- 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 and Wildlife... - The paddlefish doesn't start reproducing until they're six to ten years old.

But we're just now starting to be able to test that.

- We're teaching them how to cook their meat, how to process their meat, how to eat that meat, and what the nutritional value stands for.

- I feel like my gift, to make a difference, we've got to conserve.

We've got to preserve.

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

[water flowing] - MIKE MONTAGNE: We'll do one more to make sure.

- NARRATOR: Alongside a bayou is an unusual place for a surgical procedure... - Okay, so I'm going to make an incision.

- NARRATOR: ...unless it is for a pretty unusual patient.

That patient is a kind of fish more than 300 million years old, a paddlefish.

- Go ahead and give him some anesthetic.

- NARRATOR: The surgeon is Mike Montagne with the U.S.

Fish and Wildlife Service.

And this operation is about bringing these fish back to these waters.

- They are one of the most ancient fishes and species that we have on the planet.

They don't look like any other fish, and they are super cool.

- NARRATOR: Paddlefish are living fossils, a fish species older than dinosaurs.

[roar] While they may be the oldest surviving animal species in North America, they need some help surviving mankind.

Historic harvest for meat and caviar has pressured populations, but the greatest threat to paddlefish has been how humans have altered their habitat.

[water gently flows] - Paddlefish were originally in the Big Cypress system.

Once Lake O' the Pines was put in in the late '50s and the dam at Lake O' the Pines really changed the river's natural flow.

Due to the changes in the water flow, loss of flood pulses throughout the year to cue spawning events, loss of suitable spawning habitat, over the years, populations declined.

So we get to that point where paddlefish just don't exist here anymore.

- NARRATOR: Downstream, the loss of seasonal flows impacted not only a threatened fish, but an entire ecosystem.

- LAURA-ASHLEY OVERDYKE: After the dam, flows of water almost ceased and we didn't have those natural variations.

We realized that a main problem for Caddo Lake was the quantity of water.

The Caddo Lake Institute worked together with the Corps of Engineers and with Parks and Wildlife and many other partners over the years to try and recreate what natural flows would look like.

[rushing water] The paddlefish were the perfect poster child to explain and test out our theory that more natural flows would help the forest as well as all these fish and other animals-- help restore the habitat.

- TIM: Got it.

[fish splashing] - MIKE: We've been reintroducing paddlefish since about 2014.

We started off with about 50 fish that we radio tagged and put inside the Big Cypress and Caddo Lake, and we followed those around for about a year while the battery in the tags worked.

[radar beeping] One of the things we really wanted to find out is if the fish would stay in the system of if they would go over the dam at the downstream end of Caddo Lake.

- Well after that year, the paddlefish stayed in the system, so we've moved on over the last few years continuing to stock paddlefish.

We're stocking fish over the next 10 years to try and build the numbers of paddlefish in the Big Cypress-Caddo Lake system.

Now that we're four years down the road and we've seen fish survive and grow to some larger sizes, the next big question is just, "Will they spawn, reproduce and help their own numbers grow?"

- NARRATOR: To answer that question, a crew must recapture some older fish to implant new transmitters.

[boat revs] - MIKE: Today, we're going to be electrofishing right below the spillway of Lake O' the Pines dam because that's where they like to congregate.

- TIM: They are attracted to the flow to go upstream.

They can't go any further, so we can actually find quite a few of them here.

To capture these paddlefish, we're going to use our electrofishing equipment.

The fish get stunned by the electricity and we're able to net them onto the boat.

- JOSH: Come on.

[energetic music] - It's like a grab bag, you really never know what you're going to get, so it's Christmas every time a fish pops up.

- NARRATOR: The fish are not harmed, but not stunned for long, so crews must stay alert.

- They come up from this murky bottom, so you could see nothing for a solid minute and then, all of the sudden, just this wave and rush of fish species come up.

Largemouth.

Bowfin!

- JOSH: Big flathead.

[laughs] - MARGARET: Whoa!

No, nope.

Paddlefish.

We want paddlefish.

Come on fish.

Things go wrong every once in a while, so it's great to have that other person to just reach over - "You're coming back in the boat, buddy!"

- It's slippery on the boat sometimes.

- We have not lost anybody today.

We're going to keep it that way.

[music] - JOSH: [sigh] Give me another shot.

I'll get you, I swear!

- Whoa!

[energetic music] - MARGARET: Yeah!

