New Fishing Regulations Affect Some West Texas Reservoirs

There are new fishing regulations that may effect your next trip to the lake. Effective September 1st, some reservoirs will have different fish-harvest regulations. At Lake Kirby, where the 12-inch minimum length and 25-fish daily bag limit for blue and channel catfish was changed to a NO minimum length limit and a daily bag limit of 50 blue or channel catfish in any combination. No more than 5 blue or channel catfish over 20 inches can be kept. The new catfish regulation will give anglers more harvest opportunities and will also provide more protection of larger catfish to increase, or at least maintain numbers of larger catfish for anglers to enjoy.
Lake Alan Henry, near Post, will also have a new regulation for black basses. Gone is the 18-inch minimum length limit on spotted bass and smallmouth bass. The new minimum length limit for smallmouth bass is 14 inches, and the daily bag limit is five fish. For spotted bass and largemouth bass there will be NO minimum length limit and a daily bag limit of five largemouth or spotted bass in any combination; however, only two bass less than 18 inches long may be retained per day.
One other new regulation is that handfishing is now legal for blue, channel and flathead catfish. All current length and bag limits apply.
All hunting and fishing regulations are available in the 2011-2012 Texas Parks and Wildlife Outdoor Annual, which can be accessed at http://www.txoutdoorannual.com/.