I see TPWD reduced the daily bag limit on specs to five everywhere south of FM 457 in Sargent. Will that cause anyone to not make a trip to the coast? Will you still hire a guide? Will you consider making your trip north of Sargent where the bag limit is still 10 trout?

Being a lifetime Matagorda county resident and seeing the shape the bays are in now compared to 20 years ago, I applaud TPWD on the trout changes.

If the fish surveys justify it, then so be it.

After seeing the positive results in the LLM on 5 trout a day, I'm all for it.

Limits on specks are 10 and going down to 5???? Seriously???

In Louisiana our limits are 25 and have been as long as I can remember, the waters are infested with trout too.

It's infested with 13 inch fish. If you go to the lower laguna and see the AVERAGE size trout, which is now about three pounds, compared to the runts it's well worth the effort to keep a few swimming.

We have 1/3 the habitat they have in the Louisiana marsh, and three times the fishing pressure. It's not a fair comparison.

After finally making a trip to Venice during March it didn't take long to figure this out.

Interesting... I've caught some nice ones at grand isle the last 2 times I went.

I didn't quite get that out....
*WE* are infested with smaller fish, trout hits 15" now and he's snatched up like a tipsy prom queen.

Is the law in place now?

I'd fish even if it was catch and release. We have to let the agencies manage that, it's the only sensible way to go about it. Glad they have an input method.

The argument against is just dumb as dirt. "We want enough fish to eat" is the typical response. "We want enough fish to justify the outing" Holy cow, what does a pound of trout cost out of that $30,000 boat, $120 in gas ice and beer, plus what you spent to get there? $600 an ounce? Maybe?

I'm all for making croakers a game fish now, that would make a big impact on trout populations, but that would make people actually learn something. That ain't happening.

Ok, rant off.

Per TPWD the reduced limits were not because of reduced counts but were advocated by the guide associations. There is a 5year point at which time they will revisit the restrictions. The 5 limit goes int effect September 1st. They asked for public comment and received a 60% in favor of switching to the lower limit.

My 2 cents:
I fish LLM and I do like the larger trout size on the fish I catch down there. I do believe the guides are in favor for an easier work day and better conservation. Who this really helps is the recreational angler as trout do seem to be more abundant in LLM. If Texas wanted to truly conserve Trout it would limit or ban all trout over 25" much like they do with Black Drum (28"). They would also reduce the minimum size to 14" or even 13" as male trout rarely exceed 20". It is a shame to kill the 30" trout to mount when you can photo graph measure and get a fiberglass reproduction made.

Black drum: 5 fish from 14 to 30 inches.

I have never kept more than 5 trout anyway. So for me it's not a problem. Most of my day is catch and release anyway. I haven't had the chance to fish that way yet but hopefully this summer it will change. Croaker as a game fish hmm. I spent my childhood catching croaker matter of fact that's all I used to catch. The term bullcroaker took me by surprise until I saw one.