Limits Stay the Same in Texas

[Top H2O 2110]

Looks like the Texas trout limits won't change--yet

COASTAL BEND — The Texas Parks & Wildlife Commission Wednesday decided not to pursue a change in the daily limit of speckled trout as a coastwide regulation.

TPW Coastal Fisheries Director Robin Riechers recommended against the change from the current 10 fish limit at a Wednesday commission meeting in Austin.

The department received a record 1,243 comments from individuals, businesses, organizations on this issue. These comments came from seven scoping meetings, by e-mail, through the TPW website and Facebook page, by mail and by phone. The Corpus Christi scoping meeting had the highest attendance with more than 100 people.

The overall opinions submitted for or against change (1,229) were split 49 percent to 51 percent, with 608 favoring some kind of change and 621 favoring the status quo. A smattering of others did not clearly state what they wanted. Of the folks who favored change, about 52 percent (315 comments) suggested a five-fish daily bag. About 36 percent of the change group suggested some other form of harvest regulation, ranging from keeping the first 10 fish to changing the minimum harvest length or designing various slot rules that limited the number of bigger trout (females) we could keep.