- ANNOUNCER: The Texas Parks and Wildlife Television Series is supported in part by Texas Parks and Wildlife Foundation -- conserving the wild things and wild places of Texas, thanks to members across the state.

Additional funding is provided by Toyota.

Your local Toyota dealers are proud to support outdoor recreation and conservation in Texas.

Toyota -- Let's Go Places.

- NARRATOR: Coming up on Texas Parks & Wildlife... - We're really honored to be the present caretakers during this era of the magazine.

This is Texas, and it's big and wonderful and so diverse, we will never run out of stories.

- This is where I come fish, catch catfish -- where I bring my grand babies.

They love it out here.

- It's just a clean family place to be.

[theme music] ♪ ♪ - NARRATOR: Texas Parks and Wildlife, a television series for all outdoors.

[upbeat music] - It doesn't really matter how many people you have when you have really dedicated, really talented people.

Is it one of these or- - NARRATOR: Each month, these people share stories.

[laughing] - Our challenge always is trying to tell the story of conservation in interesting ways.

- How are we going to tell this story in a way that resonates?

- LOUIE: If you wanna change it.

- NARRATOR: This small staff of writers, photographers, designers, and editors collects content from a very large state and presents it in a magazine.

- Everything is a collaboration.

We each bring our own little taste to the table.

- LOUIE: Do you have something better?

- Everyone gets to come in and offer suggestions.

That's nicer than saying argue.

- SONJA: Just looked weird to me.

- That kind of creative tension helps us create a better magazine.

- SONJA: Yeah, we're running out of time.

- LOUIE: The most important thing about magazine planning is the term long range.

A year and a half in advance is completely mapped out.

- NARRATOR: There are pressures.

- Time constraints, there's a deadline.

- Deadlines, we try to push them sometimes.

- NARRATOR: But page by page, these folks produce the premier outdoor magazine of Texas, continuing it tradition that spans 80 years.

[upbeat music] [page flips] - LOUIE: The magazine started in December of 1942.

[brass band music] - Seemed kind of an odd time to think about producing a new magazine, especially one devoted to hunting and fishing and conservation.

- NEWSREEL NARRATOR: The country has asked the people to invest a billion dollars in one month to help pay for the war.

- What were they thinking in the middle of a world war to start a magazine?

[plane engine roaring] [ducks quack] - JOHN: Then it was called Texas Game and Fish.

I pored over every issue.

- The agency the magazine was under at that time was the Texas Game, Fish and Oyster Commission.

- The state parks board was a separate entity back then.

- They had been doing a monthly newsletter that they distributed free of charge.

- And I guess at this point they needed to decide, is that something we should continue to do?

There were shortages of paper, men were going off to war so there was a shortage of labor.

There was a shortage of writers, and photographers, and everything that's needed to put out a magazine was in short supply.

- So they made the decision to create a bigger publication, charge a subscription fee, and that produced the money for printing, so that was the practical reason for doing it.

[gun shots firing] [bomb explodes] - LOUIE: But their view was that in all of the chaos and tumult and fear of a war, that you needed to remember what home was.

And part of that connection is the woods, it's the stream, it's the river, it's going hunting with your grandpa, it's going fishing with your dad.

All of those things are what make America great.

In the very first issue, there's a beautiful editorial.

- MARY-LOVE: He expressed hopes that people returning from the war would return to a more pleasant place and that the invigorating influence of the out of doors would cleanse their spirit and tempered their character.

And I've always loved the phrase, the invigorating spirit of the out of doors.

And I think that's the thread that has gone through this magazine, all of the time.

[dramatic music] [page flips] - LOUIE: When you look back through decades, you see a lot of pop culture.

- Some of the headlines, the recipes are funny and interesting.

[playful music] - In the 50s and 60s, you see some kind of bizarre home-ec type things like shrimp trees and some particular recipes for things like nutria.

[playful music] Perhaps their palettes were different back then.

Definitely game recipes are still very popular, but these days that's a little more fine eating and a little less, uh, opossum stew.

[page flips] The magazine started out as a little more of a, what they would call a hook and bullet magazine than we are now.

- MARY-LOVE: There were a lot of stories about how fishing was not just a sport.

You know, fishing could put food on the table and you didn't have to have ration stamps.

- They liked having that fresh supply of relatively inexpensive fresh meat.

