State makes Fishing 101 as easy as A-B-C
She was fishing for answers, the woman on the phone explained with a nervous laugh that accented the hint of desperation in her voice.
“We want to go fishing, but I don’t have any idea what we need, how to do it or where we can go,” she said.
Her daughter and son, 8 and 10, respectively, had become obsessed with fishing after a visit to their outof-state grandparents. Grandpa and Grandma took the youngsters and Mom to a pond, where the youngsters (and Mom) had a ball using cane poles and earthworms to catch ”perch,” with the kids taking frequent breaks to chase frogs along the muddy bank and turn over rocks in the shallows to see what might be hiding beneath them.
“It’s all the kids talk about,” she said. “They want to go fishing around here, but I don’t have a clue what to do. Can you help me?”
Variations of that phone call from last week are all too common.
They mostly are parents in Houston or in the suburbs looking to introduce their children (and themselves) to fishing, giving them opportunities to have experiences that can lead to a lifelong connection to the natural world. But sometimes its a teenager or a young adult with an interest in angling but without a family member or friend to mentor them. And sometimes it is an older Texan who just wants the opportunity to reconnect with an activity they have long enjoyed but can’t find an easy-to-get-to and inexpensive venue where they can scratch that itch. Programs aplenty
Turns out, there are answers — some pretty good ones — to their angling prayers. Over the past decade or so, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, often in cooperation with local governments and private groups and organizations, have developed several programs and strategies aimed at giving Texans who want to fish the instruction, tools and opportunity to do just that, all at little or no cost to the anglers.
For those looking to learn the basics of recreational angling, TPWD has a Go Fish! program based in several of its state parks — parks that happen to also offer good fishing opportunities.
The Go Fish! program is aimed at families, including children as young as 5, who want to learn the basics of fishing. The program puts on workshops, all of them on weekend days, that provide basic instruction in the art and science of angling, including providing tackle and bait for those who don’t have their own.
The Go Fish! program is offered at no cost to participants. The only cost is the per-person entrance fee to the state park, which is waived for children 12 and younger. State parks on board
A Go Fish! program is scheduled for Saturday at Galveston Island State Park. The program, which begins with registration at 9 a.m. and runs until noon, is a cooperative effort between the state park and the Houston-based Nature Heritage Society. Participants will be able to put what they learn to use fishing from the parks’s bay shore on West Galveston Bay.
For those interested in learning about freshwater fishing, staff at Sheldon Lake State Park and Environmental Learning Center, located off U.S. 90 and just outside Beltway 8 in northeast Houston, will hold a Fishing 101 class on May 21. The onehour program begins at 1 p.m. on the Sheldon Lake fishing dock and includes instruction in basic tackle, fish handling and fish identification. Cane poles and bait will be provided for participants. There is no charge for the class or use of the tackle and no entry fee to the park.
Dozens of TPWD’s state parks offer regular fishing instruction programs, including basic fishing classes and some that offer specific instruction in fly-fishing . A schedule of those classes can be found on the agency’s website at tpwd.texas.gov.
Even absent the fishing instruction classes, Texas’ state parks are probably the best place for learning how to fish and certainly for low-cost access to good fishing. Several years ago, TPWD implemented a “Free Fishing in State Parks” program, waiving all fishing license and stamp requirements for anyone fishing inside the boundaries of a Texas state park.
Entry fees still apply, as do all regulations governing fishing methods, bag and length rules. But the fishing-license waiver applies to all persons fishing from a bank or pier located in a state park and even fishing from a boat if the water body is fully contained within the state park’s boundaries.
This puts some great fishing water within reach of anglers. About 50 of Texas’ 95 state parks offer fishing opportunities, both freshwater and saltwater. In the Houston area, that list of state parks includes Brazos Bend, Galveston Island, Huntsville, San Jacinto Battleground, Sheldon Lake and Sea Rim.
Huntsville State Park’s Lake Raven and Sheldon Lake can provide outstanding fishing. Both hold good populations of easy-to-catch sunfish — Raven has one of the best redear sunfish fisheries in the region — with plenty of bank-fishing area and fishing piers. Both produce some fine largemouth bass fishing; just last week, an angler on Sheldon landed (and released) a largemouth weighing almost 10.5 pounds.
Want to try fishing at one of the state parks but don’t have fishing tackle? TPWD oversees a fishing tackle “loaner” program that lends rods-and-reels (mostly simple-to-use spincasting rigs), tackle boxes and basic tackle (hooks, sinkers, bobbers) to anglers. There is no charge for the loan, although there may be a deposit required for some tackle. Anglers can use the tackle for as long as seven days. Almost all of the Texas state parks with fishing opportunities offers the tackle loaner program. A list of tackle-loan program sites and contact information can be found on TPWD’s website.
TPWD over the past few years has ramped up its effort to provide fishing opportunities in urban areas — areas where there is a high concentration of folks who would like to go fishing but can’t travel to the coast or the large inland reservoirs. To that end, the agency has worked with local governments — cities and counties — to create good fishing opportunities in urban and suburban parks through its Neighborhood Fishin’ program.
Beginning each April and continuing though November, TPWD inland fisheries staff stocks swarms of hatchery-produced channel catfish into the Neighborhood Fishin’ ponds. Stockings of channel cats, with most of the fish measuring at least 12 inches and many considerably larger, are conducted every two or three weeks except during August when high-water temperatures can cause problems for fish and fishers. Area boasts two sites
Two of these hugely popular put-and-take fisheries are in the Houston area — Mary Jo Peckham Park Pond on Gardenia Lane in Katy and Community Park Lake on Glenn Lakes Lane in Missouri City.
Normal fishing-license regulations apply on the Neighborhood Fishin’ ponds, and anglers are limited to taking no more than five catfish per day, and there is no minimum length requirement. To keep folks from “hogging” the lakes, each angler is limited to using no more than two fishing poles. The idea is to provide as much opportunity for as many anglers as possible in a setting that’s comfortable and safe for families and, especially, young anglers.
TPWD usually stocks the lakes on a Friday to provide the best fishing for folks able to fish on the weekends, when most folks have time to fish. The agency posts its stocking schedule and other information, including location maps and some great basic fishing tips, on its website.
All of these fishingrelated programs — nocost fishing classes, loaner tackle, license waivers in state parks, stocking programs in urban/suburban parks and even the annual Free Fishing Day (June 4, this year), when license requirements are waived statewide — are aimed at helping make angling accessible to as many Texans as possible. And that is a worthwhile goal because there are a lot of folks like that mom and her two children out there.