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Texas Parks and Wildlife Coastal Fisheries Program Leader Robin Reichers makes his return this week. We discuss the latest in saltwater fisheries management pertaining to our most sought after bay species in trout, redfish and flounder. Over the course of my career we’ve seen the spotted sea trout limit go from 10 fish to 5 and Robin sheds light on the fact that there’s a conversation to be had regarding lowering that limit from 5 fish to 3. What justification and science support the need for that potential change? Have angler’s mindsets shifted from wanting to catch more fish to catching bigger fish?

Then we take in depth look at how the Coastal Fisheries Division restocks our saltwater bay systems with trout and redfish (and more recently flounder) fingerlings to the tune of millions of fish per year? Most anglers are well aware of the success of our Inland Fisheries Division when it comes to managing for trophy largemouth bass, so is the coastal effort a similar undertaking? Robin explains the process from how the fish are hatched and where to how they are ultimately released into our Gulf of Mexico bay systems. You might be surprised and the survival rate of these released fingerlings.

(29.75 inch trophy trout I caught in Corpus Christi Bay circa 2016)

Next we check in with Sportsmen’s Alliance VP of Marketing and jack of all trades Brian Lynn. We dive into the rampant political corruption by Pennsylvania republicans who’ve attempted to raid the state’s Game and Fish funding by allocation hunter dollars for clean stream projects. Look, we all want clean streams but that isn’t what those monies are set aside for. Is there a legal course of action to prevent this from happening? It’s very surprising to see republicans miss the mark so badly in a state with as rich of a whitetail deer hunting heritage as any.

We also discuss Sportsmen’s Alliance’s proposed wolf management plan before diving into the real hot topic of the day: Colorado’s attempt to ban all mountain lion and bobcat hunting. Unfortunately, the playbook for allowing the citizenry to vote on wildlife management (rather than trusting the science and actual wildlife biologists) already exists as we saw with Colorado voting in favor of wolf reintroduction via a ballot initiative 2 years ago. Can the animal rights activists get their same desired result when it comes to cougars? What about the fallout from a financial perspective when the state’s elk and deer herds are decimated by unregulated apex predators in the form of wolves and mountain lions? Much to discuss with our longtime friends over at Sportsmen’s Alliance.