Fishing heats up as summer closes in
Fishing season never ends in Texas. But it does have its peaks, and the state’s 2 million or so recreational anglers are climbing toward the biggest of the year — the three-month stretch between Memorial Day and Labor Day that sees the year’s highest number of anglers on the water and some of the best, most diverse and consistently productive freshwater and saltwater fishing.
For some — the members of the Montgomery High School Anglers Club and a pair of anglers on Lake Bardwell — the summer fishing season already has brought high points.
For others — offshore anglers eager for their limited shot at the best redsnapper water or anglers and potential anglers looking for an opportunity to fish but who don’t hold a Texas fishing license — their chance waits just around the corner.
There’s a lot going on in Texas fishing this time of year. Teen anglers hit paydirt
While members of the Montgomery High School Anglers Club will have more time to fish now that school is on summer break, the group will be hardpressed to top their recent success.
Last weekend, the group of teenage Montgomery County anglers won the Texas High School Bass Association State Championship tournament held on Lake Ray Roberts, north of Dallas. The club took the overall state championship and had the top single team in the contest that pitted 229 groups from the 52 Texas high school fishing clubs qualifying for the two-day event.
The Montgomery High School team had qualified for the state championship by placing first in a fivetournament series among its division that includes 24 Houston-area high school fishing teams and taking first in the THSBA regional championship held on Sam Rayburn.
The 52 schools that qualified for the state championship were the top finishers from the almost 1,000 teams from 144 Texas high schools participating in the annual tournament series.
Montgomery took the overall championship when the total weight of Ray Roberts bass landed by its top three finishing teams topped all other schools’ three best teams.
Montgomery also had the top single team of the tournament. Anglers Derek Pietsch and Trey Dawson combined to land 34.98 pounds of bass over the two-day contest, edging out a team from Highland Park High School that weighed 34.23 pounds. Each team is allowed to weight five bass per day. Strike King jigs fished around brush were the key to Pietsch and Dawson’s winning stringer.
For their win, Pietsch and Dawson each received a $10,000 college scholarship.
Kyle Lindburg, fishing on one of the seven teams Montgomery High School Anglers Club fielded for the state championship, landed the heaviest bass of the contest — a 10.14-pound behemoth.
“We were really the dark horse in this tournament,” said Mark Hooker, a Montgomery High School teacher and Anglers Club sponsor. “Ray Roberts isn’t a lake we fish. The teams from the local schools — Sanger, Gainesville and the Dallas schools — were the favorites. But our team really put in the work during practice, and it paid off.”
The Montgomery High School Anglers Club fished seven tournaments during the 2016-17 school year. They won five, including the regional and state championship, and finished second in the other two.
“We have some great kids who just love fishing,” Hooker said. “They earned this. They have a right to be proud. Its something they’ll never forget.” Whopper hits McNugget
The dollar value of the fishing lures that the average Texas bass angler accumulates over the years probably would shock even the angler who owns them. Just a rough calculation of how much is invested in the scores of crankbaits, jerkbaits, topwaters, soft-plastics, spinnerbaits, buzzbaits, jigs and terminal tackle squirreled away in the multiple tackle boxes of even a semi-serious bass angler can easily push or exceed four figures.
Maybe we should consider switching from paying $15 for the newest, hard-plastic jerkbait and opt for a choice from the dollar menu at the local McDonald’s.
That seems to have worked just fine earlier this month for a pair of anglers on Lake Bardwell.
According to post on the Facebook page of Highview Marina, the couple were fishing in the 3,500-acre reservoir near Ennis, soaking a hook baited with a McNugget when a very large bass took a liking to the chunk of chicken. They landed the largemouth and hauled it to the nearby marina, where it was weighed, measured, photographed and released.
According to the marina’s Facebook post, which includes photos, the fish weighed 10.802 pounds and measured a little more than 24 inches.
If that weight had been taken on a certified scale and the anglers (who were not named) filed the required paperwork with Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, the fish could be certified as the lake record for largemouth bass.
The largemouth record for Bardwell, not exactly known as one of Texas best big-bass fisheries, is held by a 10.44-pounder caught in 2006. And that ponderous largemouth didn’t fall for one of those expensive artificial lures most bass anglers use, either. It was caught on a live minnow.
While offshore fishing will improve as summer takes hold and increasing numbers of pelagic species such as ling and king mackerel migrate into waters off Texas, anglers wanting to target what traditionally has been the state’s most popular offshore sport fish don’t have time to waste. The very narrow window for taking red snapper from Gulf waters under federal fisheries rules opens — and closes — this week.
The red-snapper season for recreational anglers fishing from private boats opens for a 72-hour run at 12:01 a.m. Thursday. It closes at 12:01 a.m. Sunday (June 4).
The three-day season, which applies in Gulf of Mexico water more than 9 nautical miles from the coast, is the shortest-ever private-boat recreational red-snapper season. Recreational anglers fishing from for-hire (charter) boats holding a federal reef fish permit have through July 19 to land their two-fish daily limit of red snapper from federal waters. In short, snapper
The blink-and-it’s-gone recreational red-snapper season has been a source of considerable controversy over federal management of the fish that has led to increasingly truncated open seasons even as the once severely depleted snapper population has recovered to levels not seen in decades.
The short season has been especially grating for Texas anglers as redsnapper numbers in the western Gulf has boomed and the reach west of the Mississippi now holds as much as 70 percent of the Gulfwide snapper population. Yes, Texas allows a year-round red snapper season in state-controlled waters, but those shallow near-shore waters are not snappers’ preferred habitat and provide spotty snapper fishing.
Prospects for this year’s Thursday-Saturday snapper season for private boats hinge wholly on the weather.
If seas are relatively calm and anglers can safely make their way to good snapper country 30 miles or more offshore, it will be a good (if criminally brief ) snapper season. If winds are up and seas are rough, it will be a frustrating three days for most anglers and a potentially dangerous one for those who challenge the Gulf in boats too small for the conditions.
The long-range forecast for Thursday through Saturday night is not encouraging, calling for seas 4 to 5 feet and probably higher with a good chance of thunderstorms. In other words, typical early June conditions off the Texas coast. Free Fishing Day June 3
The first full week of June has for years been designated National Fishing and Boating Week — a nod to the start of the summer fishing season. And part of that celebration is aimed at encouraging folks to connect or reconnect with fishing by creating a “Free Fishing Day” when fishinglicense requirements are suspended.
Texas holds its annual Free Fishing Day the first Saturday in June — June 3 this year. On that day — this coming Saturday — fishing-license requirements are waived for all persons fishing on public water in Texas. Other fishing regulations — daily limits, size restrictions and means/methods — continue to apply.
Anglers and potential anglers looking to take advantage of the opportunity can find considerable assistance and opportunities through public programs tied to Free Fishing Day. Many Texas Parks and Wildlife Department-run state parks as well as TPWD’s Freshwater Fisheries Center and some federal wildlife refuges have fishing seminars or fishingrelated events planned for June 3. Information on Free Fishing Day events at TPWD sites is available on the agency’s website at tpwd.texas.gov.
The timing of Free Fishing Day is not random. It is set when interest in fishing and chances of fishing success are high. In Texas, that timing is perfect. Tis the season.