I have alluded a time or two to the fact that I spent part of each summer from about age eight at my Grandmother Jefferson’s modest home overlooking the Guadalupe River. I lived to fish. I caught mostly perch, catfish, and musk turtles. And one 11-pound snapping turtle.

Fisherperson Sara Smith is proudly holding the speckled trout she just caught.

On Sundays, we often went into Seguin, eating at the Aumont Hotel restaurant. I always ordered the fried Gulf trout. My favorite.

Others favor them, too. Later, working in Alice, several of us drove to the Padre Island Causeway after work and fished for those speckled trout that I had eaten as a kid. We fished half the night at the Red Dot Bait Stand.

Standing at the kitchen sink with a filet knife in hand, I began to understand why my fishing buddies had generously given me the entire catch. I finished cleaning the last speck (spotted seatrout (Cynoscion nebulosus) as the first shades of color appeared in the east. And I was due at the office by 8:00.

The limit on specks then was ten or 15. And we had caught a mess of fish.
Those days are temporarily over. And I say “temporarily” in the hope that they will return. Some newspapers will remember a picture of a friend from church holding a 26.5-inch spec he caught in South Padre Island waters that accompanied this column several years ago. Tommy Welch was the successful angler. That’s a trophy trout in anyone’s book! Tommy told me the remarkable thing was their party caught several spotted sea trout over 25-inches in length that weekend.

Then, on Valentine’s Day in 2021, a devastating winter storm struck Texas and its coast. The temperature stayed below freezing for several days and ice and snow covered most of the state. Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) adopted emergency powers to terminate fishing in some areas where fish – trout in particular – congregate to escape cold weather. Trout can’t tolerate it.

My Aunt Jess lived on Offats Bayou bordering Galveston Island during a freeze in the 1950s. She told me she saw several fishermen carrying on their shoulders like a rifle, large, frozen trout that they had picked up on the water.

When the storm struck in 2021, an estimated 3.8 million fish were killed, including 61 species. Speckled trout were among those hammered the hardest. TPWD reacted quickly to conserve the survivors. Emergency rules were adopted for trout in the upper and lower Laguan Madre. The bag limit was reduced to three fish between 17 and 23-inches to protect breeding trout.

Those rules expired last September. Research showed that additional waters required protection, so TPWD proposed renewing and extending the emergency rules north on the coast from Lower Laguna Madre to FM 457 in Sargent, on Matagorda Bay.

At its January 22, 2022 meeting, the TPW Commission adopted the extended rules. They become effective March 16. They expire in September 2023.

Biologists expect protecting breeding age trout will help restore the lost population.

Lat’s hope so, too.

JJ