# Stocking program?



## marc




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## AlanKulcak

Thanks for sharing!!


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## BrandonFox

That video looks seriously dated... Interesting for sure though. Thanks for posting.


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## Momma's Worry

*tarpon*

our state is spending time, money and effort on a non-eatable fish that roams all over the Gulf coasts inc Mexico ???


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## BrandonFox

Momma's Worry said:


> our state is spending time, money and effort on a non-eatable fish that roams all over the Gulf coasts inc Mexico ???


Widely regarded as the pinnacle sport fish of the gulf. We need more effort focused on these fish, if anything.


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## crw91383

Momma's Worry said:


> our state is spending time, money and effort on a non-eatable fish that roams all over the Gulf coasts inc Mexico ???


Absolutely! I would much rather a successful Tarpon stocking program than the current redfish stocking program.


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## Big-Buck

Momma's Worry said:


> our state is spending time, money and effort on a non-eatable fish that roams all over the Gulf coasts inc Mexico ???


Port Aransas tried to have its named changed to Tarpon, TX which came from the abundant tarpon schools in the area. At one point tarpon were thought to be an unlimited fishery, yes There has been a slight increase in tarpon but there is no where near the amount of tarpon there once was. fishing regulations and management programs have helped but a stocking program similar to the redfish program would work wonders. Tarpon were the pinnacle of big game fishing industry in Texas. so yes, OUR state should spend money on this fishery.


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## Momma's Worry

*spread thin*

don't see how they can do the "big three" alone.... trout,red drum, and endangered flounder .......much less tarpon also ...where is all the millions $$$ coming from to do all this...???


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## AlanKulcak

Momma's Worry said:


> don't see how they can do the "big three" alone.... trout,red drum, and endangered flounder .......much less tarpon also ...where is all the millions $$$ coming from to do all this...???


It comes from all of us who fish or buy fishing related items. Here is a good read to help you understand.

http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/fishboat/fish/programs/federal_aid/

"The Sport Fish Restoration Program is a partnership among anglers, boaters, the fishing and boating industry, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, and the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. The program is supported by taxes on fishing equipment, electric motors, sonar, and motorboat fuel. These revenues are collected by the U.S. Treasury and apportioned to the U.S. States, Insular Territories, and the District of Columbia based on a formula that includes total land and water area and number of licensed anglers."

Basically your getting some of your $ back in the forum of better fishing and related infrastructure.


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## Scott

Momma's Worry said:


> don't see how they can do the "big three" alone.... trout,red drum, and endangered flounder .......much less tarpon also ...where is all the millions $$$ coming from to do all this...???


First off, this is a really OLD video. I am not sure why they are just getting around to posting it. Having said that, I am not aware of anyone really actively trying to spawn tarpon at the moment in Texas. Besides, most biologists think the chances of ever doing that successfully are really slim. Tarpon likely need things to spawn that we can't provide in a captive environment.

As far as other research that IS being conducted in Texas - it has not been millions of dollars yet. The funding that has been provided is in excess of a hundred thousand dollars and is a collaborative effort. TPW and CCA put forth a sizeable sum early on to assist and TPW has promised more moving forward; however, the vast majority of research funding has come from and continues to come from private individuals, private foundations, conservation organizations, Bonefish & Tarpon Trust and the University of Miami Rosensteil School of Marine and Atmospheric Science. So, this is a collaborative effort both inside and outside the State of Texas. TPW is but a piece of the overall funding puzzle - an important piece but just a piece of it. Texas is certainly not "going it alone." All of these folks that are collaborating to help Texas deserve a great deal of applause for their commitment to Texas tarpon. This is not, however, to discount the other doctoral research projects and marine science projects that have and continue to take place through the University of Texas and Texas A&M that are funded by the schools and various other private or government grants. To my knowledge these are much smaller efforts but are no less important and should be mentioned as well.

We are about to embark on some really great new projects in the near future that may include acoustic tagging of both large and small tarpon in various bays and estuaries to track their daily and seasonal movements. We've got a lot that is going to start happening in the next couple years and are generating a lot of private and public interest in the efforts. As this stuff moves forward, you can always check out my website for more information and details.


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## Scott

Momma's Worry said:


> our state is spending time, money and effort on a non-eatable fish that roams all over the Gulf coasts inc Mexico ???


Yes, because non-edible fish can still have an economic impact for a state and bring $$s to local business and tax dollars to the state.


