HENDERSON, Texas — The weather is turning colder but stocking catfish in Texas lakes and ponds is just heating up. In this edition of Hooked on East Texas, we travel to Henderson to report on a stocking aimed at improving fishing in Rusk County.
They flipped, they flopped, they squirmed and they wiggled. We watched as almost 1,000 fish were poured out of the tanks of Texas Parks and Wildlife fishing stocking truck and headed to their new home. Tim Bister is the Texas Parks and Wildlife Marshall district biologist who supervised the stocking.
“Today we stocked 950 fish, which is the calculated amount for a lake of this size," Bister said.
Channel Catfish have a new environment in the 15-acre lake. These fish are fun to catch thanks to their bite and fight.
“But, we stock them at nine inches because that's about the size that that people can start to catch and keep and take home," Bister said.
It’s a reinforcement stocking. These fish will support the Henderson Lion’s Club “Kids Fish” event. The club started the event last year and it was held on the same day as Free Fishing Day in Texas. The Lions Club Ken Hale is one of the organizers and he held up a cell phone as an example of why the event started.
"To get them away from these things. You know, when you and I were growing up, it was all about being outdoors and playing and kids, honestly, were more healthy then. Now they're sitting inside the house and they're doing this all day long," Hale said.
Although the Kids Fish event is in June now is a good time as any to stock fish.
“As the old expression goes, beggars can't be choosy. We have to take them when they're willing to give them to us," Hale said.
Texas Parks and Wildlife isn’t worried about how the upcoming winter will impact the catfish, in fact, they’re convinced the fish will only get bigger. Bister said that the transition for fish from hatchery to pond is pretty easy.
"We see good survival from hatchery raise fish into ponds like this. Catfish are really a no-brainer, something they'll get in there it will grow and assess it will also help feed the bass population that they've got in here," Hale said.
The stocking at the Lake Forest Park pond in Henderson is also a good reminder that community fishing lake regulations changed in September.
“We've gone to a regulation where it's a five fish daily bag limit, regardless of what species are there. So you can keep five fish except only one fish can be a largemouth bass over 14 inches," Bister said.
The goal of the new regulations is to spread the fish around to give as many anglers as possible a positive fishing experience. And TPWD has bigger plans for the Kid Fish event at Lake Forest Park in Henderson.
"Next year, I'm going to try and request some special event fish that will be 12-inch channel catfish to support a Lions Club fishing event that they just started last year, and they hope it to be an annual event," Bister said.
The next big stocking planned in Texas will be trout. That typically starts in early December. We will let you know when and where those stockings happen.