- NARRATOR: On a spring afternoon, Kody Corrin
and Calvin Lamont are out to do some fishing.
- CALVIN: What color do you need?
- KODY: Watermelon red.
- CALVIN: I may switch up here in a second.
- NARRATOR: Serious anglers, like Calvin and Kody,
work every angle to hook a nice fish.
- KODY: I got one.
- CALVIN: He ain't very big.
- No, came off.
- NARRATOR: Otherwise they might not hear the end of it.
- CALVIN: Didn't even get him in the boat, huh?
- KODY: We fish together quite a bit.
- CALVIN: Come on to daddy.
Oh, you little flipper!
That's part of fishing with Kody...
- KODY: Oh man, it's a monster!
- CALVIN: Pretty normal for us to rib each other.
Little dude.
- KODY: That's huge!
[laughs]
- NARRATOR: But these veterans know the key to a respectable
fishing trip is finding the right location.
- CALVIN: I think we need to go hit them ones.
See what they've got to offer.
- KODY: That group that's on that point over there.
- We'll go to this one for now.
- NARRATOR: And they happen to know of some promising
new spots to fish because of a project they helped with
more than a year earlier.
[heroic energetic music]
♪ ♪
[bubbles]
[hammer tapping]
[drill whirs]
To the uninitiated, that project might not have looked like
anything that would improve fishing.
- CALVIN: It's got enough tentacles hanging out.
- KODY: Somebody that doesn't really know would think that
we're just piecing recycled garbage together
and we're really not.
- LYNN: So it's going to be 24 arms for each base.
- We need three more.
We're not dumping garbage in the lake, we're actually
providing good habitat for these fish.
- TIM BISTER: We are at Lake Cypress Springs to construct
some artificial fish habitat structures.
[drill whirs]
There is not a lot of structure for fish like largemouth bass
or sunfish to relate to underneath the water.
And fish need habitat structure in general.
Even in reservoirs that left timber standing, over time that
timber in the water breaks down and the habitat for fish
declines, so we're at a point where we really need to start
doing something with these reservoirs to improve
fish habitat.
[boat engine revs]
That looks good.
We have done work with Christmas trees in the past,
but the PVC that we're using in these structures that we
are building today is going to last for many, many years.
[bubbles]
I think these attractors will start working pretty much
right away as soon as the algae can start growing on them,
they are going to start attracting fish
and really make the angling experience that much better.
Today materials have been purchased with money
from the conservation license plate program.
We're partnering with the Franklin County Water District
here, we have got a couple of members with a new
Bass Unlimited chapter here to volunteer and help make fishing
better in Lake Cypress Springs.
- We love fishing tournaments, but we both understand
that without conservation of the lakes,
we are not going to be able to do that.
So, it is on our part to make sure we help take care of that,
take care of the resource that provides our recreation.
- NARRATOR: Of course, artificial structures
are just one way to help fish.
- Check out this little buddy right here.
This is flat stem spike rush, water star grass, wild celery,
white water lily, square stem spike rush...
- NARRATOR: Native aquatic plants provide natural habitat.
- The more different species we have in that plant community,
the more stable that plant community is.
- NARRATOR: The man behind the old-timey mustache is Rick Ott.
- RICK: People tell me I look like Wild Bill Hickok,
and if it makes people smile, I'm all for it.
Weeding my garden.
- NARRATOR: Rick manages a native aquatic plant nursery
at the Texas Freshwater Fisheries Center in Athens.
- It's not just the structure, it's also the actual
food that's being produced here.
Structural habitat is very important because the fish
use it as a place to hide, but the vegetation is producing food
that invertebrates consume, small fish consume the
invertebrates, bigger fish eat the smaller fish,
and we eat the bigger fish.
That same basis to the food chain is occurring on those
plastic structures as we have with the plants.
We're just growing a little teeny tiny garden on the surface
of that plastic.
Here we've just got a bigger garden with a bigger type plant.
- NARRATOR: But getting that big garden started
is the tough part.
- RICK: Let's go look at those pond weed cages.
- NARRATOR: On the water, Rick and his crew check on
past efforts.
- RICK: We're at Purtis Creek State Park.
We're coming back to evaluate some of the native
aquatic plant plantings that we've done years ago.
We would prefer that it was full of plants.
- NARRATOR: They find some failure and some success.
- I'm liking this a little bit better.
- NARRATOR: While cages can protect the plants from
being eaten, they cannot protect against drought
or high, muddy water.
- We just don't have optimal conditions for
plant growth right now, with the water being so turbid,
there's not as much sunlight getting to the bottom.
- NARRATOR: The crew can only hope conditions will improve
and re-plant.
- RICK: It's kind of comfortable in the summer.
- TYREK: You got it there?
- RICK: My mom used to tell me not to get all wet and muddy
but now I can.
Synchronized swimming, uh definitely.
We had our Ester Williams, Ken, going underwater
and putting those plants in a little deeper water
than we typically plant.
Ken is our deep water guy.
A lot of times all we can see of Ken is the bottoms of his feet,
but we know he's working if we can see the bottoms of his feet.
[playful music]
If we get a little bit of luck involving the kind of weather
conditions that we have this summer, we should see
good survival of the plants we put in today.
- NARRATOR: Nearby Lake Athens demonstrates what these
desirable plants can look like when well-established.
- We've got a very diverse native plant community here.
We've got extensive coverage of a number of species,
so ultimately, this is what we're trying to produce.
We're getting more and more Friends of Reservoirs groups
all over the state, allowing us to fund these projects
in a number of different places.
[reel whirs]
- It's the key to having a great fishery, you know?
- NARRATOR: After their workday is done, the crew's intern,
Tyrek Landry...
- There's one on there.
- NARRATOR: ...shows what native plants can do for fishing.
- That's a good fish, guys.
You see what it produces.
Beautiful fish.
I'll go ahead and turn this guy back.
[splash]
That made my day.
- NARRATOR: Whether with native plants or strange-looking
artificial structures, improving fish habitat
makes for better days of fishing.
- CALVIN: Here we go, there they are, see them?
- NARRATOR: Back on Lake Cypress Springs, Kody and Calvin
find some fish at home, near habitats they helped install.
- Got him.
Everybody likes a home to stay in.
If you've got extra places that you can fish that
you know is holding fish, that's always advantageous
when you're fishing.
- KODY: If you start catching fish, that's always a bonus.
There's a good fish.
- CALVIN: Glad you finally caught one.
- KODY: Some inside information improves the odds in the
fisherman's favor.
- NARRATOR: And these secret spots are really no secret.
- KODY: Most anglers probably don't know they can go on the
Texas Parks and Wildlife website and get those grid coordinates
for the habitats that we placed.
- CALVIN: You can do the same thing with a cell phone,
absolutely.
You can punch those grids in and it will take you right to it
as long as you've got cell phone service.
Get the net, get the net.
Oh, we ain't got one!
[laughs] Look out.
There's enough habitats in here that the fish are going to be
on one of them.
- KODY: No it is a crappie.
It's a white perch.
Hey!
- CALVIN: So these habitats are holding crappie.
Caught some crappie and caught quite a few largemouth today.
- KODY: Great day on the water.
- CALVIN: It was a good time.
- NARRATOR: This project was funded in part by a grant from
the Sport Fish Restoration program.