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Tagging fish is a long-standing method of tracking movements and monitoring the overall health of. a fishery. Christopher McKinley of Bay City has serious concerns about the speckled trout population along Texas’ coast and decided to see if a widespread tagging program might provide some answers.

That’s what inspired him to find Trout Tagging Texas.

“We are on a mission to tagging speckled trout to study and track growth rates, migration patterns, and populations by recapture,” he said.

And while they will tag any legal-sized fish, the target size is 20 inches plus.

“We are asking if you recapture a tagged fish please report the information (length, weight, location.) to the phone number provided on the tag and encourage everyone to participate. We know location can be sensitive information so you will never be required to give the exact location of a fish although it is encouraged to better track migrations,” McKinley said.

TF&G Editor-In-Chief Chester Moore joined McKinley for some tagging at Sabine Lake. He caught this one on a Gulp! fished under a popping cork and hopes one day soon to hear the tagged fish was recaptured.

At the time of this writing, more than 300 fish had been tagged from Sabine Lake to the Lower Coast and McKinley hopes to get the number into the thousands quickly.

“There are many questions about the trout fishery and we are cooperating with state agencies and universities to do our part to provide info that sheds light on the health of our speckled trout fishery,” McKinley said.

You can follow Trout Tagging Texas on Facebook and Instagram.