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## crw91383

*Exciting future*



Scott said:


> First off, this is a really OLD video. I am not sure why they are just getting around to posting it. Having said that, I am not aware of anyone really actively trying to spawn tarpon at the moment in Texas. Besides, most biologists think the chances of ever doing that successfully are really slim. Tarpon likely need things to spawn that we can't provide in a captive environment.
> 
> As far as other research that IS being conducted in Texas - it has not been millions of dollars yet. The funding that has been provided is in excess of a hundred thousand dollars and is a collaborative effort. TPW and CCA put forth a sizeable sum early on to assist and TPW has promised more moving forward; however, the vast majority of research funding has come from and continues to come from private individuals, private foundations, conservation organizations, Bonefish & Tarpon Trust and the University of Miami Rosensteil School of Marine and Atmospheric Science. So, this is a collaborative effort both inside and outside the State of Texas. TPW is but a piece of the overall funding puzzle - an important piece but just a piece of it. Texas is certainly not "going it alone." All of these folks that are collaborating to help Texas deserve a great deal of applause for their commitment to Texas tarpon. This is not, however, to discount the other doctoral research projects and marine science projects that have and continue to take place through the University of Texas and Texas A&M that are funded by the schools and various other private or government grants. To my knowledge these are much smaller efforts but are no less important and should be mentioned as well.
> 
> We are about to embark on some really great new projects in the near future that may include acoustic tagging of both large and small tarpon in various bays and estuaries to track their daily and seasonal movements. We've got a lot that is going to start happening in the next couple years and are generating a lot of private and public interest in the efforts. As this stuff moves forward, you can always check out my website for more information and details.


This is all great to know! I hope to see our Tarpon fishery return possibly to its lost glory and when it does it will be because of the hard work of all those who were mentioned above. I much rather fish all day and have half a dozen tarpon break off than have a stringer full of redfish or trout.


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## chadbr

@Scott what is your website?


Sent from my RM-940_nam_att_200 using Tapatalk


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## Scott

In my signature line at the bottom of every post.

www.projecttarpon.com


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## DUTY FIRST

Here is a link to a TPWD article that is very revealing.

http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/fishboat/fish/didyouknow/tarpon.phtml

As noted in the last couple paragraphs, a lot of information regarding the life and spawning cycle of Tarpon is still a mystery, and TPWD doesn't want to make the mistake of damaging the gene pool by experimenting without more knowledge. A good idea I think.


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## TrueblueTexican

*Unrealistic*

Tarpon are migratory residents now (almost exclusively) to Texas. Very little juvenile tarpon are found to overwinter except for a few around Brazosport.

We do not have the MILES of deeper inland estuaries (like Florida does) where juvenile tarpon congregate in any numbers. Nor at our present state of 25 year long drought, the forage inland to support such endeavours.

It may sound like a good idea, but ultimately your sportfishing funds would be wasted - those funds would be better spent, fighting to open freshwater taps to create HEALTHY estuaries along our coast.

If you have to raise and supplementally stock ANY fish in saltwater it points to severe problems with the estuaries.

Tarpon were abundant in Texas waters in the fifties and sixties due to healthy bays, unchanneled by the ICW, and basically independent bay systems, with very few dams upstream of the freshwater rivers.

UNLESS we are willing to try to undo that damage - our tarpon fishery will continue to rely on migration, not residents.


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## justinn

TrueblueTexican said:


> Tarpon are migratory residents now (almost exclusively) to Texas. Very little juvenile tarpon are found to overwinter except for a few around Brazosport.


Not to start an argument, but that is just not true. We have juvis in the port of Brownsville and in the Arroyo throughout the winter. In fact a buddy of mine just jumped 3 the other night. If you go down a few topics " I believe the title is winter tarpon" that was caught in our area. I'm not stating that we have a ton of them, but we do have some that winter here. I did see a few roll in jan and in feb when I was able to get out on the water those months.


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## Scott

justinn said:


> Not to start an argument, but that is just not true. We have juvis in the port of Brownsville and in the Arroyo throughout the winter. In fact a buddy of mine just jumped 3 the other night. If you go down a few topics " I believe the title is winter tarpon" that was caught in our area. I'm not stating that we have a ton of them, but we do have some that winter here. I did see a few roll in jan and in feb when I was able to get out on the water those months.


Justinn - you are correct. Typically, the consistent juvenile tarpon recruitment falls below the mangrove line - that being the northern latitude below which mangroves can survive. Now, that is not to say that there is sporadic recruitment north of that line and all the way to Louisiana. However, successful recruitment in the more northern areas is dependent on the ability of the fish to (1) find warm water in winter or (2) have some consecutive warm winters. In Texas, we have black mangroves more than red mangroves. Black's are more temperature tolerant. Consistent juvenile tarpon recruitment seems to be very tied to that red mangrove line. That is likely caused by a number of factors (protective habitat and similar temperature tolerances). In Texas, that is south Texas. But the red's are moving north as overall temperatures warm.