- JOSH: Whew.

Beautiful fish, beautiful fish.

And I'm glad that we're taking part in the restoration program to bring them back.

It's really cool.

Whew!

- When the crew that's electrofishing catches a fish, they'll bring them up to the surgical unit that we're gonna have set up.

We're going to cut them open, implant a sonic tag inside of their abdomen, and sew them back up.

And then release them back into the river.

The paddlefish doesn't start reproducing until they're six to ten years old.

But we're just now starting to be able to test that.

Let's put him in the recovery bin and we'll release him back out into the river.

Surgery went well.

About as fast as I can do it.

These are just sutures that will eventually just dissolve.

We'll be able to really track what they're hopefully using for spawning areas, and we're going to start looking for eggs, we're going to start looking for little larval fish, so if they're in there, we're going to know for sure.

So I'll trade with you guys.

You got one?

- Yep.

- Let's trade and you can take him farther away and release him.

- TIM: It's been really satisfying to stock small fish that haven't been here for probably years, and find paddlefish that have grown to over three feet in length.

Because the ultimate goal is to get enough paddlefish in the system, with the right environmental conditions, where they're going to be able to spawn and be a self-sustaining population.

- MIKE: Woo!

I am optimistic about the chances for the paddlefish.

The paddlefish is so charismatic that actually more and more people want to get involved with it.

- I mean here's this prehistoric creature that's right in our backyards.

- MARGARET: I love these fish.

These fish are fantastic.

They haven't evolved much from the time of the dinosaurs, and they still exist, and they're just cool.

They're just absolutely fascinating.

- TIM: It's brought a lot of groups together.

- LAURA-ASHLEY: We're grateful that so many different layers, federal, state, and local, have come together to make this possible.

- NARRATOR: Some might ask if one old fish, off-limits to Texas anglers, could be worth all this effort.

But restoring this fish only happens by restoring a more natural ecosystem.

[water gently flowing] - TIM: The work that we're doing for paddlefish doesn't just benefit the paddlefish.

It benefits the river ecology and probably more than 30 different species of fish that live in the river.

[uplifting music] - MIKE: It's still early, but the optimism is there.

They are an excellent indicator of what's going on here, and if we are able to keep a population in here because we've changed the flows to a more natural state, we're taking a huge step how we manage reservoirs and our flows coming out of those reservoirs for our natural resources.

All good.

Exactly what we want to see.

Fade to black!

[laughs] [wind blowing] [wind blowing] [thunder, lightning cracks] [upbeat music] - When I was a little girl, I took the ranches that we inherited from my grandfather and grandmother for granted.

That open space is something that would always be here.

We are blessed because so many children today, they don't wanna continue the ranching legacy.

Yep.

So there's two legacies important here.

Not just ranching, but conservation.

And we just gotta pay it forward and hope it keeps going.

[upbeat music] - Our whole lives, when we weren't in school, we were at the ranch and everything we did out here was a fun activity, whether it was clearing brush.

- Learning how to paddle a canoe.

- Burning brush.

- WILLIAM: Learning how to ride a horse.

- Cutting trails.

- Camping, hunting, fishing.

- What more could a kid want than to go out with a machete, cut a bunch of stuff down, throw it in a pile, make a big bonfire, burn it all, and then next thing you know, you've actually improved the land.

You know, I mean, we were the luckiest kids in the world.

[upbeat music] [energetic music] - Johnny and I are getting ready to do individual plant treatments and we just walk around the hills and kill little cedar trees and we're getting ready to go treat a little area over here.

[upbeat music] - JOHNNY: Kind of the way I've always thought where I fit into this picture, to support Ruthie and to empower her in all her endeavors that help humanity.

- And I'm gonna go over to these.

- JOHNNY: Half the stuff that gets done, you know, she and I do.

- So here's another little guy to wipe out.

Sorry, little tree.

But you know what?

I feel like my gift, since I have all this land to make a difference, we've got to conserve.

We've got to preserve.

- Well, I'm 76 and she's 74 and she's on this, we're gonna die.

Well, hell yeah, we're gonna die.

Everybody does, you know?

[Ruthie laughs] - Well, it's, he gets after me for it because I'm kind of in a semi-state of panic because I'm like, Johnny, we're running out of time.

We've got so much to do.

We've gotta do this, we've gotta do that.

- Because she wants to get so much done before she's not able to do it anymore.