And people, they call it being a locavore these days, it has sort of a fancy name, but it's really sort of the same thing -- knowing where your meat comes from and perhaps obtaining your own food.

[page flips] - MIKE: My granddad's name was L. A. Wilke.

He was an old Texas newspaper man.

He started with the department in 1957 and then within a few months was appointed the editor of the magazine.

I got to travel a lot with my granddad when he would cover stories for the magazine, I guess you'd call him a writing editor.

He took his own pictures.

He would also use me as an unpaid model.

[laughs] This was taken on Lake Whitney.

These bathing beauties here are holding a string of fish.

He recognized, I guess, you know one way to get Texas men to read the magazine.

As I look through those old magazines, I mean, even today, it makes me want to go hunting and fishing or get out into the outdoors, but I have wonderful memories.

- Back then it was hunting and fishing and maybe a little camping, but now it's just so much broader.

- FILM NARRATOR: Preferred park settings are those which induce complete relaxation and rest.

Settings in which nature can work her magic of mental and physical healing.

- MARY-LOVE: In 1963, Governor John Connally merged the State Parks Department and The Game and Fish Commission and he called it The Parks and Wildlife Department.

- I don't remember when it became color, but it was probably with the merger.

- MARY-LOVE: 1965, they started using a few color photos inside that increased as time went on and sorta like Dorothy opening the door to the Land Of Oz.

It was a whole different world.

- From then on, it became a beautiful showpiece and people all over America were buying it.

- NATHAN: We had this great illustrative history, and then we had this great photographic history.

- By the late 80s when you mentioned Texas Parks and Wildlife to someone, they go, "Oh, they have the most beautiful photography."

[upbeat music] [page flips] - My name is Chase Fountain.

- I'm Earl Nottingham, a photographer for Texas Parks and Wildlife Magazine.

The longest ever kept a day job.

- There's just two of us to cover 250,000 square miles.

Luckily for the magazine, they do have freelance photographers that contribute, but Earl and I, we do have our hands full.

- EARL: More often than not, I'm on the road because of the sheer geographic distances.

- CHASE: A million miles on his vehicle, I don't know how he does it.

- EARL: I base it more on how many sets of tires I go through.

That's how I measure time and distance.

[keys clanking] In addition to traveling long distances, we've got to be at a location when the light is right.

That's the big secret of photography.

[soft music] A lot of people will look at a photograph and think that you just went out and took a picture.

In essence, what we are doing is telling a story.

Now we have to make it not only three-dimensional, but draw the person in and tell a story with that one image.

- That's our job is to capture that moment and bring it back to life, so when the reader opens up the magazine, they can get a feel for what it was really like.

[soft music] - EARL: Our readers have a very keen eye for art.

[soft music] I can honestly say that, I think photography is the soul for the magazine.

- CHASE: The words are just to fill space for pictures [chuckles].

Don't tell them that, but, you know, it's the pictures.

- I think when people open the magazine, the first thing they notice is this photography.

And that's what draws them into our words, thank goodness.

[keyboard keys clicking] - My name is Russell Roe and I'm the managing editor for Texas Parks and Wildlife Magazine.

Most of my job involves editing, kinda handling some of the production work, doing fact checking, but I do get to get out and write stories every once in a while.

The story I'm working on now is the story about best campsites in state parks and I do have a deadline coming up.

I've got get out and visit all these state parks, but that's not necessarily a bad problem to have.

[upbeat music] We are heading up to Inks Lake State Park.

I think part of the trick to writing is kind of opening your senses and just being able to describe the sites of a place, the sounds of a place.

[upbeat music] - That 92 is a pretty good shot.

- RUSSELL: Looks like it has a little bit of privacy too.

Let's go look at some campsites.

[door shuts] I wanna get all the information I can before I go out into the field.

One of our missions is to inspire people to get outdoors.

For your anniversary?

- We stay on this little peninsula.

- RANGER: Hard to find a flaw with this one.

For sure.

- RUSSELL: We want people to look at a beautiful picture, read this description of this incredible campsite that makes them want to go outside and enjoy our state parks.

Well, appreciate y'all taking the time to talk to us.

[camera shuttering] - The view is not too awfully bad.

- We do want people to look at the magazine and learn about Texas, but also be inspired to visit parts of Texas.

And as more people live in our big cities it's gonna be just ever more important that they know about these places that they can go to and experience the great outdoors in Texas.

