KLTV 7 News Tyler, Longview, Jacksonville |Improved fishing spot at ETX lake

Improved fishing spot at ETX lake

QUITMAN, TX (KLTV) - East Texas lakes are still running low, but now, some organizations are using the drought to their advantage. 

"As you can see, the lake is in dire need; it is the lowest it has been since it was first impounded," says Micheal Rogge, President of Lake Fork Sportsman's Association.

Vegetation is scarce - something the Sportsman's Association thought they could fix with one thousand seedling plants.

"We had a lot of wildlife intervention and they just happened to like seedlings; we lost a lot of those plants," says Rogge.

The Sportsman's Association is now partnering up with Texas Parks and Wildlife Department's Inland Fisheries Division to try something new.

"The plant that we are planting today is called buttonbush, and it's a species that's adaptive to changing water levels. It can live in a semi-terrestrial environment or an aquatic environment," says Craig Bonds with the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.

They are planting 400 of these mature plants.

"Once the water levels come back up and inundate these plants that we are planting today, they will create good fish habitats and ultimately make fishing better," says Bonds.

He says Lake Fork is an economically valuable fishery for not only the counties surrounding the lake, but for Texas as well.

When state agencies are experiencing tight budgets, it's partnerships like this one that make things happen.

"Fork Sportsman's Association has provided that private partnership, which allows us to leverage our resources and do something together far greater than what we could accomplish alone," says Bonds.  

They say this is just one step that will help create and maintain good long-term fishing.

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