TPWD News Release

INGRAM, Texas — Ongoing efforts by the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department to restore the State Fish of Texas to its status as reigning native fish of Texas Hill Country waters took a major step with the recent stocking of tens of thousands of Guadalupe bass fingerlings.

Close to 100,000 fingerlings of the feisty sport fish (Micropterus treculii) obtained from TPWD’s Heart of the Hills Fisheries Science Center in Ingram and the U. S. Fish & Wildlife Service hatchery in Uvalde were released into the upper reaches of the Guadalupe River in western Kerr County last week. The stocking effort to save the Texas State Fish is part of a five-year Guadalupe Bass Restoration Initiative being undertaken by TPWD and the Upper Guadalupe River Authority, with support from the Hill Country Fly Fishers and other partners.

“A healthy population of Guadalupe bass not only provides a recreational resource for anglers, but also emphasizes the quality of the rivers and streams in which it lives,” said Gary Garrett, Ph.D., who heads up the project at the Heart of the Hills Fisheries Science Center. “This project will assure the Guadalupe bass’s survival in the Guadalupe, and raise awareness of the unique value of this valuable natural resource.”

Designated by Texas lawmakers in 1989 as the State Fish of Texas, the Guadalupe bass is native to the streams of the Guadalupe, San Antonio, Colorado and Brazos river systems.

For the past 15 years, the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department has been reintroducing the Guadalupe bass to Hill Country streams feeding into the Guadalupe River in an effort to overcome non-native smallmouth bass populations with which the state fish has hybridized. Genetic contamination is one of the factors that have led to the decline of Guadalupe bass.

Research efforts to restore the Guadalupe bass in Johnson Creek have reduced the number of hybrids from 30 percent to 3 percent, according to Garrett. Last year, TPWD expanded the research program throughout the Guadalupe River headwaters, adding 58,000 fingerlings.

The recent stocking at Schumacher’s Crossing on the Guadalupe River near Hunt is part of a five-year initiative with the goal of stocking 225,000 pure-strain Guadalupe bass fingerlings each year. The Upper Guadalupe River Authority is seeking to secure funds to support the effort to stock the native sport fish.

For more information about the Guadalupe bass restoration project, contact Gary Garrett at Heart of the Hills Fisheries Science Center in Ingram at (830) 866-3356, ext. 212.

On the Net:

http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/fishboat/fish/management/research/inland

I wonder where they are now after the floodwaters?

The Gulf of Mexico

inside a Redfish.

then the redfish is inside a barracuda

The the barracuda is inside a hammerhead shark

i love fishing that part of the guadalupe. i have caught some nice g-bass in kerrville. why dont they stock g-bass in north texas?

My guess would be that they are concentrating their efforts on getting the fish reestablished in its native waters. Stocking elsewhere would dilute the effort. That's my guess anyway.

I would suspect, that at least in part, that the Guadalupe-Bass (Micropterus treculii) is not that well adapted to the sort of environs that exist in more easterly portions of the state.

TFP

Sweet! I need to catch one of those some day, just to add it to my lifetime species list.

You need to go float the guadalupe for 6hrs whilst drinkin', then drive over to a different area and fish.

Awesome News

thanks for sharing !

I use to catch alot of guadalupe bass in New Braunfels. Now, I think that the water turkeys have to be regulated as well. I see more and more of those darn things and less fish.

I grew up on the Guadalupe, fished it every day in the summer. Oh to be a kid again.

Only the rivers they are native to.

http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/publications/pwdpubs/bkbass_diagrams.phtml

TPWD shows Guadalupe and Spotted bass as being the same fish? Is this correct? I catch spotted bass all the time in the Trinity and the Gravel pits close to it.

Guadalupe bass (Micropterus treculii) and spotted bass (Micropterus punctulatus) are two different species. The Guadalupe bass has more of a vertical baring pattern on their lateral, almost similar to a smallmouth bass (Micropterus dolomieu). Whereas spotted bass may look very similar to a largemouth bass (Micropterus salmoides), except with lateral rows of black spots ventrally (often difficult to see depending on water turbidity) and a tooth patch.

Spotted bass are found from East Texas all the way over to the Guadalupe River; where they are sympatric with Guadalupe bass.

Guadalupe bass range includes portions of the Brazos, Colorado, Guadalupe and San Antonio river basins; they have been introduced to the Nueces River Basin.

The TPWD listing of these two being the same species likely represents the result of hybridization that occurs between Guadalupe and spotted bass as well as Guadalupe and smallmouth bass in some portions of the state.

Guaudalupe bass can be caught on the trinity in North Texas. I have floated down the trinity just south of Lake Lewisville and we have caught at least 20 of these critters. Strange looking fish, looks like a cross between a largemouth and sandbass. Good fighters.

Two seperate.

Spotted and Guads are really hard to tell apart to me.. and the hybrids of the bass just confuse the issue even more...

Chalk Bluff & Wes Cooksey Park on the Nueces River is a very good place to catch Spotted & Guadalupe bass. http://www.chalkbluff.com

Joe B.

Telling them apart really isnn't that tough. the area where the spots are on a Guad is usually the same color as the rest of the fish. On a spotted, the area is much lighter in color, most of the time white.

Lkak Travis got a lot of gbass too