I think we found some winners.

[page flips] - A couple of months before the magazine might hit your mailbox or you might buy it on the newsstand, we start assembling it.

- It's interesting how all those pieces kinda come together to make a really wonderful magazine.

- Every magazine has a certain design aesthetic, but that aesthetic is influenced by every designer that works on it.

Almost like if Mozart writes a piece of music, each person is gonna have a slightly different interpretation, [record scratch] except magazines aren't like classical music, they're more like jazz.

How are we going to present this story?

Where's it going to sit on the page?

- The readers may notice what the magazine today is starting to shift in design.

- We have to be able to do layouts that work in both print and digital.

- With the advent of the internet, smart phones, and tablets, the way we consume information has shifted.

When the print version is done, then becomes, how are we going to tell this same story in the app?

A really impressive double page photo in a magazine will take your breath away, but on a phone, it's that big.

- So, we found ways to incorporate new media into traditional stories.

Now, when we talk about birdsong, we can make a little digital jukebox of bird songs.

We can do an article about a snail and leave a little slime trail behind.

- We need to get younger.

- If we wanna stick around, that younger audience really needs to be established in the magazine.

- I joke that there's a continuum between hip and hip replacement.

And I recognize that I am closer to this side than this side, and yet, we can still be hip.

[jazz music] - I've been guided for many years by something that Walt Disney said, "It's better to entertain people and hope to hell they learn something than to try to educate them and bore them to death."

And through its beautiful photography and some excellent writers, the magazine has been able to do that.

I salute them for that.

- MIKE: It's writing about what's happening today with a goal, I think, of making what we write about tomorrow even better.

- LOUIE: Those same things that they held dear years ago are exactly the same things that we hold dear today.

- JOHN: When I saw what all was in the magazine, it made me want to get out and do as much as I could in the outdoors.

- I would get the copy as soon as it came in the mailbox and jump into it.

- I got my first subscription to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Magazine from my grandmother.

I was seven or eight years old and I've read it ever since.

It helped introduce me to parts of our state that I never knew existed and no doubt, it had a very positive and profound impact on me and likely an influence on where I've gone with my career.

[machine whirring] - NATHAN: The whole point of our magazine is to be experienced, to be taken from the pages of the magazine and then experienced out in the great outdoors.

[machine whirring] When I first interviewed, I joked that I am the world's biggest fan of the great indoors, and I have the minty green complexion to prove that.

[thud] However, since starting work here, I'm outdoors a lot more.

Introducing my kids to the outdoors.

We've taken up fishing.

We've taken up hiking.

It's inspired me to get away from my desk.

- All right, guys November is here.

- About a week after we send off the magazine to the printer, we usually get the box in the mail.

Some of the first issues.

It is rewarding to finally have it in one piece and look through it page by page and just enjoy the experience.

Just don't find any mistakes.

[Louie laughing] - LOUIE: Favorite spread.

- Every issue when we get done, we think is the best way done, till we start the next one.

- It's just that perfect, when we see the final result, we kinda cheer and high five each other, and off we go to do it all again.

- Next Monday, the whole thing starts all over again.

[page flips] - Some people might say it's just a magazine, but it's really an emblem of something deeper.

- I honestly think that our role as a magazine is more important today than it was 30, 40, 50 years ago.

- Today, the value of being outdoors is probably even more important than it was in my granddad's time.

[gentle music] - I believe the magazine will be alive and well for many generations to come.

[upbeat music] - It's part of our efforts to connect with all Texans, to take the great outdoors to where the people are, to introduce them to the places and stories and the beauty and biological and cultural richness of our home state.

And the magazine will always play an important role of that.

[upbeat music] - In 20 years, we'll be celebrating our 100th anniversary and I hope to be around for it.

- LOUIE: We're really honored to be the present caretakers during this era of the magazine.

- EARL: I really can't wait to see what comes next.

[upbeat music] ♪ ♪ - NARRATOR: Just 50 miles east of Dallas, Lake Tawakoni State Park offers more than great sunsets.

It's an escape from the hustle and bustle of city life.

[bird chirps] - It sounds kind of hokey, but, but really it's just a clean family place to be.

- And this is where I come and fish, catch catfish.

I usually just hop on the trail over there and walk down to the point.

It's where I bring my grand babies.

They love it out here.

