEST BAITS: Small crank baits, small spinner baits, jigs, minnows, or jigs with minnowsCONTACT: Teach ‘Em to Fish Guide Service-Barry Dodd210-771-0123barry@teachemtofi sh.netwww.teachemtofi sh.net

TIPS: Up-River area is protected and has lots of trees and small concentrated fl ats. Look for areas with fl ats near the river channel. This is a good time to use jigs under bobbers.

LOCATION: Canyon LakeHOTSPOT: Point Near Fishing Pier Near Potter’s CreekGPS: N 29 54.132, W 98 15.978 (29.9022, -98.2663)SPECIES: Largemouth BassBEST BAITS: Creature baits, 7” Berkely Power Worms, Crème Whakey Stix, Bass Kandi Trick Worms, Flick ShakeCONTACT: KC’S Bassin’ Guide [email protected] TIPS: The Bass are on the move again looking for deeper water. Look for bass to be along bluff edges and fl ooded timber. Use Flick Shake in 1/8 oz. weight, Power Worms or Zoom Trick Worms. Good colors for this time of year are Motor Oil, Watermelon Red and Blue Fleck. Be sure to fi sh the entire point into the enterance of Canyon Park, about a 300 yard stretch. Concentrate on fi shing 8-15 foot depths.

LOCATION: Lake AustinHOTSPOT: Main Lake FlatsGPS: N 30 19.824, W 97 50.6219 (30.3304, -97.8437)SPECIES: Largemouth BassBEST BAITS: Picasso Shad Walker, Picasso Buzzbait, V&M Chopstick, V&M Wild ThangCONTACT: Brian Parker - Lake Austin Fishing817-808-2227lakeaustinfi [email protected] TIPS: I’m having success throwing the Picasso Shad Walker and Buzzbait in the mornings and when there’s wind and/or rain. It’s ideal to fi sh these baits on long casts as the bigger fi sh will some-times follow the baits. Once the sun gets high or the topwater bite subsides, throw the V&M Chopstick or Wild Thang either Texas-rigged or weightless just off of the fl ats. Work these slowly with a hard twitch in between pauses and be ready for some action!

LOCATION: Lake BuchananHOTSPOT: Main Lake Rock Piles and LedgesGPS: N 30 48.468, W 98 26.154 (30.8078, -98.4359)SPECIES: Catfi shBEST BAITS: Cut shadCONTACT: Clancy Terrill512-633-6742centraltexasfi [email protected]

www.centraltexasfi shing.com TIPS: Eating-sized and trophy Blue Cats are very good. Double anchor near rock piles and ledges and use cut bait. I catch and use shad but store bought may be good as well.

SOUTH TEXAS

by DUSTIN WARNCKE

Get to the Points for Coleto Bass

LOCATION: Coleto Creek LakeHOTSPOT: Main Lake Points and HumpsGPS: N 28 44.4899, W 97 10.8 (28.7415, -97.1800)SPECIES: Largemouth BassBEST BAITS: Zoom fl uke in pearl or watermelon, dipped in garlic chartruse dip.CONTACT: Rocky’s Guide Service 361-250-3959 N/Awww.coletocreekguidefi shing.comTIPS: During the day I like to Carolina rig the deeper water concentrating on main lake points or humps. Its always good to get out and sink some private brush piles in 15 feet plus and GPS them. Early morning and late evening the action will be in the back of the main creeks. There will be a lot of grass and they’ll hit about anything you throw at them. in fi shing grass don’t hesitate to use as big as 5/0 hooks and at least 20lb test.

LOCATION: Choke Canyon Res.HOTSPOT: Main LakeGPS: N 28 29.274, W 98 22.8239 (28.4879, -98.3804)SPECIES: Catfi shBEST BAITS: Stink bait, cheese bait, or worms.CONTACT: Charlie Brown830-780-2162TIPS: Expect to fi nd catfi sh in shallow water this time of year. Use a fl oat rigged to 3 feet and move to another spot if you don’t get a bite within 10-15 minutes.




