Texas game wardens caught and cited two poaching suspects over the holidays who were illegally spearing black bass from a popular lake in downtown Austin. The bust took place on Dec. 30, after officials with the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department received a tip via the Operation Game Thief hotline about suspicious fishing activity on Lady Bird Lake, which runs right through the city.
When game wardens arrived on the scene, they found one suspect snorkeling in the lake and skewering bass with a pneumatic speargun. A second suspect was positioned on shore with a cooler and a bag. Upon inspecting the cooler, game wardens discovered 18 unlawfully taken black bass that collectively weighed 76.05 pounds. Several of the bass were trophy-sized, with nine of them measuring over 20 inches.
“Harvests of this magnitude can be very detrimental to bass populations in a localized area like this,” Texas Game Wardens said in a Facebook post. One picture included in the post shows a speared largemouth bass that weighed just under 7 pounds.
Lady Bird Lake has a 5-fish daily bag limit for any combination of black bass species, including largemouth, smallmouth, Alabama, Guadalupe, and spotted bass. The urban lake also has a size limit for largemouths. Anglers there are prohibited from keeping any largemouth bass between 14 and 21 inches in length.
Anglers in Texas are also prohibited from using spears or spear guns to take any black bass species from any waterbody within the state. Spearfishing is legal in Texas, but only for non-game fish. TPWD considers “any fish not listed as a sport fish or as a threatened or endangered species,” as a non-game fish. This list includes gar, bowfin, carp, and suckers.
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The two poachers received multiple citations for using illegal fishing methods and for unlawful possession of black bass. Game wardens confiscated the fish, spearguns, and other fishing gear, and the bass were donated for consumption.
Lady Bird Lake is a 416-acre reservoir on Texas’ Colorado River. Originally dubbed Town Lake, the impoundment was created in 1960 as a cooling pond for the Holly Street Power Plant. It was renamed after former First Lady Lady Bird Johnson in recognition of her work to beautify the reservoir’s shoreline and develop a public park around it so residents could hike, bike, fish, and enjoy nature in the heart of the city.
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