- NARRATOR: 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.

Coming up on Texas Parks & Wildlife... - The white bass run is very exciting because the numbers of fish you can catch.

Sweet!

- We need to balance our natural resources.

So we can be here.

It's really about keeping the land home for people.

- Nowhere else around that you can go and get a view like this.

- Great vantage point.

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

[birds chirping] - RAY: Are we going to do the biggest fish and the most fish?

- EVELYN: Yes!

- RAY: It's going to be a nice day.

- EVELYN: It is.

- NARRATOR: On a cool spring morning in mid-March, Ray Arquette and his daughters, Evelyn and Elizabeth, are going fishing.

- RAY: We're on Yegua Creek, which is a feeder creek for Lake Somerville.

- NARRATOR: This time of year, Yegua Creek is a popular spot for a particular fish.

- We're out here looking for white bass during the white bass run.

Uh-oh, I got first fish, the first white bass of the day!

It's a keeper.

It's about an average white bass.

They have to be 10 inches to keep, 16 inches is a trophy.

We always do first fish, biggest fish and most fish.

So I just got first fish.

The white bass run is very exciting because the numbers of fish you can catch.

Number two for me.

- ELIZABETH: Got one.

- RAY: Yeah, Elizabeth.

- EVELYN: Go sis.

- Got a nice one.

Now I got to get the hook out.

- RAY: You got one on?

- Yeah, I caught a fish.

- RAY: That's nice.

Nicely done.

- Bigger than yours.

[Ray laughs] A beautiful fish.

Look at the sun shine off that thing!

Sweet!

[laughs] [upbeat music] - NARRATOR: White bass, also known as sand bass, are fun to catch in rivers and lakes year-round.

But from January through May, large numbers of white bats make their way upstream to spawn.

This annual event is known as the white bass run.

And it's a fishing tradition for many Texans.

- We in Texas have some really top notch, world class white bass fishing.

I got a couple of bumps in that little pocket.

Three main factors impact the white bass run.

As the days get longer and longer, the white bass start perking up a little bit and they start moving towards these tributary streams.

They like water temperatures around 50 degrees for them to really commit to coming up into the river and then a little bit of rain, a little bit of extra flow really helps too.

There's a nice fish.

Nice white bass.

Cool to see them in such good health.

This one's a really nice chunky fish.

A single, large female can lay up to a million eggs.

We're gonna release this fish.

It's gonna go on to make a lot more white bass.

[birds chirps] - I like fishing because I enjoy it.

It's like a sport to me.

It's fun to see how many I can catch each time that I go.

You want to keep your point of your rod low down, so that when you jerk your jig it goes straight.

Also, keep your line taunt.

If the line's not taunt, you can't feel the fish bite.

There you go.

- RAY: Yeah!

Nice fish!

- Got a nice size white bass.

- Fishing for white bass is really active.

Sometimes we'll fish for long enough that your arms get really tired.

Got a fish!

- RAY: Fish on!

- Not a very big one.

- Nicely done, though.

- Didn't even realize I had a bite at first.

I thought I had a snag.

- Evelyn just caught her third fish in this hole.

Elizabeth has one out of here, and I haven't got one yet out of this hole.

One of the main things I learned from my dad in fishing is to adapt to the situation.

Sometimes you get to one hole and you might not catch a fish at all, but then you move down to another one and you'll catch five or eight back to back.

That bend look good girls, right down there?

- Yes, it does.

- Let's go try that.

- EVELYN: I love hanging out with my family, catching fish.

It's also just fun to be out in nature.

- ELIZABETH: Hearing the birds sing and the water run, it's just very serene.

[sandhill crane calls] - EVELYN: Those are sandhill cranes.

Yeah, they sound awesome.

[sandhill crane calls] - I've been taking my daughters fishing since before they could fish.

I would carry them in a car seat, and I'd bring them out to a fishing spot where they could catch bluegill.

We would go fishing and get them catching fish.

- EVELYN: I've been fishing as long as I can remember.

- ELIZABETH: I am very happy that I have a dad that always takes me out.

Part of the reason he always takes us out is because he enjoys seeing us have fun.