Tides and Prime Times JUNE 2015

USING THE PRIME TIMES CALENDAR

SPORTSMAN’S DAYBOOK IS SPONSORED BY:

The following pages contain TIDE and SOLUNAR predictions for Galveston Chan-nel (29.3166° N, 94.88° W).TIDE PREDICTIONS are located in the upper white boxes on the Calendar Pages. Use the Correction Table below, which is keyed to 23 other tide stations, to adjust low and high tide times.

SOLUNAR ACTIVITY is shown in the lower color boxes of the Calendar pages. Use the SOLUNAR ADJUSTMENT SCALE below to adjust times for points East and West of Galveston Channel.

TIDE PREDICTIONS are shown in graph form, with High and Low tide predictions in text immediately below.

SOLUNAR ACTIVITY data is provided to indicate major and minor feeding periods for each day, as the daily phases of the moon have varying degrees of infl uence on many wildlife species.

AM & PM MINOR phases occur when the moon rises and sets. These phases last 1 to 2 hours.

AM & PM MAJOR phases occur when the moon reaches its highest point overhead as well as when it is “underfoot” or at its highest point on the exact opposite side of the earth from your positoin (or liter-ally under your feet). Most days have two Major Feed-ing Phases, each lasting about 2 hours.

PEAK DAYS: The closer the moon is to your location, the stronger the infl uence. FULL or NEW MOONS provide the strongest infl unce of the month.

PEAK TIMES: When a Solunar Period falls within 30 minutes to an hour of sunrise or sunset, anticipate increased action. A moon rise or moon set during one of these periods will cause even greater action. If a FULL or NEW MOON occurs during a Solunar Period, expect the best action of the season.

T1T2

T3T4

T5T6

T7

T8

T9T10

T11T12

T13

T14T15

T16

T17

T18

T19

T20

T21

T22

T23

NOT TO BE USED FOR NAVIGATION

TIDE CORRECTION TABLE

Add or subtract the time shown at the rightof the Tide Stations on this table (and map) to

determine the adjustment from the time shown for GALVESTON CHANNEL in the calendars.

KEY PLACE HIGH LOW Sabine Bank Lighthouse -1:46 -1:31 Sabine Pass Jetty -1:26 -1:31 Sabine Pass -1:00 -1:15 Mesquite Pt, Sab. Pass -0:04 -0:25 Galveston Bay, S. Jetty -0:39 -1:05 Port Bolivar +0:14 -0:06

KEY PLACE HIGH LOWGalveston Channel/Bays Texas City Turning Basin +0:33 +0:41 Eagle Point +3:54 +4:15 Clear Lake +6:05 +6:40 Morgans Point +10:21 +5:19 Round Pt, Trinity Bay +10:39 +5:15

KEY PLACE HIGH LOW Pt Barrow, Trinity Bay +5:48 +4:43 Gilchrist, East Bay +3:16 +4:18 Jamaica Beach, W. Bay +2:38 +3:31 Alligator Point, W. Bay +2:39 +2:33 Christmas Pt +2:32 +2:31 Galveston Pleasure Pier -1:06 -1:06

KEY PLACE HIGH LOW San Luis Pass -0.09 -0.09 Freeport Harbor -0:44 -1:02 Pass Cavallo 0:00 -1:20 Aransas Pass -0:03 -1:31 Padre Island (So. End) -0:24 -1:45 Port Isabel +1:02 -0:42

T1T2T3T4T5T6

T7T8T9T10T11

T12T13T14T15T16T17

T18T19T20T21T22T23

KEYS TO USING THE TIDE AND SOLUNAR GRAPHS

AM Minor: 1:20a

AM Major: 7:32a

PM Minor: 1:45p

PM Major: 7:57p

Moon Underfoot: 9:15p

Moon Overhead: 8:50aTime Moonis at its Highest Point in the Sky

SOLUNAR ACTIVITY:

Time Moon is DirectlyUnderfoot (atits peak on opposite sideof the earth)

AM/PM Timeline

MAJORFeedingPeriods(+/- 2 Hrs.)

MINORFeedingPeriods(+/- 1.5 Hrs.)

