Trout Conservation, as Easy as Riding a Cycle

LISTEN: (5 Min, 24 Sec)

 

WE’VE HEARD MUCH LATELY about cycles. Climate cycles, financial cycles, bicycles (which are awesome for deer hunting; maybe another time). For this space, though, let’s address the speckled trout conservation cycle.

I’m honestly not sure exactly where we are at present in its ebb and flow, and neither can I call with certainty which way this one’s headed. The only two certainties are that trout fishing has changed dramatically of late and that it’s going to keep right on changing. But how? And why? 

Where we are depends greatly on who you ask. Riding high? Low? Maybe somewhere near the middle? If I were to ask 100 Texas coastal fishermen where we are now, I’d get as many different, “but-qualified” answers. 

“It’s pretty good, but…”

“It’s not so good, but…”

Those are entirely non-committal responses but actually good in that they indicate thought and consideration. 

On the hard-facts side, extreme freeze did kill a bunch of fish a few years ago. We went into famine mode then to protect the breeding stock that remained, because it’s hard not to presume the worst when belly-up trout are all over social media.

Sidebar: Curious, isn’t it, that four or five short videos and snapshots on social media can be taken as proof-positive of something either extremely grand or equally cataclysmic. Remember moving forward that not every picture on social media is current and, thanks to AI, should be considered unconditionally accurate.

The fish weren’t all dead when we emerged from that deep freeze, as we learned when more social media users on the same platforms resumed their galleries of dead-on-the-deck photos. And the minute Texas’ trout fishery showed a pulse, armchair fisheries biologists proclaimed that we no longer needed conservative measures.

Our state’s professional fisheries managers felt otherwise and adjusted limits accordingly. Some anglers cheered, and some moaned. Why would some parts of Texas – with its 700-plus miles of shoreline – have looser limits than others? And why should “they” get five and we get three? And on and on, ad nauseum until the summer of 2023, when that freeze was long forgotten and even the handful of imported camels on some South Texas ranches plopped down in the shade and begged for rain.

Fall has since fallen now, and I’ll presume with confidence that its rained at least a bit behind September’s resumption of the statewide, five-trout daily bag limit…which had to and does include an asterisk to allow retention on that stringer of one trout longer than 25 inches. That keeps the record-book open, which is only fair as regards the entire state’s most popular coastal gamefish.

Whatever and whenever the next change happens, I’ve learned through 40 years on this beat, some will applaud it, and some will despise it. And on both sides, much of their logic relies on localized analyses of the fishery. 

So back to the initial question about which way the pendulum swings at present. My gut tells me it leans favorably toward the conservative side. That is based not only on confirming, reassuring opinions of professional guides with whom I visit regularly but also on interaction with calls and emails into the radio station at which I work. 

In favor of conservation:  Most bay fishermen are keeping fewer fish than in the past regardless of how many they actually catch. And that deliberate decision to conserve rather than boast to strangers on social media bodes well.

Also, through times of feast and famine, people who have the highest skills and best equipment for taking fish are setting aside their stringers and filling their ice chests with drinks and sandwiches. They could catch five-fish limits, easily, but they’re opting instead to keep – if any – only one or two trout for that evening’s supper.

I still have no quarrel with licensed, law-abiding fishermen who keep limits. They are well within their right to do so, and nobody can argue that speckled trout are not delicious. To those who can eat more than most or have extra mouths to feed at home, catch your fish and enjoy every bite.

The long-term future of our trout fishery, it seems, is bright. With much help from the forward-thinking conservationists who founded what is now the Coastal Conservation Association, we’ve recovered redfish from the brink of disastrous collapse to a point of abundance where some people fear they may start crawling onto dry land eat mice and lizards. 

Regularly now, I hear and have conversations among anglers who have educated themselves into better understandings of the trout’s life cycle and what’s at stake if we ignore it. 

Social media crawls with information written and presented by people who study seatrout every day. The more of us who consume that content and the fewer of us who get distracted by “shiny object” photos of dead fish, the brighter the future is for Texas’ favorite gamefish.

 

Email Doug Pike at ContactUs@fishgame.com

 

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