- NARRATOR: There's five miles of shoreline for fishing, bait in the general store, a cleaning station if you're lucky enough to need it and a four lane boat ramp that makes it easy to get out on the water.

- PAUL RICH: During the summertime, we'll come out here and try to catch stripers or hybrids, and sand bass.

So we'll get done fishing and park the boat right here and walk right up the trail 50 yards, right straight to our campsite.

- NARRATOR: Some folks pitch a tent.

Others can plug in their RV at the 50 amp hookups and settle in for the evening.

[gentle music] Five miles of hiking and biking trails wind through trees and open out to the shore.

[gentle music] And interpretive-led hikes are a great way to learn more about the outdoors and get a closer look at nature.

- Look in there, see if you see any insects?

What is that?

- CHILD: Leaf bug!

- DONNA: Fabulous place to bird watch all year round.

We've got shorebirds, forest birds and a lot of prairie birds too.

It's fun to watch them.

One of our best raptors is the osprey.

There's all kinds of wildlife here.

- Just getting to see some of those animals and nature, it's something that they're going to cherish their whole life and hopefully they'll learn how to be stewards of the land, and be able to help preserve this area out here.

- NARRATOR: Thanks to some dedicated volunteers, there will one day be a prairie to explore at this park.

- DAWN: We're trying to restore the prairie and we have a lot of Boy Scouts that come out here and help us.

- NARRATOR: Over the years, invasive plants have crowded out the native grasses.

- We're clearing out some of the trees that have infested this prairie land so that they can get some nice prairie grass maybe even restore some of the more rare plants in this area.

[upbeat music] - DONNA: Good family place.

The comments we get are, "This is a beautiful park.

We'll be back."

[upbeat music] - Hello, my name is Greg Akins with Texas Parks and Wildlife Aquatic Education.

Today I'm going to talk to you about the different types of gear you need when you go freshwater fishing.

Of course, this is the freshwater fishing pole, it's a closed-face reel.

It's real easy and simple to use.

It's a push button.

I have the baitcast and I have the open-face reel.

When we're freshwater fishing, the types of gear you're gonna need: you're gonna need swivels, you're gonna need hooks, you're gonna need bobbers, you're gonna need weights, and maybe some split shots based on the type of water you're gonna be fishing in.

What we wanna do with these split shots is we wanna put 'em on the line, and we wanna crimp them with our fingers, and then you can put more than one on, and you can actually adjust it.

These alloy split shots are really good, and they're safer in the water than the actual lead types.

The bobber's real simple.

Basically, you're pushing down on the button to put it in on the bottom, and then you grab the bottom of it, and then you push down on the top of it.

And then once you push down on the top of it, you release it and you can slide the bobber up or down.

Something that we really encourage is barbless hooks.

These barbless hooks are really great, and as long as you keep pressure on that line, you don't have to worry about that fish getting off the line as long as that line is tight.

- ANGLER: Beautiful bass.

- As far as safety is concerned, this hook is easy to remove from a fish as well as from a human being.

Lures.

I recommend the jig.

The jig is great for small species, especially your brim.

- ANGLER: There he goes.

- GREG: You wanna master one lure at a time until you actually learn how to utilize that lure to its best capacity.

- ANGLER: Got him.

- GREG: Besides the jigs, we have the crankbaits, we have the beetle bugs, we have the grasshoppers, we have the fish, and then, of course, we have the soft plastics.

This is a crawfish, so you want it to actually mimic that style of a fish.

If you wanted to use a soft plastic, such as a small minnow, you wanna put a jighead in there such as this, where it looks like a actual minnow.

And there you go, you have a minnow.

That's the goal is to mimic the lure that you're tryin' to use to make it look and appeal to the fish.

- ANGLER: Ooh, got him.

[lively music] - Here's your cool freshwater fishing kit.

Now get out and enjoy yourself fishing in Texas.

[wind blowing] [wind blowing] [wind blowing] [birds and crickets chirp] [birds and crickets chirp] [wind blowing] [wind blowing] [birds and crickets chirp] [birds and crickets chirp] [birds and crickets chirp] [wind blowing] [birds and crickets chirp] This series is supported in part by Texas Parks and Wildlife Foundation -- conserving the wild things and wild places of Texas, thanks to members across the state.

Additional funding is provided by Toyota.

Your local Toyota dealers are proud to support outdoor recreation and conservation in Texas.

Toyota -- Let's Go Places.