The Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission adopted changes to this year’s deer hunting regulations.
The most significant change is expansion of white-tailed deer hunting into 14 counties across the western Texas Panhandle.
The commission adopted the following changes to the 2016-17 Statewide Hunting Proclamation, which will be placed into the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department Outdoor Annual:
• Elimination of the antlerless and spike-buck control permit due to a lack of demand.
• Define “unbranched antlered deer” to clear up what constitutes a legal buck across seasons and to eliminate confusion for hunters.

Fishing

The Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission approved a series of regulation changes affecting bass and catfish.
New rules have clarified saltwater length limits on black drum and amberjack, and rules prohibiting snagging a fish with a pole and line.
The changes to the 2016-17 state recreational and commercial fishing regulations take effect on Sept. 1, 2016.

Texas Fest musical lineup unveiled

Texas Fest will take place from May 20-22 at Toyota Stadium in Frisco, and the musical lineup has been announced.
Lee Brice, Kip Moore and Big & Rich with Cowboy Troy will be the headline musical entertainment.

CWD cases found

Two new cases of chronic wasting disease in Texas captive deer, including the first confirmed from a tonsil biopsy sample.
The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department and Texas Animal Health Commission are conducting an epidemiological investigation into the new cases.
One case involves a 3½-year-old captive raised white-tailed doe born and raised on-site, and died on-site from natural causes at a facility in Medina County.
The live test finding is from a 2½-year-old- captive white-tailed buck in the Uvalde-Medina deer breeding facility that was the source of a CWD positive white-tailed buck harvested by a hunter from a release site on the same ranch. Read more from the outdoors notebook in the April 9 Bowie News.

Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. (Logo provided by the TPWD, used with permission)