Spencer finds his trout catch is body-water record for Galveston Bay

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Extra research pays off

Spencer finds his trout catch is body-water record for Galveston Bay

For two consecutive days in the middle of March, angler R.J. "Bob" Spencer stood in the surf at a spot along Bolivar Peninsula, chunking and winding and hoping.

He didn't catch a thing from the sandy water.

But Spencer, a 50-something fisher who lives in north Houston, doggedly stayed at it. The spot he was prospecting has a well-deserved reputation for producing big speckled trout during early spring.

Conditions — wind direction and velocity, water clarity and temperature, tide and other factors — have to come together with just the right alchemy for the big specks to show.

Things weren't right those first couple of days. But early on the third day, prospects began looking up.

"I could see green water holding just offshore," Spencer said.

As the incoming tide that afternoon pulled that green water closer to shore, the water around Spencer and the handful of other anglers began clearing a bit.

Water temperatures climbed as the day wore along, topping 70 degrees about mid-afternoon.

Trout rode that clearing, warming water, and Spencer and the other anglers began picking off a few, here and there. Good fish — some weighing 4 pounds or more.

Spencer made a cast, let the soft-plastic lure fall and began a retrieve only to have the lure hang on an obstruction.

"I thought I was snagged on the bottom," Spencer said. "Then the fish moved."

Spencer wrestled the trout — obviously a big one — until, finally, a fellow angler netted the fish.

The trout was a monster, measuring 31.5 inches with a 17.5-inch girth.

"I was in shock the rest of the day," he said.

Trying to find right scale

Looking for a place to get an official weight of the big trout, Spencer discovered what many Texas anglers have found: It's darned near impossible to locate a state-certified scale on which to weigh a fish.

Eventually, folks at an

H-E-B near his home allowed Spencer to weigh the fish on one of the store's TDA-certified scales.

The trout sagged the scales to 12.11 pounds. Most Texas coastal anglers never land a trout half that heavy.

Spencer knew his speck wasn't a Texas record; serious trout chasers know Texas' top trout is a 15.60-pounder.

But he couldn't help thinking his fish was worthy of recognition.

So he poked around the Internet, landing on the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department's Web site where he burrowed a bit and found the agency's Angler Recognition Program — the fish records pages.

TPWD has been the official verifier/keeper of fish records since the 1960s, when it took over the job from the Texas Outdoor Writers Association.

Most anglers know TPWD maintains state records for the individual heaviest freshwater and saltwater fish. But many — perhaps most — don't know about the many categories TPWD maintains.

"I had no idea they had a 'water-body' category until I found it on their Web site," Spencer said.

TPWD's "water-body" category maintains records for the heaviest fish documented taken from distinct bodies of water — reservoirs, rivers, creeks, bay systems.

It had the credentials

Spencer's 12.11-pound speckled trout qualified for submission as a water-body record for Galveston Bay. An 8.47-pound speck landed in 2000 was among the 44 species listed as water-body records for Galveston Bay.

TPWD has over the past few years expanded the fish-records categories, said Joedy Gray, TPWD inland fisheries staffer who oversees the agency's Angler Recognition Program.

"We've had a water-body record category for several years," Gray said. "But we've been adding categories."

Lots of categories

Currently, TPWD offers a dizzying variety of categories in which impressive fish and the lucky (or skilled) anglers who catch them can be recognized.

Gray and TPWD do their best to process record fish applications quickly.

The agency also updates monthly its online listings of all fish-record categories; In the past, updates were issued twice a year.

After discovering the Angler Recognition Program on TPWD's Web site, Spencer printed, completed and mailed an application for a water-body record for the 12.11-pound trout he caught March 19.

A week later, Gray certified the huge speck as the official water-body record for Galveston Bay.