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AUSTIN – Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD)’s Inland Fisheries Division stocked nearly 27 million fish comprising 17 different species, sub-species or hybrids in Texas public freshwaters during 2024.
Roughly 7.9 million of these were stocked in rivers, ponds, and lakes associated with 50 state parks.
TPWD actively stocks waterbodies throughout Texas to enhance sportfishing opportunities. Its multifaceted statewide stocking program tailors fish stockings to individual waterbodies, with more than 400 unique waterbodies stocked annually.
Texas boasts more than 1,100 public reservoirs and 191,000 of streams, creeks and rivers, used by 3.1 million freshwater anglers. In 2022, licensed anglers spent an estimated $9.2 billion on food, lodging, transportation and equipment while fishing Texas freshwater and coastal waters, and sportfishing supported an estimated 78,040 Texas jobs.
Sportfishing provides a statewide economic impact of $14 billion in Texas annually. Meanwhile, the local economic value of Texas’ top largemouth bass fisheries, such as lake Fork, Sam Rayburn, Toledo Bend and O.H. Ivie, ranges from $10-$37 million annually. The striped bass fishery at Lake Texoma is valued at $47 million annually, while river fishing in the Hill Country (Central Texas) for species such as Guadalupe bass, white bass, rainbow trout, and Rio Grande cichlid was recently estimated at $74 million over a 16-month period.
The Inland Fisheries Division stocks fish to create new angling opportunities, re-establish fisheries impacted by natural or manmade catastrophic events, supplement fisheries with limited natural reproduction and recruitment, provide catchable-size fish at high-use urban fisheries, enhance the genetic makeup and growth potential of a fish population, or take advantage of improved habitat conditions.
Efforts to sustain Texas sport fisheries can be traced back over 150 years to passage of the state’s first fishing regulations in 1874 and establishment of the Texas Office of the Fish Commissioner in 1879. Texas’ first state fish hatchery was constructed in Dallas in 1913 adjacent to the state fairgrounds, due to its proximity to railroads that enabled transport of fish for stocking in public waters across the state.
Texas’ oldest state fish hatchery currently in operation, Heart of the Hills in Mountain Home, was constructed in 1925 and celebrates its centennial this year. Heart of the Hills continues to raise Guadalupe bass, the official state fish, for stocking in its native creeks and rivers.
The Inland Fisheries Division operates and maintains five additional state fish hatcheries: Dundee located in Electra (built 1927), A.E Wood in San Marcos (1949), Possum Kingdom in Graford (195), Texas Freshwater Fisheries Center in Athens (1996), and John D. Parker in Brookeland (2012).
“The Texas state fish hatchery system has a long and storied history,” said Tim Birdsong, Director of the Inland Fisheries Division at TPWD. “Our state fish hatcheries continue to be absolutely vital to sustaining the world-class sportfishing opportunities available to Texans and our visitors, as well as the related economic benefits afforded to local communities surrounding our public waters.”
Highlights of the state’s fish production and stocking efforts during 2024 included the production of 5.7 million striped bass and hybrid striped bass fingerlings, 6.3 million Lone Star Bass (Pure Florida ShareLunker lineage bass), and 189,117 ShareLunker fingerlings.
Stocking plans are born at the local level by the Division’s local fisheries biologists who monitor status and trends of public sport fisheries using a variety of techniques. The data reveal the number of species present, ages of fish, growth rates, food sources, habitat conditions, and angler use of the fishery. Fisheries biologists also take into consideration river flows, reservoir water level fluctuations, and the amount of aquatic vegetation, and other types of available habitats as they assemble stocking plans.
Fisheries data are analyzed to help inform the number and size of fish that are needed for a particular fishery. Once the stocking requests are submitted by all the local fisheries biologists and collated at a statewide level, the stocking requests are prioritized on a regional basis and ultimately used to inform development of a statewide stocking plan.
Once the statewide stocking plan is finalized, the state fish hatchery assembles and implements fish production plans. Hatchery teams coordinate with local fisheries biologists throughout the production planning and fish delivery phases.
Fish delivery is conducted based on the order of priority established in the statewide stocking plan. The timing varies and is dependent upon the species being stocked and the size of the fish requested. Typically, two-inch fingerlings of species such as striped bass, largemouth bass, smallmouth bass and blue catfish are stocked from April through July. Channel catfish ranging from two to 12 inches, are stocked almost anytime from March through November while rainbow trout are stocked from late November through early March.
The chart below details the species, and the numbers stocked in fiscal year 2024
Species Quantity Stocked
Blue catfish 754,480
Bluegill 544,307
Channel catfish 962,567
Flathead catfish 308
Guadalupe bass 15,250
Largemouth bass (Northern largemouth bass) 547,409
Lone Star Bass (Florida largemouth bass) 6,403,120
Palmetto Bass (striped X white bass hybrid) 1,849,215
Rainbow trout 381,696
Red drum 1,284,558
Redear sunfish 6,218
ShareLunker largemouth bass 189,673
Smallmouth bass 305,819
Striped bass 2,151,649
Sunshine Bass (white bass x striped bass hybrid) 8,102,536
Walleye 3,204,860
White bass 184
Total 26,268,973
Stocking reports are available for each public waterbody on TPWD’s stocking website.