TIDE GRAPH:

BEST:5:30 — 7:30 AM

Yellow: Daylight

Light Blue:Nighttime

AM/PMTimeline

Blue:Rising Tide

Gold Fish:Best Time

Blue Fish:Good TimeRed Graph:

Fishing Score

Green: Falling Tide

Tab: PeakFishing Period

Sportsman’s DAYBOOKSportsman’s Sportsman’s Sportsman’s Sportsman’s Sportsman’s Sportsman’s Sportsman’s Sportsman’s Sportsman’s Sportsman’s DAYBOOKDAYBOOKDAYBOOKDAYBOOKDAYBOOKDAYBOOKDAYBOOKDAYBOOKDAYBOOKDAYBOOKDAYBOOKDAYBOOKDAYBOOKDAYBOOKDAYBOOK


12a 12a6a 12p 6p

12a 12a6a 12p 6p




Fishing Score Graph

Day’s BestScore

2ndBest

= Peak FishingPeriod

BEST:7:45-9:40 AM

= FALLING TIDE= RISING TIDE= DAYLIGHT HOURS= NIGHTTIME HOURS

DIGITAL EXTRATap for

CustomizedTide Charts

l = New Moon

º = First Quarter

l = Full Moon

» = Last Quarter

« = Good Day

n = Best Day

SYMBOL KEY


1 «

High Tide 5:32 AM 1.51 ftLow Tide 10:36 AM 1.21 ftHigh Tide 2:14 PM 1.29 ftLow Tide 10:06 PM -0.11 ft

2 ¡


3 «

High Tide 7:01 AM 1.61 ftLow Tide 12:05 PM 1.29 ftHigh Tide 2:48 PM 1.32 ftLow Tide 11:23 PM -0.25 ft

4 «

High Tide 7:47 AM 1.62 ftLow Tide 12:56 PM 1.30 ftHigh Tide 3:11 PM 1.32 ft

5

Low Tide 12:07 AM -0.25 ftHigh Tide 8:33 AM 1.61 ftLow Tide 1:58 PM 1.27 ftHigh Tide 3:42 PM 1.28 ft

6


7


AM Minor: 4:40a

AM Major: 10:53a

PM Minor: 5:06p

PM Major: 11:18p

AM Minor: 5:30a

AM Major: 11:43a

PM Minor: 5:56p

PM Major: -----

AM Minor: 6:23a

AM Major: 12:10a

PM Minor: 6:50p

PM Major: 12:37p

AM Minor: 7:21a

AM Major: 1:07a

PM Minor: 7:48p

PM Major: 1:34p

AM Minor: 8:21a

AM Major: 2:07a

PM Minor: 8:48p

PM Major: 2:34p

AM Minor: 9:22a

AM Major: 3:08a

PM Minor: 9:49p

PM Major: 3:35p

AM Minor: 10:22a

AM Major: 4:08a

PM Minor: 10:49p

PM Major: 4:35p

+2.0

+1.0

0

-1.0

FEET FEET

+2.0

+1.0

0

-1.0

MONDAY TUESDAY WEDNESDAY THURSDAY FRIDAY SATURDAY SUNDAY

TID

E L

EV

EL

S TID

E L

EV

EL

SS

OL

UN

AR

AC

TIV

ITY S

OL

UN

AR

AC

TIV

ITY

Sunrise: 6:19a Set: 8:16pMoonrise: None Set: 11:18a

Sunrise: 6:19a Set: 8:15pMoonrise: 11:48p Set: 10:15a






Moon Underfoot: 12:34p Moon Underfoot: 1:26p

Moon Overhead: 12:59a Moon Overhead: 1:52a Moon Overhead: 2:47a Moon Overhead: 3:42a Moon Overhead: 4:37a Moon Overhead: 5:31aMoon Overhead: 12:08a

Moon Underfoot: 5:58pMoon Underfoot: 4:09pMoon Underfoot: 3:14p Moon Underfoot: 5:04pMoon Underfoot: 2:19p

BEST:8:00 — 10:00 pm

BEST:9:00 — 11:00 pm

BEST:10:00p — 12:00a

BEST:7:30 — 9:30 pm

BEST:6:30 — 8:30 pm

BEST:6:00 — 8:00 pm

BEST:5:30 — 7:30 pm

12a 12a6a 12p 6p 12a6a 12p 6p 12a6a 12p 6p 12a6a 12p 6p 12a6a 12p 6p 6a 12p 6p 12a 12a6a 12p 6p




