Last week, officials with the coastal fisheries division of the Texas Parks & Wildlife Department (TPWD) stocked more than 300,000 tiny speckled trout into the marsh along the Keith Lake fish pass.

    That jumps our total trout stocking to well over a million this year and when you factor in the redfish they are about to stock, it is easy to see Southeast Texas is reaping the benefits of a very successful coastal hatchery and stocking program.

    Sea Center Texas, located in Lake Jackson, is quite possibly the Gulf Coast’s foremost marine hatchery facility, servicing the Upper Coast region which includes the Galveston Bay complex and Sabine Lake.

    I have had the great pleasure of visiting Sea Center on a number of occasions and on my last visit, I got to check out the broodstock tanks for Sabine Lake.

    Due to genetic differences in speckled trout and flounder populations, TPWD does not want to “cross pollinate” populations in different bay systems.

    That is why it is important for the successful trout program and the fledgling and hopeful flounder research being conducted to have fish from Sabine Lake. If we were to have a major freeze related fish kill, it would be a big help to have some broodstock to help kickstart a recovery for the fishery.

    We also have some allies along the Middle Coast region.

   In fact, some of the greatest strides in hatchery production on the Texas coast are coming from a 3000-square-foot building located a stone’s throw from the ferry landing in Aransas Pass. That is where the University of Texas Marine Science Institute’s (UTMSI) “Coastal Conservation Association (CCA) Texas Laboratory for Marine Larviculture” resides.

    A new addition to the UTMSI repertoire, the lab is already the epicenter of groundbreaking research on some of the most sought-after game fish in the world.

    “This facility and its amazing staff may very well make it possible to create captive breeding and stocking programs for red snapper, snook, ling, tripletail, yellowtail snapper and other crucial species. This is the future of marine fisheries conservation enhancement,” said Pat Murray, Vice President and Director of Conservation for the Coastal Conservation Association (CCA).

    “We at CCA are proud that our membership and volunteers could provide the $700,000 for funding and look forward to seeing where they can take marine larviculture in the near future.”

    A major focus of the facility is spawning snook and rearing the young to a stockable size. Last year, it received snook fry from fisheries officials in Florida who could spawn the fish, but had trouble growing the young.

    Enter Dr. Joan Holt, UTMSI Associate Director, who was able with the aid of her staff to use diet and photo period manipulation to get the young snook through crucial stages in their development. Now, the 720 Florida fish are headed back to enhance their native state’s fishery.

    “We’re working on spawning Texas snook caught in the Brownsville Ship Channel and around the Aransas Jetties. For genetic reasons, we need to work with Texas snook stock for any kind of stocking that might occur,” Holt said.

    An already successful project of UTMSI is going to new levels at the new facility: ling (cobia) spawning.