Texans should be on the lookout for whooping cranes. The endangered birds have begun their migration from their coastal wintering grounds in and around Aransas National Wildlife Refuge to their nesting grounds in Canada.
Migrating whoopers usually follow a path through north and central Texas that includes cities such as Austin, Waco, Fort Worth and Wichita Falls. They nearly always migrate in small flocks of six to eight birds. At the start of migration, experts believe there are about 280 whooping cranes.
Whooping crane sightings can be reported to email@example.com or call 512-389-8999. Observers are asked to note whether the cranes wear colored leg bands. Additional information is online at tpwd.state.tx.us/whoopingcranes/.
Fly Fisher hooks large trout
A New Zealand fly fisher recently caught a brown trout that weighed 42 pounds, one ounce and was shaped like a football. According to the International Game Fish Association records, the reigning fly rod record brown weighed 35 pounds, two ounces and was caught in Argentina in 1998. The IGFA is particular about rules, however and there may be a glitch with the New Zealand fish, which was caught in a ditch below a salmon farm where it made an easy living eating commercial fish food that drifted downstream. The IGFA All-Tackle Record for brown trout weighed 41 ½ pounds and was caught from Lake Michigan in 2010. The brown trout record that seems most unlikely to fall is the line-class mark for four-pound test. It stands at 40.25 pounds for a brown caught in 1992 from Arkansas’ Little Red River.
U.S. Coast Guard releases reports
The U.S. Coast Guard has released the first in a series of reports produced from its newly designed and implemented National Recreational Boating Survey. The survey found that about 29 percent (34.2 million) of the estimated 116.7 million U.S. households had at least one member who was on a boat, canoe or kayak in 2011. More than a third (about 12 million) of all U.S. boating households were in the South. Overall household participation was highest in the Midwest, at 34.6 percent. The Northeast had the highest percent of households with one or more people who canoed or kayaked in 2011, 14.7 percent. California (three million) and Florida (2.5 million) led the nation in highest number of households participating in boating while Minnesota had the highest overall percentage of boating households (50.7 percent)