Fishing Score Graph

Day’s BestScore

2ndBest


BEST:7:45-9:40 AM


8

Low Tide 2:34 AM 0.09 ftHigh Tide 10:37 AM 1.43 ftLow Tide 5:13 PM 0.85 ftHigh Tide 9:17 PM 0.96 ft

9 »


10

Low Tide 4:39 AM 0.55 ftHigh Tide 11:39 AM 1.31 ftLow Tide 6:39 PM 0.34 ft

11

High Tide 1:10 AM 1.07 ftLow Tide 5:56 AM 0.78 ftHigh Tide 12:07 PM 1.27 ftLow Tide 7:23 PM 0.08 ft

12


13


14


AM Minor: 11:19a

AM Major: 5:06a

PM Minor: 11:46p

PM Major: 5:33p

AM Minor: -----

AM Major: 6:01a

PM Minor: 12:14p

PM Major: 6:27p

AM Minor: 12:39a

AM Major: 6:52a

PM Minor: 1:05p

PM Major: 7:18p

AM Minor: 1:28a

AM Major: 7:41a

PM Minor: 1:54p

PM Major: 8:07p

AM Minor: 2:15a

AM Major: 8:28a

PM Minor: 2:41p

PM Major: 8:55p

AM Minor: 3:02a

AM Major: 9:15a

PM Minor: 3:29p

PM Major: 9:42p

AM Minor: 3:50a

AM Major: 10:04a

PM Minor: 4:17p

PM Major: 10:31p

+2.0

+1.0

0

-1.0

FEET FEET

+2.0

+1.0

0

-1.0

BEST:3:30 — 5:30 pm

BEST:4:00 — 6:00 pm

BEST:5:00 — 7:00 pm

BEST:2:30 — 4:30 pm

BEST:1:00 — 3:00 am

BEST:12:00 — 2:00 am

BEST:12:00 — 2:00 pm


TID

E L

EV

EL

S TID

E L

EV

EL

SS

OL

UN

AR

AC

TIV

ITY S

OL

UN

AR

AC

TIV

ITY

Sunrise: 6:19a Set: 8:19pMoonrise: 4:52a Set: 6:34p







l = New Moon

º = First Quarter

l = Full Moon

» = Last Quarter

« = Good Day

n = Best Day

SYMBOL KEY

15 «


16 l


17 «


18 «


19 «


20


21

Low Tide 1:39 AM 0.09 ftHigh Tide 9:41 AM 1.28 ftLow Tide 4:38 PM 0.89 ftHigh Tide 7:28 PM 0.92 f

AM Minor: 4:41a

AM Major: 10:54a

PM Minor: 5:08p

PM Major: 11:22p

AM Minor: 5:34a

AM Major: 11:47a

PM Minor: 6:01p

PM Major: 12:14p

AM Minor: 6:28a

AM Major: 12:15a

PM Minor: 6:55p

PM Major: 12:42p

AM Minor: 7:24a

AM Major: 1:11a

PM Minor: 7:49p

PM Major: 1:36p

AM Minor: 8:19a

AM Major: 2:06a

PM Minor: 8:43p

PM Major: 2:31p

AM Minor: 9:12a

AM Major: 3:00a

PM Minor: 9:35p

PM Major: 3:23p

AM Minor: 10:03a

AM Major: 3:52a

PM Minor: 10:25p

PM Major: 4:14p

+2.0

+1.0

0

-1.0

FEET FEET

+2.0

+1.0

0

-1.0

BEST:8:00 — 10:00 pm

BEST:10:00a — 12:00p

BEST:10:30a — 12:30p

BEST:7:30 — 9:30 pm

BEST:6:30 — 8:30 pm

BEST:6:00 — 8:00 pm

BEST:5:30 — 7:30 pm


TID

E L

EV

EL

S TID

E L

EV

EL

SS

OL

UN

AR

AC

TIV

ITY S

OL

UN

AR

AC

TIV

ITY

Sunrise: 6:20a Set: 8:21pMoonrise: 11:05a Set: None








TIDE CORRECTION TABLE

Add or subtract the time shown at the rightof the Tide Stations on this table (and map) to determine the adjustment from the time shown for GALVES-

TON CHANNEL in the calendars.

