This year, the Sport Fish Restoration Act turns 75. This milestone marks three-quarters of a century ensuring that sport fish populations and aquatic habitats are healthy, sustainable, and accessible for all. No other funding method has had the same longevity, consistency, and significance for fisheries management in the United States.
The Texas Freshwater Fisheries Center (TFFC) in Athens, Texas, is a hub of aquatic education, fish production, and conservation in the Lone Star State. Since opening in 1996, the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) facility has drawn over 1.1 million visitors, offering an in-depth look at the diverse world of Texas’ freshwater ecosystems and how state agencies manage fisheries resources.
Cutthroat trout are the only trout native to Utah, but not that long ago the state’s iconic cutthroats were in jeopardy of disappearing. Thanks to conservation measures supported in part by Sport Fish Restoration funds, Utah’s four cutthroat subspecies have made a remarkable comeback.
Muskie are commonly thought of as a fish of the North, the Great Lakes states, reservoirs and mid to large streams in the Ohio and upper Mississippi river basins. And North Carolina, well not so much—unless you live and fish there.
September 28 marks the 52nd National Hunting and Fishing Day, an annual event first proclaimed by President Nixon in 1972. Hunting and fishing and target shooting were then, and remain, lifestyle choices enjoyed by millions of Americans from all walks of life on every rung of the economic ladder.
Form follows function for a fusiform shoal bass, and its common and scientific name are most fitting. This little-known member of the black bass family, kin to the familiar largemouth bass and smallmouth bass, is found only in Georgia, Florida, and a small segment of Alabama in the Apalachicola River basin. Scientists know it as Micropterus cataractae and that says it all. It’s a bass most at home in the eddies around frothy falling rocky rapids, or shoals.
National Fishing and Boating Week is a time to remember the sources of conservation funding.
Excise taxes paid by fishing tackle manufacturers and a tax on motorboat fuel yield reliable and steady funding for the state agency fish biologists to research and manage the fishery.
Sport Fish Restoration dollars fund creel surveys, in-person interviews of anglers, that yield information to better manage fisheries.
In this the 50th anniversary year of the Endangered Species Act, it is worth noting that Rio Grande cutthroat a decade ago were considered for listing—and potential restricted angling. Thanks to fishery management endeavors already underway, that didn’t happen. A conservation strategy backed with much data guides work today and into the future.
I’m standing knee deep in the cold crystalline waters of a narrow gravelly stream in the highest headwaters of the White Mountains of southeast Arizona. Apache trout live here.