- And I want things to be ready for our kids.

[horn honking] Because, I mean, my focus and Johnny's focus is that they carry on our legacy of ranching and conservation.

[upbeat music] One of our first projects here was to bring back the pronghorn.

[upbeat music] And so they did a big release on us and that was all very exciting.

So Mike was here the other day and he was showing us.

- We worked with them on a wildlife management plan.

And of course that grew into some habitat projects that we did together.

Everything from land snails to golden eagles to pronghorn work.

So this is about the most pronghorn friendly fence I've seen in the Trans-Pecos.

But the key is they put the bottom wire 18 to 20 inches off the ground.

So there's plenty of room there for a pronghorn to pass underneath.

[helicopter whirs] - And then along during all this time, we have been doing spike applications to control the brush.

'Cause out here, we're trying to protect not only pronghorn, but grassland birds and all the other incredible species.

In fact, the species out here are iconic.

[upbeat music] It would be great if we could spot some Audad.

- Ruthie has a unique perspective.

As a multi-generational land steward, she brings a lifetime of her own conservation and naturalist study to the table.

And that perspective is unique and super important to us at BRI.

- She said something to me the other day, how blessed she is.

Starting with that foundation of gratitude to have had all this land in her family.

Her mindset is to take care of the land and make it better for her children.

- I am absolutely, unbelievably proud of her.

I mean, just, she is one incredibly remarkable person, and that's why I just put Ruthie's husband on my name tag.

[Johnny laughs] [upbeat music] - Families grow in different directions, but when we're here on this property, on our land, it always brings us back together with a common goal and a common purpose and joy of just being together on the land.

You can't, you can't replace that with any other joy.

[upbeat music] [grunting] - Man down, man down.

- I tripped.

- NOAH RUDINO: He was massive.

We weren't as fit as we thought we were.

[laughs] [grunting] Like, there were six of us dragging him through the marsh and that was a whole other process, he was heavy.

Four feet felt like a mile through all that brush.

It was incredible.

This whole hunt was just amazing.

I don't use those two words very often.

- One.

Two.

Three.

[grunts] - NOAH: Eating it, I know where it came from.

It's healthy.

My family can enjoy it, so that's pretty cool.

- HUNTER: Man, that was a lot.

[metal scraping] - NOAH: My name is Noah Rudino.

I coach Cross Fit at Max 3.

Alright, once you guys finish that warm up, go ahead and load up your weights and we'll get started.

I make meal plans for the members that are wanting to change their life style around what they look at as dieting, but I coach lifestyle changes.

[chatter] I had not hunted.

Matt approached me at the gym, he's a member at the gym, and he said yah, I thought I'd give it a shot.

- If some of you want to come out there early, we'll show you how to setup the blinds.

My name is Matt Hughes, I'm with Texas Parks and Wildlife Foundation.

And Texas Parks and Wildlife Foundation raises private funds to help support Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.

[upbeat music] The Stewards of the Wild get people involved in the outdoors and conservation, 21 to 45 year olds, people who have lost the opportunity to get outside.

[laughing] [gunshot] Something we wanted to explore more recently is the idea of mentored hunting.

To learn about conservation and wildlife management through conservation.

- He's right behind that bigger tree.

- MATTHEW: And the nutritional component of hunting.

[sizzling] And all of those things put together, but for some hunters, don't really have that opportunity.

[dramatic music] [wind] - Hi, I'm Noah.

- Katelin.

- Katelin, it's nice to meet you.

- Good to meet you.

- Justin.

- Katelin.

- MATTHEW: We're out here at Powderhorn Ranch bringing seven hunters who have never hunted out here to be part of that experience.

Welcome to Powderhorn everybody.

I'm Matt Hughes.

You guys all pretty much know me from Max 3 and mentors, so I'm glad you're all out here.

To learn about conservation and wildlife management through conservation and the nutritional component of hunting.

They get to see those animals eating the grass.

They get to see what those animals eat and they get to learn that this is all part of a bigger picture.

It's a really rewarding system.

[upbeat music] - My name is Justin Gardiner.

I work at a chiropractic clinic and I have a background in exercise science and really wholistic health in general.

My 270 Browning, my dad gave this to me for my 18th birthday.

- Oh, nice.

- Yeah.

- JUSTIN: One of the things that's really exciting for me when Matt told me about being a mentor for Noah was the fact that he's interested in the nutritional part of hunting.