KEY PLACE HIGH LOW

Sabine Bank Lighthouse -1:46 -1:31

Sabine Pass Jetty -1:26 -1:31

Sabine Pass -1:00 -1:15

Mesquite Pt, Sab. Pass -0:04 -0:25

Galveston Bay, S. Jetty -0:39 -1:05

Port Bolivar +0:14 -0:06

KEY PLACE HIGH LOW

Galveston Channel/Bays

Texas City Turning Basin +0:33 +0:41

Eagle Point +3:54 +4:15

Clear Lake +6:05 +6:40

Morgans Point +10:21 +5:19

Round Pt, Trinity Bay +10:39 +5:15

KEY PLACE HIGH LOW

Pt Barrow, Trinity Bay +5:48 +4:43

Gilchrist, East Bay +3:16 +4:18

Jamaica Beach, W. Bay +2:38 +3:31

Alligator Point, W. Bay +2:39 +2:33

Christmas Pt +2:32 +2:31

Galveston Pleasure Pier -1:06 -1:06

KEY PLACE HIGH LOW

San Luis Pass -0.09 -0.09

Freeport Harbor -0:44 -1:02

Pass Cavallo 0:00 -1:20

Aransas Pass -0:03 -1:31

Padre Island (So. End) -0:24 -1:45

Port Isabel +1:02 -0:42

T1

T2

T3

T4

T5

T6

T7

T8

T9

T10

T11

T12

T13

T14

T15

T16

T17

T18

T19

T20

T21

T22

T23

Moon Overhead: 7:17aMoon Overhead: 6:24a Moon Overhead: 8:09a Moon Overhead: 9:01a Moon Overhead: 9:54a

Moon Underfoot: 7:43p Moon Underfoot: 8:35p Moon Underfoot: 10:20p Moon Underfoot: 11:14p Moon Underfoot: NoneMoon Underfoot: 9:27pMoon Underfoot: 6:50p

Moon Overhead: 10:47a Moon Overhead: 11:42a

Moon Underfoot: 12:09a Moon Underfoot: 1:04a

Moon Overhead: 1:31p Moon Overhead: 2:24p Moon Overhead: 3:15p Moon Overhead: 4:04p Moon Overhead: 4:51p Moon Overhead: 5:35pMoon Overhead: 12:37p

Moon Underfoot: 5:13aMoon Underfoot: 3:40aMoon Underfoot: 2:50a Moon Underfoot: 4:28aMoon Underfoot: 1:58a


NOT TO BE USED FOR NAVIGATIONSportsman’s DAYBOOK






Fishing Score Graph

Day’s BestScore

2ndBest


BEST:7:45-9:40 AM


22


23


24 º

Low Tide 3:31 AM 0.64 ftHigh Tide 11:02 AM 1.16 ftLow Tide 6:29 PM 0.47 ft

25

High Tide 12:47 AM 0.90 ftLow Tide 4:17 AM 0.81 ftHigh Tide 11:23 AM 1.15 ftLow Tide 6:58 PM 0.32 ft

