Anyone who spends any amount of time around my wife, especially in football season, will soon learn that she is a rabid University of Texas fan. She gets that honestly because we moved here from Texas and our two sons have each gone to the university in Austin. One later graduated from the University of Maryland, but our youngest graduated last year as a Longhorn.
As for me, I live and let live. I root for Texas, but I like OSU and OU. After all, I live here, and, I might add, I like it here (as does my wife). As both of our sons attest, they root for both Oklahoma teams when they aren’t playing Texas. That’s because they want both schools to have the best record possible so that when Texas beats them the Longhorns get a boost in the BCS rankings.
Anyway, the rivalry between Texas and Oklahoma extends to other areas besides football. Sometimes Oklahoma does things better than Texas and sometimes it’s the other way around. The point I’m taking so long to get to is that when it comes to bass, I think Texas has a great program that I would like to see Oklahoma emulate. Texas has become a great tourist destination for bass fishermen, and I believe this program has a big part in that.
It’s called the Toyota ShareLunker Program (Toyota provided a grant to fund the program.).To participate in it, a fisherman has to give up his legally caught monster bass (13 pounds minimum) alive to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. After notification of a qualifying fish, which has to be caught between October 1 and April 30, a truck is sent to the location within 12 hours and the fish taken back to the Texas Freshwater Fisheries Center in Athens, Tex.
The fish are used in a selective breeding program. ShareLunker offspring are restocked back into the lake were their predecessors were caught and others go into other public waters around the state to increase the size and growth rate of largemouth bass in the state. That’s a nice incentive for true sport fishermen to donate, but there’s more.
Donors of these fish get some tangible extras—a free replica of their fish, an official certificate for their wall, and clothing with the ShareLunker logo. They are also invited for recognition at an annual banquet at in Athens. In addition, if a Texas angler catches the largest entry of the year, that person will receive a lifetime fishing license—not to mention a lifetime of bragging rights.
So far, almost 500 really big largemouth bass have been entered into the program. Many of them can be seen at the Athens center, which has become a tourist attraction of its own.
It’s not always easy to get a fisherman to give up a trophy bass or to keep it alive long enough to be transported. The incentives mentioned above go a long way to soothing the fisherman’s ego and encouraging him to donate his catch.
Keeping some fish alive is a lot more complicated. A website full of hints is available for fishermen. But sometimes even if a fish arrives at the center, stress and other factors can put it in danger. A story by Larry Hodge, an information specialist who writes for the Texas Freshwater Fisheries Center and the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department details some of the efforts the Center will go to in making sure a big bass will live. The story is about ShareLunker No. 472, a fish that had a lot of odds stacked against it, but which ultimately made it into the program.
According to Hodge’s report, The fish seemed calm and other than a little redness around the caudal fin and a little fungus on the tail appeared to be in good condition. However, a couple of days after arriving at TFFC, the fish was showing signs of distress. “It developed an infection on its tail, I think from being handled,” said fisheries technician Shane Carter, one of the main caregivers for fish in the Lunker Bunker at TFFC. “It became septic from an internal bacterial infection.”
At that point the fish was not expected to live, but Carter and his coworkers don’t give up easily. After caring for nearly 500 big bass over the last 24 years, they’ve learned a lot about keeping big bass alive. “We sedated the fish and treated the external infections, then put her back into the tank and began treatment for the internal infection,” Carter said.
That treatment included the use of a special piece of equipment, the center’s Code Blue cart, which was placed beside the lunker tank containing ShareLunker No. 472. Again, as Hodge reports, The tank is then isolated from the incoming water supply from Lake Athens, and an onboard pump recirculates water from the tank through a filter, chiller and ultraviolet light sterilizer that “nukes the bacteria,” according to Carter.
“We stayed on top of her for a week, treating the infections and keeping her calm, using the cart to treat the water,” Carter said. “I think that had a lot to do with her recovery.”
You can read the entire story at: .
http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/newsmedia/releases/
I found it fascinating.
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