- One of the most enjoyable things about fishing for me with my daughters is watching them catch fish.

- Got a white bass.

- RAY: When they light up and you see that smile.

That's the success.

- Got one.

- Woohoo, nice job!

I'm really looking forward to all the future times I get to come back here and do this with my girls.

[gentle music] - There's always a lot of things happening in the veterinary world.

This cat today, they want to get it fixed, and that's what we're gonna do.

My name is Chris Grotegut.

I am a veterinarian in Hereford, Texas.

Hope you feel better, though.

[cat purring] Yeah, we'll send him home this evening.

That will work.

- Okay.

- We're a small shop southwest of Amarillo, Texas.

We're the self-proclaimed cattle feeding capital of the world.

I don't know if that's true or not.

We love the wide open spaces.

We run a family farm and ranching operation.

Tierra de Esperanza means land of hope.

Our deal was hope to make a living.

[laughing] [gentle music] - When people think of this area, they think vast expanses of dry land, but the other thing this place is known for are the playa wetlands.

Tens of millions of waterfowl and other birds that migrate across the United States are 100% reliant on these playas.

They are rain-fed wetlands that supply the majority recharge to the Ogallala Aquifer, which in turn is the majority of our agricultural water.

- CHRIS: Across the Great Plains, we're extracting more than we're putting back in.

- RACHEL: The majority of wells in the panhandle are declining.

That data is publicly available.

- The water level's 113.85 feet.

- The general trend in the region is down, down, down, down.

Without water you don't have a community.

You don't have a civilization.

It's that, It's that simple.

We're probably okay on our protein intake.

So we got really interested in playa lakes.

We really got interested in grasslands.

We look at those.

We found out that there's a really good opportunity here to become grass farmers and to increase our biological diversity and still have water available for our family, our livestock, and some of our crops.

In 2010, we started on putting these center pivots that we irrigate with in grass, and we liked it enough we just kept doing it.

Removed a lot of our pivots off of our lands.

We reduced the amount of acres that we're actually irrigating.

We continued to add grass over the years, and at this time, we're about 75% in grass, and we try to have cover on all the ground at all times.

- Dr. Grotegut, he's got a really good system.

You can actually produce off the land.

It's not about getting rid of agricultural production or leaving or not taking any water at all, but it's about finding that balance.

Dr. Grotegut's land has really started to respond to the work he's already done.

- Windy day here on the plains, isn't it?

- It's always a windy day on the plains.

- Getting these dry cycles in the playa basin coming in.

Look at these cracks.

Can you imagine how much water will flow through that whenever it starts raining again.

If the playa lake has gone through a good dry cycle...

It improves our chances to catching some recharge water.

...it can really absorb that water that goes in the cracks.

Look at those roots going all the way down.

You can take in a lot of water in a very short period of time heading toward the water table.

We're basically higher than we were 10 years ago on our Ogallala level, which is a big deal considering the region on average probably declines a foot a year.

So it's really about keeping the land home for people.

- RACHEL: While he's kind of a lone voice right now, is not the only voice.

People wanna do what's best for the land and what's best for their families.

And so we hope that that momentum continues.

- By, by.

Whoa.

Yeah, you're good.

[gentle music] - I have two sons.

They're 14 years old.

Joseph, cut it out.

- I know.

[Chris laughing] - We need to balance our natural resources so we can be here.

The next generation's gonna need a drink also.

We're very, very lucky to get to be here.

[gentle music] - NARRATOR: Born to support a world war... redesigned as a world class cruise liner... and then a maritime training vessel... the Texas Clipper is now at her "Final Port of Call."

[bell ringing] [applause] The bell ceremony signals the last change of watch for the Texas Clipper, as Texas Parks & Wildlife Department takes final command of her.

Saved from being cut into scrap metal, it is soon to become an artificial reef, providing needed marine habitat, and quality fishing and scuba diving for the people of Texas.

But, before there was a Texas Clipper, she was known as, the Queens.

[somber music] [gunfire, cannon blasts] 1944.

The war is now going the way of the allies.

There is a huge need to transport troops and weapons to the South Pacific for the fight against Japan.

Answering that need is the Queens.

