Texas Hunting Leases

AUSTIN, Texas — Hoping to add to the mountain of 22,746 derelict crab traps hauled from Texas bays over the last six years, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department officials are gearing up for the 7th Texas Abandoned Crab Trap Removal Program, running this year from Feb. 15-24.

During this 10-day period, all Texas bays will be closed to crabbing with crab traps and any traps left in the bay will be presumed to be abandoned and considered litter under state law, thus allowing volunteers to legally remove any crab traps they find.

Before the 77th Legislature authorized the abandoned crab trap removal program, only the trap’s owner or a TPWD game warden could legally remove a crab trap.

State game wardens pick up more than 2,500 traps annually, yet there are many more still in the water to foul shrimpers’ nets, snag fishermen’s lines and create an unsightly view of Texas shores.

Volunteers are needed to assist in the coast-wide effort to remove the numerous wire mesh cages used to catch crabs that have been lost or abandoned since last year’s cleanup and in years past.

To facilitate volunteer trap removal efforts this year, TPWD staff will designate sites in each of the eight major bay systems for trap collection.

Areas that are relatively free of abandoned traps will have stand alone sites with dumpsters marked for trap removal.

In other areas where more effort is need, sites will be manned until noon on Saturday, Feb. 16, weather permitting and have stand-alone dumpsters for the duration of the closure. For those who choose to work on their own, TPWD requests information about the number of traps that are collected.

Volunteers can work at their own pace during the closure as time and weather permit, but cannot remove traps before Feb. 15 or after Feb. 24. Any crabs found in the traps must be set free. Last year, volunteers with the aid of numerous sponsors removed more than 2,000 traps.

“This volunteer based program has exceeded our wildest imaginations. So good in fact we are working ourselves out of a job,” said Art Morris, TPWD program coordinator. “Overall, the coast looks great in terms of the number of derelict traps people encounter. But in some areas, we could still use a little tidying up.”

According to Morris, the major problem with abandoned crab traps is that many continue to fish after they are lost — which is referred to as “ghost fishing.”

“Thirty six species of aquatic organisms have been documented in these lost traps, many commercially or recreationally important,” Morris said. “And the list even includes species of special concern, like diamondback terrapins. During the event in 2006, the remains of a river otter were removed from a lost trap in Galveston Bay.”

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Coastal Program, Coastal Conservation Association Texas, Coastal Bend Bays and Estuaries Program, and the Cecil M. Hopper Museum are providing significant support to the crab trap removal program. Additional help is coming from numerous organizations, companies and others who are volunteering their services.

To participate, volunteers can pickup free tarps, gloves, trap hooks and additional information at each of the sites or their local TPWD Coastal Fisheries Field Stations.

To volunteer or for more information contact your local TPWD Coastal Fisheries Division office listed below or contact Art Morris TPWD Outreach Specialist at (361) 825-3356.

• Sabine Lake — Local TPWD coordinator Jerry Mambretti (409) 983-1104
• Galveston Bay — Local TPWD coordinator Bill Balboa (281) 534-0100
• Matagorda Bay — Local TPWD coordinator Josh Harper (361) 972-6253.
• San Antonio Bay — Local TPWD coordinator Norman Boyd (361) 983-4425
• Aransas Bay — Local TPWD coordinator Dennis Pridgen (361) 729-2328
• Corpus Christi Bay — Local TPWD coordinator Tom Wagner (361) 729-2328
• Upper Laguna Madre — Local TPWD coordinator Todd Neahr (361) 825-3353
• Lower Laguna Madre — Local TPWD coordinator Mark Lingo (956) 350-4490

Texas hunters and fishermen who have purchased either a combination or individual hunting or fishing license can take advantage of some good discounts from Texas Parks and Wildlife Magazine. 

TPW Magazine has been a monthly guide to the Texas outdoors since 1942.  Its award-winning pages are packed with outstanding color photos and articles about every facet of outdoor recreation: fishing, hunting, camping, birding, boating, traveling and more.  You also get information about state parks, environmental issues and events taking place all across Texas.

Currently, state residents with a regular hunting or fishing license can receive 12 issues at a 70% discount off the cover price.  Super-Combo holders can get a 75% discount off their subscription.  There are also specials for giving a subscription as a gift.

TPW magazine is a welcome site in my mailbox each month.  Now, with such a great deal like that, you can make it welcome in your home too!

Every year, around mid-August, I walk out into the garage and dig around for a small object that brings me hours of relaxation.  Somewhere behind the bird seed, next to the car wash stuff it sits waiting for this day to arrive.   I grab it and its two identical friends and head into the house.  Taking a measuring cup, I mix three parts water to one part sugar and begin to fill each one of them up with the irresistable atractant.  My Humingbird feeders are a very simple design with a bug moat and 6 small feeder ports drilled into a red snap-on lid.  I hang them in succession along the fence outside of the kitchen window so that every morning I have chance at having my moring coffee with them.   You can almost set your watch by their arrival each year to our back yard.  When they come, you  most certainly know that flights of early Teal are arriving in coastal rice fields as well.

The annual migration of North American birds, in general, lines up from small to large.  With the arrival of my aerobatic friends, I know that it will soon be time to go afield to see the first waterfowl to arrive on the scence -Teal ducks or “rice rockets” as hunters call them here.  This honor bestowed on them because they love the rice fields to feed and frolic in as they make their way south.  While scouting our duck leases this past weekend, we saw dozens of them in tight formation buzzing over uncut rice looking for a place to land.  Although out of their winter plumage, their flights are as beautiful and exilerationg as watching an air show with the Navy’s Blue Angels as the main event.

When I got home tonight, I looked out the window and there was our first visitor.  A beautiful male ruby-throated humming bird perched on a feeder, nourishing itself for its annual pilgrimage to the southern tropics.  Now, its time to go out in the garage and dig around for those small decoys in the bag somewhere in the back.  Their time will soon be here. 

Note: Learn more about Texas Hummingbirds here!