26


27


28


AM Minor: 10:51a

AM Major: 4:40a

PM Minor: 11:12p

PM Major: 5:02p

AM Minor: 11:36a

AM Major: 5:26a

PM Minor: 11:58p

PM Major: 5:47p

AM Minor: -----

AM Major: 6:09a

PM Minor: 12:20p

PM Major: 6:30p

AM Minor: 12:40a

AM Major: 6:51a

PM Minor: 1:01p

PM Major: 7:12p

AM Minor: 1:20a

AM Major: 7:31a

PM Minor: 1:43p

PM Major: 7:54p

AM Minor: 2:01a

AM Major: 8:12a

PM Minor: 2:24p

PM Major: 8:36p

AM Minor: 2:42a

AM Major: 8:55a

PM Minor: 3:07p

PM Major: 9:19p

+2.0

+1.0

0

-1.0

FEET FEET

+2.0

+1.0

0

-1.0


SO

LU

NA

R A

CT

IVIT

Y SO

LU

NA

R A

CT

IVIT

Y







Sunrise: 6:20a Set: 8:21pMoonrise: 11:57a Set: 12:01a

TID

E L

EV

EL

S TID

E L

EV

EL

S

Moon Underfoot: 5:57a Moon Underfoot: 6:40a Moon Underfoot: 7:22a

Moon Overhead: 8:26p Moon Overhead: 9:11p Moon Overhead: 9:59p

Moon Underfoot: 10:23a

Moon Overhead: 10:48pMoon Overhead: 7:43p

Moon Underfoot: 9:35a

Moon Overhead: 6:18p

Moon Underfoot: 8:49aMoon Underfoot: 8:05a

Moon Overhead: 7:01p

l = New Moon

º = First Quarter

l = Full Moon

» = Last Quarter

« = Good Day

n = Best Day

SYMBOL KEY


NOT TO BE USED FOR NAVIGATIONSportsman’s DAYBOOK


BEST:2:30 — 4:30 pm

BEST:3:00 — 5:00 pm

BEST:4:00 — 6:00 pm

BEST:1:30 — 3:30 pm

BEST:12:30 — 2:30 pm

BEST:11:30a — 1:30p

BEST:11:00a — 1:00p



TID

E L

EV

EL

S


Fishing Score Graph

Day’s BestScore

2ndBest


BEST:7:45-9:40 AM


DIGITAL EXTRATap for

CustomizedTide Charts

29


30 «


Jul 1 «


2 ¡


3 «


4 «


5

Low Tide 12:40 AM -0.25 ftHigh Tide 8:34 AM 1.42 ftLow Tide 2:09 PM 0.89 ftHigh Tide 6:26 PM 1.05 f

AM Minor: 3:27a

AM Major: 9:40a

PM Minor: 3:53p

PM Major: 10:06p

AM Minor: 4:14a

AM Major: 10:28a

PM Minor: 4:41p

PM Major: 10:55p

AM Minor: 5:06a

AM Major: 11:20a

PM Minor: 5:34p

PM Major: 11:48p

AM Minor: 6:01a

AM Major: -----

PM Minor: 6:29p

PM Major: 12:15p

AM Minor: 7:00a

AM Major: 12:46a

PM Minor: 7:28p

PM Major: 1:14p

AM Minor: 8:01a

AM Major: 1:47a

PM Minor: 8:28p

PM Major: 2:15p

AM Minor: 9:02a

AM Major: 2:48a

PM Minor: 9:29p

PM Major: 3:16p

+2.0

+1.0

0

-1.0

FEET FEET

+2.0

+1.0

0

-1.0

BEST:7:00 — 9:00 pm

BEST:8:00 — 10:00 pm

BEST:3:00 — 5:00 am

BEST:6:00 — 8:00 pm

BEST:5:30 — 7:30 pm

BEST:5:00 — 7:00 pm

BEST:4:30 — 6:30 pm


SO

LU

NA

R A

CT

IVIT

Y SO

LU

NA

R A

CT

IVIT

Y








TID

E L

EV

EL

S

l = New Moon

º = First Quarter

l = Full Moon

» = Last Quarter

« = Good Day

n = Best Day

SYMBOL KEY

Moon Underfoot: 11:14a Moon Underfoot: 12:08p

Moon Overhead: None Moon Overhead: 12:35a Moon Overhead: 1:31a Moon Overhead: 2:28a Moon Overhead: 3:24a Moon Overhead: 4:19aMoon Overhead: 11:41p

Moon Underfoot: 4:46pMoon Underfoot: 2:56pMoon Underfoot: 1:59p Moon Underfoot: 3:51pMoon Underfoot: 1:03p





Happy Reader & Cook

THIS IS FROM A HIGHLY SAT-isfi ed reader who gave me a call a few years back wanting information on how to prepare a sharp tailed

grouse. I had never hunted them and was a bit uncertain of how they are as table fare, so I spent some time researching the grouse and then went to work detailing the recipe.

This is a follow-up letter from Scott, the hunter requesting information along with a few photos he took detailing the preparation and evening. I wanted to share this with all of you readers and encourage you to submit your favorite recipes you have prepared with some photos. We look forward to seeing and sharing them.

