AUSTIN – The annual Texas tradition of Free Fishing Day arrives at public waterways throughout the state on Saturday, June 6. Texans and out-of-state visitors can cast their lines without a fishing license on a public waterway each year on the first Saturday in June.

“Free Fishing Day is an annual event that encourages Texans to get outdoors, enjoy nature, and go fishing with family and friends,” said Tim Birdsong, Director of Inland Fisheries at Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD). “Our hope is that experienced anglers will use this opportunity to take others fishing and share their knowledge, skills, equipment and love of the sport to recruit new anglers.”

Anglers help sustain sport fishing opportunities through their purchase of a fishing license, which is one of the primary sources of funding available to TPWD for fisheries resource conservation. Management efforts such as fisheries monitoring, fish stockings, fish habitat improvements and angler access improvements are driven by the purchase of fishing licenses, and these efforts help keep Texas one of the best places in the country to go fishing. For more information on licensing, visit the TPWD license page.

For anglers to make the most of Free Fishing Day, TPWD offers multiple resources to provide fun, high-quality fishing opportunities to folks of all skill levels and ages.

1. Fishing 101 – Learn the basics of fishing with tips and a variety of videos. Find resources for how to get started, safety, supplies and gear, casting and baiting, cleaning and storing fish on the TPWD Learn to Fish webpage.
2. Visit the Texas Freshwater Fisheries Center (TFFC) – Grab your family for a day of free fishing from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. The Texas Freshwater Fisheries Center is offering free admission for everyone, and visitors will have a chance to catch a tagged catfish and win a prize of their choice during “Fish Tag Friendzy”. The event will also feature hourly drawings for summer pass packages and visitors can watch the dive show at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m., followed by hatchery tram tours immediately after each show. Visitors may bring their own fishing tackle or borrow gear from the TFFC.
3. Find a Place to Fish Close to Home – Texas offers numerous lakes and rivers with access to fishing throughout the state. The Lake Finder page on the TPWD website can help anglers find lakes by region or alphabetically. Information and fishing tips on more than 150 lakes are available. Check out the River Fishing page to find out where to get access to Texas’ flowing waters.
4. Saltwater Fishing from a Pier – There are numerous wheelchair-accessible fishing piers available for public use up and down the coast. Piers are a great place for the entire family to try saltwater fishing without the need for a boat. Public access sites can be found in every bay system.
5. Go Fishing in the City – TPWD’s Neighborhood Fishin’ lakes provide urban angling access for the entire family across the state. All 18 Neighborhood Fishin’ lakes provide a great opportunity to catch channel catfish, including five lakes in Dallas-Fort Worth, four in the Houston area, two each in the Austin and San Antonio areas, and one each in Amarillo, College Station, San Angelo, Waco and Wichita Falls. Information on lake locations and how-to fishing videos can be found on the Neighborhood Fishin’ website.
6. Community Fishing Lakes – Check out all the community fishing lakes in Texas which can be great options for Free Fishing Day and year-round.
7. Go Kayak Fishing on a Texas Paddling Trail– With more than 3,700 named streams, 15 major rivers and some 3,300 miles of tidal shoreline along the Gulf Coast, Texas offers unlimited possibilities for paddling adventures and angling opportunities of all types. Enjoy improved and maintained fishing and paddling access to rivers, creeks, lakes, ponds, bayous and bays on any of the 83 official Texas Paddling Trails available throughout the state. Kayak fishing opportunities also abound through TPWD’s River Access and Conservation Areas (RACA) program.
8. Fish in a State Park– Gudalupe River State Park, Lake Arrowhead, and Lyndon B. Johnson State Park and Historic Site are offering a variety of Free Fishing Day events. Check out the state parks event calendar for more information. Although June 6 is designated as Free Fishing Day in Texas, fishing is complementary year-round at every Texas State Park.
9. Fishing’s Future National Take a Friend Fishing Month – Fishing’s Future is conducting a National Take a Friend Fishing Month event throughout June. For more information visit the official event website.
10. Buy a License – If you enjoy the benefits of fishing, please consider purchasing a fishing license to support natural resource conservation. The Year-from-Purchase All-Water Fishing Package for Texas residents is a great value, allowing anglers to fish in fresh and salt water. It’s valid from the date of purchase through the end of the purchase month of the next license year. (Example: License purchased on March 13, 2025, expires March 31, 2026.)

Learn more about Free Fishing Day at TakeMeFishing.org.

If you plan on fishing in federal waters, keep in mind that a license is needed for the private recreational angler red snapper season that opened May 22.

There’s something very special about river fishing. I grew up a few miles from the Red River in Red River County and have fond memories of bank fishing along the river. I remember my dad telling me there was a dam many miles upstream that impounded a huge body of water situated along the Texas/Oklahoma border called Lake Texoma. I was well into my twenties before I discovered Texoma and sampled the great striper fishing there.

Back forty or so years ago, I was invited to fish the Red River below the dam by guide J.C. McCullough from his airboat. I remember the trip vividly. We were freelining live shad just behind the dam. The drill was pretty simple, J.C. would ease the airboat into the current up to the ‘off limits’ buoys, we would toss out big gizzard shad and the current would drift us downriver. The bite was always instantaneous, stripers from down river had traveled as far as they could go and they were present in huge numbers and they were hungry. Stripers and catfish, mostly blues, were there feeding on the zillions of shad that came through the flood gates. Through the years, I enjoyed many trips on this stretch of river with J.C. and never failed to catch fish, lots of them.

