There is an article in the Houston Chronicle detailing discussions about changing the length and bag limits in Texas. Maybe someone more savvy can post the link.

They need to raise the limit if anything .... Up until the late 80's they had a 14" minimum length on catfish in Lake Palestine ....... BAD MISTAKE ... now it is 50 per man with no size limit, and a big fish is rarely caught ... but you can sure catch a little one while crappie fishing, bream fishing, and bass fishing, and if you go fishing for catfish on lake Palestine and don't catch one ... GO PLAY GOLF NEXT TIME, you are not a fisherman!!!

Catfishing from my boat has been excellent. So i must believe that the current regulations has something to do with that. If i am crappie or perch fishing it does not offend me to catch a catfish. Now when i fished bass exclusively i had a few days without catching a fish. I had much rather catch a fish than not(it could just be me?) great to hear about good fishing at Palestine i might go try them out some day. I mainly fish fork because i keep my RV parked there and the fishing is good. Must admit getting buzzed by 600 bass boats a day does get old sometimes.

My advise comes from experience!
If the fishing is good stay with it! With those 600 boats a day it won't be very long!

I agree with you Jim!

They want to standardize with a blanket regulation for all the lakes?
Way to go rethinking something that isn't broken!
What happens when those 0-19" fish are solely targeted, and then where is the recruitment of younger fish growing to the 20" length?
Way to go throwing off the balance of age groups on the lakes.

I don’t like regulations either fellas and I break a ton of laws. It’s also human nature to resist change. I don’t agree with everything TPWD does but attempting to keep things in balance to protect the future of Trophy Catfishing is huge step in the right direction. Will it work? Who knows but I’m glad they are at least studying it and trying to protect the big fish that do many of us love to catch. These regulations won’t have much effect on channel cat fisherman as channels are mostly small in Texas. Catfishing is a rapidly growing sport and with so many new anglers chasing these fish now I think it’s a great idea to try and educate guys on the importance of conservation. I want my son to be able to experience the thrill of chasing these majestic monsters and experience the excitement of landing Trophy sized fish. It only takes a few years to get a fish up to eating size so those fish are easily replenished when you pull them out of the lake. When you remove the big fish it takes 20 yrs to replace those fish and it’s the big fish that produce largest numbers of offspring. There are always going to be guys who are going to keep big fish no matter what but hopefully enough guys will get on board with trying to protect the Trophy fish so that our kids can hang some monsters one day.

Tip of the iceburg, and regulations are to force the few violators into compliance because they can't police themselves.
What's next?....Bluegill, crappie, carp?...Can't say gar, been there done that! Yep! need more regs!
People already have a hard time understanding that game law booklet, and myself included!

The vast majority of cat fisherman already solely target the 0-19” fish. That’s what you catch on punch bait and chicken livers. Guys fishing for trophy sized cats are less common.

True, but that just means more pressure on those targeted channel cats, and I usually catch just as many blue cats on punch bait and chicken livers. Those blues don't know they aren't supposed to like punch bait.
So what is next? Regulating those eating size blue catfish and cutting limits down to insure that those smaller blue cats that don't discriminate will have a chance to reach 20" which I would not doubt that being the next regulation to come down.
Regulations are like that virus going around!

If you leave the trophy size fish in the lake to breed then there will be plenty of dinks for y’all to haul out. Remove 1 big fish and you remove the 10s of thousands of offspring it’s producing each year.

what will we do when all the fish are gone...

I think we have enough regulations ,keep statewide 12" minimum 25 limit. Everything now is geared to trophy just like deer hunting. Most sportsman self regulate their limits and most table fare fisherman aren't targeting a limit of 20 pound plus fish if they catch a few and keep them so be it. Most trophy fishermen are taken a photo and releasing. . If you want to regulate catfish do away with commercial license, think the shear volume on a daily basis would have more impact than rod & reel fisherman.

It doesn't make a fiddlers damn what you say or who you contact, the powers that be will implement any new regulations they so desire.
Commercial fishermen have the same bag limit as everyone else and can only fish designated lakes.