Will There Ever Be New State Records?

HAVE WE ENTERED AN ERA without realizing it?

Has the insane level of shing pressure, combined with sheries habitat loss and pollution brought us to a place where there will be no more state records of popular sport sh?

I recently did an episode of my Higher Calling Wildlife podcast (sponsored by Texas Fish & Game) and pondered whether we would ever see a sh eclipse the 13-pound state record ounder caught by Herbert Endico in 1976.

at’s 47 years folks.

e world record ounder weighed 20 pounds, 9 ounces and was caught in Florida 40 years ago this year. e feedback was pretty much unanimous that we have passed the record era of the species.

Texas’s 18.18-pound state record largemouth bass was caught by Barry St. Clair in 1992.

ere’s only one sh in Texas’s Top 10 sh that was caught a er that 1990s and that was Brodey Davis’s 17.06 mutant-sided lunker caught on O.H. Ivie and it sits at number seven.

Bass are in a unique position on this list because they are the only sh here bred speci cally to produce monster sh. Fingerlings from Sharelunkers (13 pounds or larger) are released all around the state, so a state record bass isn’t out of the question. But even with all that hard work toward a mega bass, only one has cracked theTexas Top 10 since the 90s.

Speckled trout are an interesting case in this record discussion as coastal freezes, habitat losses and shing pressure are no doubt having an impact.

It’s important to look back at history for some perspective on this. Carl “Bud” Rowland caught the current o cial state record speckled trout May 23, 2002 in Lower Laguna Madre. It weighed 16 pounds and measured a monstrous 37 inches. is replaced the record trout Jim Wallace caught in 1996 in Ba n Bay that weighed 13 pounds, 11 ounces.

Wallace’s sh beat the 13-9 record held by Mike Blackwood set in 1975. It took 21 years for that record to fall.

One could look at major coastal freeze kills as being a limiting factor in big trout production, and that’s a valid point, but Wallace’s sh came seven years a er the major freeze kill of 1989. at sh was de nitely born before the freeze.

at should give anglers hope of what is possibly still swimming the waters of the Texas coast or what will appear in a few years.

Is it possible for the genetics of a species to grow to epic sizes to be lost?

e Texas record sand trout was 6.5 pounds and caught 51 years ago. e Louisiana state record sand trout was a whopping 11 pounds and was caught in 1973.

eir number 10 sh was caught in 1975 and weighed 7.25 pounds.

e biggest sandie I have ever caught was about 10 years ago and it weighed 2.5 pounds. I was absolutely shocked at catching one so big.

When was the last time you caught one that weighed over a pound? ink about it.

Even our crappie records are pre y old.

While the four-pound black crappie record was taken on Toledo Bend in 2002, the 4.56pound record white crappie was caught on Navarro Mills in 1968.

In terms of our everyday shing, this doesn’t ma er.

Very few of us ever catch a record sh of any kind and it usually never enters our minds. e goal is to enjoy ourselves and maybe catch a few for the frying pan or beat our personal best sh.

is is not about looking back at the “glory day” or any of that nonsense.

But it is worth examining for a conservation perspective. How much pressure

:: by CHESTER MOORE, JR. TF&G Editor-in-Chief

are we pu ing on sh? Does changes in weather pa erns and frequency of cold and hot extremes have an impact on our sh that we are just now starting to notice?

I have no doubt the reason we don’t see those super big sand trout catches any longer is due to the literal billions of sand trout caught in shrimping trawls over the years.

A resource can only take so much and perhaps it responded by the species no longer growing to large sizes. Or maybe as I suggested before, those genetics are gone.

Texas is having incredible bass shing right now, and the crappies are always biting it seems. Trout have struggled on much of the coast due to the freeze of 2021 and concerns linger over another weather event. Flounders are at a serious low, and there are questions about the species future from here to South Carolina. Even Louisiana issued a fall closure this year.

Let that sink in.

I believe we need to look back at record catches of the past every once in a while and question what we’re doing. If 20 years from now, we still haven’t had a new state record speckled trout, then maybe that shows a permanent shi in our shery.

We all as anglers need to realize we are losing habitat every day. If we publish an article on bag limit changes, we get hundreds of responses.

When it comes to habitat, the response is much less passionate. “l need to put more focus on the health of our sheries, habitat and waterways so we can have healthy sheries for generations to come.”

You never know, if we do the right things, maybe someone will sha er one of these records and blow our minds.