—Bryan Slaven The Texas Gourmet

Bryan,

Well it took me almost two years from the time you supplied me with the recipe for the Sharp-Tail Grouse until I prepared it and served it to a group of close friends.

My wife and I worked almost every eve-ning last week to prep for our Wild Game Dinner. The party guests were 10 of my hunting buddies and their wives.

The dinner took place on Saturday. The evening was perfect, with temps in the 60’s. All activities took place in our outdoor cooking and entertainment area. Dessert, coffee and lively conversation around the fi re pit completed a great eve-ning.

The menu was as follows:

Appetizers:Cheeses and CrackersRelish TrayPheasant Fingers

Entrees:Parmesan Crusted Quail and Hungar-

ian Partridge (served with either a Pesto or BBQ Sauce)

Buffalo SlidersSharp-Tailed Grouse Rolls

Sides:Asian SaladSpicy Rosemary Potatoes (Yukon

Gold)

Dessert:Texas Sheet Cake with Vanilla Bean

Ice Cream

We prepared and cooked 13 Grouse which made 26 rolls.

They were cooked in an egg at 375 to 400 for 15 minutes. After resting for 5-7 minutes, they were served.

The meat was tender and fl avorful with the fi lling adding an additional layer of complexity and taste. The group was unanimous in their approval.

Thanks for your time to research the game and prepare the recipe. It will be repeated.

Scott J. Balch

Email Bryan Slaven [email protected]

Texas TASTEDTexas Texas TASTEDTASTEDTexas TASTEDTASTEDTASTEDTASTEDTASTEDTASTEDTASTEDTASTEDTASTEDTASTEDTASTEDTexas Texas Texas Texas Texas Texas Texas Texas Texas Texas Texas by BRYAN SLAVEN :: The Texas Gourmet

Sharp-tail Grouse Rolls

The chef

PHOTOS: SCOTT J. BALCH



LAKE AMISTAD

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SPECKLED TROUT

Sabine LakePaige Hurlburt caught this 25.5in trout North end of Sabine Lake.

REDFISH

Lake CalcasieuJ.T. Dettman from Austin caught this 29-inch, 12-pound redfi sh on a straight tail jig while fi shing on the “Texas side” of Lake Calcasieu, Louisiana.

REDFISH

Keith LakeDonna Curl of Orange with a nice redfi sh out of Keith Lake.

HYBRID

Lake TexomaTen-year-old Aubree Hall caught this hybrid striped bass at Lake Texoma.

STRIPED BASS

Lake BuchananJesse Garza of Floresville caught this striper on Upper Lake Buchanan at his father’s lake house. He caught it on a knocker rig, fi shing on bottom with live shad.

WHITETAIL

Rio MedinaKynlee Crisp, age 7, of Castroville, killed her fi rst deer, a 6-pointer, on her grandparents ranch in Rio Medina.


No guaran-tee can be made as to when, or if, a submitted photo will be published.

MAIL TO: TFG PHOTOS1745 Greens Rd, Houston TX 77032NOTE: Print photos can not be returned.

EMAIL: [email protected] best results, send MED to HIGH quality JPEG digital fi les only, please.


REDFISH

GalvestonSix-year-old Aiden Gonzales can bait and cast his own rod. He caught and released this 19-inch red in Galves-ton Bay while fi shing with his uncle, Malcolm Mencacci.

BLACK DRUM

Port Mansfi eldEight-year-old Aiden Medrano, caught this 32-inch black drum while fi shing at Port Mansfi eld.

WAHOO

Packery ChannelThomas Mullenix caught this nice wahoo while fi shing offshore out of Pack-ery Channel aboard the Reelax with Capt. Jerry Bravenec.

HALIBUT

AlaskaLenny Maartens of Pearland caught this 70-pound halibut while fi shing at Seward, Alaska.

TEAL

BrookshireEleven-year-old Evan Main-ord of Huffman shot this teal while hunting near Brookshire.

WHITETAIL AND

TURKEY

Pipe CreekCarly Gekas shot a buck and a turkey while hunting with her grand-father Les Wal-ters on their lease near Pipe Creek.


C3_Columbia Sportswear.indd 3 5/7/15 7:47 PM

C4_Xpress.indd 4 5/7/15 7:48 PM

texas fish & game june 2015

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