- NOAH: So today we're doing range time.

Yah, we've never hunted, any of us.

It's all new.

[gunshot] [sharp exhale] - JUSTIN: Feel good?

- NOAH: Yah.

- JUSTIN: For me what's exciting is to share some of the knowledge that I've picked up and having wild food being a part of something that he enjoys with his friends and with his family around the dinner table.

[sizzling] - MATT: The idea is that all of our meals are wild game.

You're clearly looking at your shot.

Make sure there is nothing behind you that can be mistaken.

We went through with our mentors as well as our mentees what we expect from a safety perspective.

Hunting safety, gun safety, what kind of shot placement they should be doing, what they should be looking for in their animals.

We want to make sure everyone is safe and following the rules.

This is basically like if you go out stalking, don't shoot in that direction.

[dramatic music] [crickets chirp] [birds sing] [dramatic music] - JUSTIN: So, leading into the hunt... - That's awesome.

- JUSTIN: ...you could feel a kind of tension with a new hunter.

With Noah he was starting, the nerves were starting to build up.

That's a good shooter bull.

We saw a beautiful Sambar bull.

There was really no way for us to get a shot at him, so we decided that we were going to put a stalk on him.

- NOAH: We walked out to get a better shot at him and that's when the excitement set in.

- JUSTIN: [whispering] Take your time.

Wait until you're comfortable.

[gunshot] - MATT: This was a good shooter because he's a big animal.

- NOAH: Walking up on it, I got to see really how big it was, and he was massive.

- One, two, three.

[grunts] - JUSTIN: It took six guys to pull that Sambar to a place to where we could load him in the truck.

The work started there and then it continued on as we broke the animal down.

So the whole thing is that we're going to open this up.

- NOAH: Tearing him down, gees, that was harder than the whole thing, like from the hunt itself, that was a lot of work.

I had no idea.

[paper rustling] - JUSTIN: Being able to take that animal from the field down to usable parts and then to be able to cook that animal, I think that's really important when comes to introducing people to hunting.

[soft music] - They look amazing.

- JUSTIN: We cooked them, and cut them up together, and took the first bites.

Here we go.

Let's do it.

- NOAH: Okay.

I want this piece right here.

- JUSTIN: That was a special moment for me.

[low dramatic music] - NOAH: I ate the first piece and it was like everything, the whole day just flashed as soon as I was taking that first bite.

- JUSTIN: What do you think?

- NOAH: Awesome.

- Like it?

- God.

So good.

- JUSTIN: This is your guy.

- NOAH: What Stewards of the Wild and everybody here has taught me, I have a whole new respect for the entire process and the conservation aspect of it.

It was just amazing.

A great experience.

[wind] [upbeat music] - Hi, I'm Heidi Rao, hunter education specialist with Texas Parks and Wildlife.

Let's talk about safe firearm muzzle control.

We always want to know where the end of our firearm, or the muzzle, is pointed at all times.

This is basic safety.

But it's amazing how easy it is to forget where it's pointed.

If you are hunting alone, you still need to be very aware of where your firearm's muzzle is pointed.

There could be other hunters or even a building near where you're hunting, and you never want your firearm pointed at anything other than your intended target.

Always make sure your firearm is on safety.

You always want to keep your finger outside of the trigger guard until you are ready to shoot.

Always keep your muzzle pointed in a safe direction.

Your safe direction can change with every step you take.

This is important in case of an accidental misfire.

When you're hunting with two or more hunters, you need to be aware of where the other hunters are at all times.

You really must talk and let the others know where you are.

And how you carry your gun is very important.

You always want to carry your gun in a way so there is no possibility for the muzzle to be pointed at any other hunter.

One of the safest ways to carry your firearm is known as the two-handed carry or the ready position.

This carry also provides the most control over your firearm and it gives you a quick setup for a shot.

Firearm safety is your responsibility.

Always know where your muzzle is pointed, keep your safety on, and keep your finger outside of the trigger guard until you are ready to shoot.

By following these basic rules, you can have a safe, fun, enjoyable hunting trip.

[ducks quack, birds squawk] [ducks quack, birds squawk] [ducks quack, birds squawk] [ducks quack, birds squawk] [ducks quack, birds squawk] [ducks quack, birds squawk] [ducks quack, birds squawk] [ducks quack, birds squawk] [ducks quack, birds squawk] [ducks quack, birds squawk] 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.