So, we certainly have some home grown tarpon in Texas. Unfortunately, it likely does not make up the large majority of migrating tarpon on our coast in the summer and fall months. The more we can all support marsh and mangrove restoration in South Texas, the more we will have our own home grown tarpon. Here is a link to some more information on mangroves in Texas. http://www.missionaransas.org/pdf/Texas_Mangrove_Research_Symposium_February_28_2013.pdf


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## Trouthappy

Raising tarpon in Texas would be tough, they can't handle a big cold front. We donated a live tarpon to the hatchery in Flower Bluff back in the late 1980s, and the 1989 cold front killed it. I think it was indoors, too. Here's a picture of a cold-killed tarpon in the Suwannee River when they had a cold front, three years ago. Winter is why tarpon migrate to Mexico and South Florida.


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## wahoozy

Cold weather is exactly why we don't have a great Tarpon Fishery, not over fishing.... If TPW did start a stocking program we would probably be increasing either South Fl stock or South Americas.


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## RGV AG

It is has always been cold in Texas, probably more so than it is now or in the last 20 years or so. The numbers of Tarpon that range from the Upper Texas coast down to the Bay of Campeche are down from what they were 60-80 years ago. Those fish that wintered south of Texas migrated back up Texas in the Spring through Fall. 

The winters were spent in the big Mexican rivers like the Panuco and the Tuxpan. To this day the big estuaries and swamps around Tecolutla are full of "baby tarpon" as they call them. As one of the posters mentions, the lack of fresh water in Texas and big rivers for them to go up into is the biggest difference. In South Texas the Arroyo is the only real fresh water outlet and it is tiny compared to what the Rio Grande used to be, which is nothing more than a trickle, seriously, nowadays as it goes through Boca Chica.


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## TrueblueTexican

*Your Wallop Breaux funds wasted*



Momma's Worry said:


> our state is spending time, money and effort on a non-eatable fish that roams all over the Gulf coasts inc Mexico ???


On a HIGHLY MIGRATORY game fish - which seldom spawns in Texas waters - money better spent on repairing estuaries, planting mangroves, one cold winter and lots of the sub tropical fish like juvenile gray snapper, juvenile tarpon, black grouper will disappear -

I actually fished the time when it was common to jump 14 tarpon a day in late seventies early eighties from Aransas to Pass Cavallo - BEFORE Mexicans started dynamiting/strike netting pods of tarpon around Tampico for pet food market - there is the REAL culprit.

You want a tarpon overwinter spot? You need a power plant discharge canal, mangroves lining the banks and 30' deep water.

Stocking will not increase numbers of available fish in a marginal habitat - money better spent elsewhere.

I love catching poons but you have to be realistic and pragmatic - numbers of migrating fish are down and will continue to be as long as Texas doesn't flow freshwater to the coast - the forage base will continue to shrink - while upstream the water is used up -


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## chumy

I hope to see tarpon back in abundance in the Brazos during my lifetime. I know the chemcial plants have cleaned their act up but not for sure what gets thrown in their from the vast state of texas in which it winds through.


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## Scott

wahoozy said:


> Cold weather is exactly why we don't have a great Tarpon Fishery, not over fishing.... .


Actually, we do have a great tarpon fishery... just not all year long and that is due to cold weather in the winter. Even if we had warmer winters, without changing the other factors, we wouldn't have significant improvement. The real causes are likely a number of things (1) the past conduct of our buddies to the south and the continued problems with Mexican government and lack of protection there (2) all the dams on our rivers (3) overall water quality and (4) subsidence on the upper Texas coast changing the bio-structure of the upper Texas bay systems. I think it is impossible to blame just one thing.

Again, as far as real money being spent by TPW to "spawn" tarpon... I am not aware of ANY real significant $$s being utilized for this or that ever really was. This is an OLD video.. that was just recently posted. So don't worry, our government is not throwing away or hard earned dollars on a pipe dream....


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## TrueblueTexican

*I've seen it change a lot*

In my lifetime - Tarpon do best in areas with abundant menhaden - we USED to see HUGE schools of 1# plus menhaden off the coast - if it were not for fall rain minnows tarpon would just move on -

Its a shame whats happening to our Texas bays - and not a danged thing we can do about it short of dynamiting a few lower estuary dams - we have made a bed and messed up the sheets so to speak -

I head up SA to the back of the bays-up to POC turning basins and what do I see? Empty mud flats where there used to be millions of fiddlers and brown shrimp jumpin everywhere - its just a symptom of the ill - same for disappearance of menhaden in historically abundant numbers -

The ecosystem adjusts and all finfish drop in abundance -

Never in my life would I have thought mullet would have a size limit --or that Tarpon would not always be rollin in the bay south of Espiritu Santo - they are sill there just few and far between.

Its hard to stock any fish when the forage base continues to drop - I wish Texas would cease supplemental stocking of all finfish until or if the bays ever recover.

Demand is greater than the supply


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