Texas speckled trout anglers — and there are a lot of them — will have their opportunity to discuss potential bag limit regulation changes at upcoming public meetings in January along the coast.
The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department’s Coastal Fisheries Division will host seven scoping meetings from Jan. 7-9 to discuss potential changes to saltwater fishing regulations, including cutting the daily limit on specks along the coast from 10 to five, and also looking into changes to flounder regulations.
The agency is discussing the changes to improve overall numbers in these fisheries, according to a news release. The option of applying a sunset date to potential regulation changes also may be considered by TPWD. More information can be found here.
Interested parties are encouraged to attend any of the meetings listed below, learn about the proposals and provide comments. Comments also may be made online via the TPWD public comment Web page, which provides summaries of the proposals, or by email to SWFishComments@tpwd.texas.gov.
Department staff will present recommendations to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission at its Jan. 22-23 meeting. Based on the commission’s feedback, TPWD staff will have a series of formal statewide public hearings if regulatory proposals are advanced. Hearings for all fishery- and wildlife-related proposals would be held after the January meeting and before the March 26-27 commission meeting. Final decisions about proposed regulations will be made by the commission at that meeting.
All of the following scoping meetings will be from 6-8 p.m. on the dates shown:
- Jan. 7: Port Lavaca: Bauer Community Center, 186 County Road 101
- Jan. 8: Rockport: Aransas County Court Room, 301 N. Live Oak St.
- Jan. 8: Corpus Christi: Del Mar College Center for Economic Development, 3209 S. Staples St., Room 106
- Jan. 8: San Antonio: Lion’s Field Adult and Senior Citizens Center, 2809 Broadway
- Jan. 9: Port Isabel: Port Isabel Community Center, 213 Yturria
- Jan. 9: Port Arthur: Gallery Room of the Port Arthur Public Library, 4615 9th Ave.
- Jan. 9: Dickinson: TPWD Dickinson Marine Lab, 1502 Pine Dr. (FM 517)
For more information, contact the following Coastal Fisheries staff members:
- Art Morris, Corpus Christi Field Station, 361-825-3356, art.morris@tpwd.texas.gov.
- Jeremy Leitz, HQ, Austin, 512-389-4333, jeremy.leitz@tpwd.texas.gov.
The limits on amounts and size should remain the same. To reduce the amount to 5 per day would mean you could barely be able to put a meal on the table and that would put the price of a fish dinner out of reach for us that live on a fixed income. I have been a coastal wade fisherman for 70 years but it appears that all good things eventually come to an end. How about a program that would help us old timers that still have a few years left ? I have always been a conservationist and will adapt as necessary and hopefully be able to continue putting a few “buckies” on my plate.
Sir, we the fishermen of this state and country are being screwed! Please dont beg for scraps. They have no business telling you that you cant bring home a box of fish. Those fish belong to us Americans ,not the US govt. Or Texas state government. The state legislature and other groups are trampling on our rights. They are not protecting anything. There is no shortage of specks . They just did the same thing to us in Alabama.