Just last week, I was once again Invited to fish this stretch of river with J.C. and once he fired the airboat up and started to the first ‘catfish hole’ downstream, in my minds eye, I was once again a budding young outdoors writer experiencing a very exciting way of catching fish and collecting fodder for my articles. Things had changed very little along this stretch of river. On this trip we were targeting blue catfish, fishing some of the deeper holes that J.C. knows about.

As we headed to our first spot to fish, J.C. pointed toward the bank and asked if I remembered the story of how he began fishing the river as a boy. My good friend Jeff Rice was with us fishing and filming a segment of our TV show “A Sportsmans Life” and I wanted Jeff to hear the story, it was very interesting. J.C. is definitely a self-made man. He did not live a privileged life as a youngster. As a matter of fact as a teenager, he lived in a shack up on the banks of the river he built from scrap lumber, tarps and whatever else he could find to create four walls and a roof.

As we motored to the fishing hole, he talked about his early years. “I have always been good at fishing, hunting and trapping, it was God’s gift to me. In those days there were very few wild hogs or deer but the woods were full of squirrel, rabbits and quail were plentiful. In the winter, there were lots of ducks. Catching fish in the river was easy and I basically lived on

them. I would keep a couple of trotlines set and never remember going hungry. I do remember eating fish for breakfast, but he kidded, I still do that from time to time. I had an old wood burning stove in the little shack and when the weather was cold or rainy I cooked inside, otherwise I cooked on a grill over a little cookfire outside the shack. “

J.C. lived off the land much of his teenage years and earned a living as a commercial fisherman. When in his twenties, he began guiding fishing trips for stripers and catfish on the lake and in the river and now a very active seventy year old, he is still a very active guide. He has definitely mastered his craft! About a half mile down river, J.C. eased the throttle back on the airboat and tossed out a couple of anchors to keep the boat in position. We were fishing a deeper hole in the river that proved to be full of catfish, mostly blues. The river is low now and fish are concentrated in the deeper stretches of water, kind of like catching fish in a barrel with the barrel comprising several acres! The technique was simple, we used medium action spinning rod and reels to toss out fresh cut shad. We were fishing without weights thus the line was slack which as first took some getting used to. There was no need to try to fish on a tight line, when the blue catfish hit, they hit hard and slack was quicky taken out and the fight was on.

The action was fast paced on blues up to about ten pounds. We were all hoping to catch a big ‘picture fish’ and J.C. expected it to happen, most recent trips have produced a few trophy class fish. We had motored downriver to fish another hotspot. I was sitting on the right side of the boat and J.C. instructed me to cast toward the middle of the river. He and Jeff were fishing the deeper water on the other side of the boat. I was joking with J.C. about putting me in unproductive water. I had the rod butt set in a rod holder and was focusing more on joking with my buddies than fishing. And the out of the corner of my eye I noticed the rod tip bowed toward the water heavily. It was tough to winch it loose; an obviously big fish was putting lots of pressure on the line. Fighting a big catfish is a game of tug of war. The trick is to keep pressure on the fish and let the rod and reel’s drag do the work, let the fish tire itself out before trying to net him. After about five minute of a serious isometrics workout, the big blue came boatside and slid into J.C’s oversize net. I’ve caught a lot of nice blues on rod and reel out of the red but this one, about 40 pounds, was my biggest. Jeff was able to capture the action on film and you can watch it now on YouTube or Carbon TV, just search “A Sportsmans Life”.

It was great reconnecting with my long-time friend J.C. Our talk always goes to hunting, we’ve enjoyed some fun and productive deer and waterfowl hunts together through the years. J.C. told us all about a deer hunting operation he is doing in the fall on government land above Lake Texoma. He sets stands in remote, basically wilderness land along the river and during hunting season, transports hunters to these spots with his airboat. He

can’t ‘guide’ on these public lands but as he says, “I do all the hard part scouting, setting up stands and transporting hunters into and out of the remote spots. I run cameras throughout the summer and fall to determine the best spots.” He showed me some photos on his phone of some bruiser bucks taken the past few seasons. After loading a ‘bunch’ of catfish fillets in the cooler, we made plans for more fishing this summer and a wilderness deer hunt this fall. It was great to spend time with my old buddy again. Give him a call to talk about his outdoor adventures. His number is 580-372-0320.

Listen to Luke’s weekly podcast “Catfish Radio with Luke Clayton and Friends” just about everywhere podcasts are found. Email Luke through his website at www.catfishradio.org.

Kally Jump will be taking over as head volleyball coach at Bowe High School.

Jump comes to town after a three-year stint as head coach at Class 4A Alvarado. She will be entering her 7^th year of coaching this Fall. She replaces Ashley Sanders, who guide the team to a 6-6 finish in District 7-3A and a bi-district loss to Peaster.

After graduating from Tarleton State in 2020, she went to Itasca before going to Alvarado. With a number of family and friends in the area, Jump and her family decided to make the trip North.

Jump, who taught geometry and Algebra 2 at Alvarado, is the daughter of educators, She decided she wanted to be an educator when she was in elementary school.

For further details, pick up a copy of Thursday’s Bowie News.