She was destined to be a Texas ship from the beginning.

Her hull was laid on March 2, 1944, the anniversary of Texas Independence Day.

[cheering and applause] The Queens carried 47 officers and 512 enlisted men on its maiden voyage.

Joe Edwards was one of them.

- I was 17 years old and joined the Navy.

I was just country, country boy.

And after I took the boot training and all the hmm, when I went aboard her, it just seemed like a second home to me.

We traveled so much, different places.

That's what really made it interesting.

- NARRATOR: She left Norfolk, Virginia, and went straight to Pearl Harbor, picking up troops and supplies and transporting them to all corners of the Pacific.

One of the first places the Queens delivered troops was the island of Iwo Jima, site of one of the bloodiest battles of the Pacific War.

Joe's duty was to pilot a personnel transport.

- There were so many people killed there that, that they just couldn't take care of everything.

And, when we was unloading you'd have to watch that, not to hit a body or something that was floatin', that was still floatin' around the edge of it.

We had three doctors aboard our ship and we took on a lot of the wounded people.

And, they brought them out and the doctors helped with the hospital ship there.

It took them a long time to get that island straight.

[blasts and gunfire] - NARRATOR: The Queens was commissioned near the war's end, so one of its most memorable duties was bringing thousands of troops home.

When she was decommissioned, she quickly moved into her next life as the Excambion.

[playful music] In 1947, the Queens was redesigned to carry both cargo and passengers by Henry Dreyfus, the man who designed the radium-dial alarm clock, the Hoover upright and the rotary-dial telephone.

This was to be a luxury ship with a country-club style.

[playful music] Renamed the Excambion, it was one of the Four Aces, the first fully air-conditioned ships in the world.

She embarked from New Jersey and traveled the Mediterranean on a six-week round-trip voyage.

Fares started at $850.

- It was considered, back in the 1950s as one of the top of the line luxury ships.

It had some of the most elaborate state rooms that existed at the time.

One of the cargo holds that we know of now was used as an actual swimming pool.

And some of the best service was found on that ship.

- NARRATOR: Life was good and very comfortable aboard the Excambion, until the birth of the trans-Atlantic airplane.

Now everyone wanted to fly and the Excambion found herself out of business, but ready to move on to her next life, as the Texas Clipper.

[inspirational music] The Texas Maritime Academy was now in command, making her an ocean-going campus to train cadets for the American merchant marine.

Texas A&M University at Galveston took over the training program and painted her maroon and white-- the only one like it in the world.

One of the instructors onboard was Dr. Stephen Curley.

- For a dozen years, I sailed onboard the ship as an English teacher.

And for 10 weeks each summer we went out.

And I suspect when you add up 10 weeks and multiply it by 12 years, you have an awfully long time I was onboard that ship, probably longer than most of the Navy people were onboard the Queens.

- NARRATOR: The students took classes and worked hard learning how to command and care for the ship, and they traveled the world while doing it.

The Texas Clipper went on 30 cruises, visiting ports in countries such as Uruguay, Greece, Peru and Russia.

- The Queens never crossed the equator.

The Texas Clipper crossed the line four times and each time there's a ceremony when you, you'd do things like put some noxious onions from the galley on people's hair and shave them with a wooden razor, and then splash sea water on them to cleanse them.

And they worked really, really hard but there was a sense of fun in addition to that.

- NARRATOR: In 1988, Ann Sanborn, a former cadet, became captain of the Clipper, making her the first-ever woman to be skipper of a deep sea American merchant vessel.

The Texas Clipper was more than a ship, she was a teacher.

[inspirational music] - Every ounce of that ship I loved.

Ships are the biggest things built by human beings that move.

And I think they move, they take care of us, and ultimately they move us, in more ways than one.

- NARRATOR: Ships grow old and the sea stays forever young.

In 1996, after 52 years of service, the Clipper was retired-- the oldest active ship in the entire American merchant marine.

[horn blowing] After sitting and rusting for 10 years, the Clipper was acquired by Texas Parks & Wildlife.

It took a year to thoroughly clean the ship and prepare it as an artificial reef.

- DALE: We modified the hull for water circulation and diver access.

Anything that could float off the ship or cause a marine hazard has been removed.

This by far exceeds the amount of effort that's gone into any one particular reefing project.

[helicopter whirs] - NARRATOR: Having received inspections and approvals from the U.S. Maritime Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency, the Clipper was now ready for her final voyage.

- DALE: We towed the vessel out of the harbor.

It was just a sense of elation for a lot of people, especially people who had served on the Texas Clipper traveling the world.

- NARRATOR: This last voyage was a short one, just 17 miles out from South Padre Island to her final home.

She had not been on the open seas for over 12 years, but she did just fine and was ready the next morning.

[splash] [chain clanking] On November 17th, the anchor was dropped at the location of the Clipper's new home.

The final few holes were cut for circulation of water and sea life...

The flood valves were opened... And the last man onboard was recovered.

- DALE: We're watching the ship sink and at that point you realize that you've got a 7,000-ton piece of metal there, it is just a huge sight to behold and, it wants to do what it wants to do.

Once we were watching this thing go down, it was just very impressive, it was the largest thing I have seen happen and certainly the largest thing I've had the privilege of working on.

[dramatic majestic music] ♪ ♪ - NARRATOR: After 63 years of floating on the world's oceans, the Texas Clipper is now at her final port of call.

[majestic music] - DR. CURLEY: This ship is going to be home to a new crew, it's the flora and fauna underneath the water.

It's just as it was our ship it is going to be theirs as well.

I say farewell Texas Clipper, farewell Excambion, farewell Queens.

You did one heck of a job and you're still doing it.

Celebrating a century of Texas State Parks.

- GINA: The view.

The view here is so beautiful.

- RON: It looks like you're really looking over the ocean because of the topography.

- CLYDE: Just a neat place to come.

[gentle music] - GINA: It's the highlight of Big Spring, pretty much.

[gentle music] - NARRATOR: A half-hour east of Midland is the West Texas town of Big Spring.

- RON: This was the only watering hole for 60 miles in either direction, so it was an important spot.

- NARRATOR: The historic spring once drew Indians, the stagecoach and railroad.

- RON: The pioneers that came through here would leave their mark.

We have one, 1888, on up to 1917 and past that.

- NARRATOR: Today, travelers are still drawn to the mountain on the edge of town, preserved since the 1930s as Big Spring State Park.

- We're right on the edge of the Edwards Plateau, so it's a 200-foot bluff, drops down to the level of the city of Big Spring here.

To the north, we're looking at the Southern High Plains all the way up into the Panhandle.

About six miles east of the bluff here is the Rolling Plains.

So you have three ecological regions merge right here in the Big Spring State Park.

[birds chirping] - It makes me happy.

It keeps you in shape.

It's a wonderful place to come, very relaxing, and it gives me a great start to the day.

- It's a very good place to come workout.

[laughs] Especially in the evening.

It's very pretty.

- NARRATOR: While the vistas offer natural grandeur, the park's roads and buildings, crafted by the Civilian Conservation Corps, also have a timeless beauty.

[gentle music] - RON: Amazing work, all of it.

- NARRATOR: The CCC structures have weathered the elements gracefully for over 75 years.

- RON: We've had to do very little maintenance to the buildings, and these buildings have been here since 1934, so that gives you an idea of the heritage and the sturdiness of them.

[gentle music] - TIM: It's kind of a historic place, but it's very pretty, and it's a nice place to visit.

- RON: It's relaxing to sit, perched on the edge of the bluff and watch off in the distance and the view.

The night vista, with the twinkling lights, it's just neat to see those.

- DIANA: Watching the town waking up.

It looks so beautiful from here.

- NARRATOR: Some come to take in the panorama, others to take a walk or just take a break, but every visitor seems to enjoy the view at Big Spring State Park.

- CLYDE: Nowhere else around that you can go and get a view like this.

- RON: Great vantage point.

[gentle music] [crickets and birds chirp] [crickets and birds chirp] [crickets and birds chirp] [crickets and birds chirp] [wind blowing] [crickets and birds chirp] [crickets and birds chirp] [water trickling] [bird calls] - NARRATOR: 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.