After warm weather delays, Texas kicked off its 2025-26 winter rainbow trout season on November 26 just before Thanksgiving.
The November 26-March 6 run offers anglers access to 335,048 fish released by the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD).
This season’s stock projection will be slightly below that at the beginning of the 2024-25 timeline that had attracted 342,373 fish.
According to the TWPD, the keynote Guadalupe River-Canyon Lake downstream waters will receive ample winter stock.
Downstream Guadalupe River lies on the most southerly latitude for North American trout and is among the 100 leading trout streams nationally.
It also enjoys a special trout management zone that enjoys extended coolness for year-round angling.
Stock will also come to Brazos River near Possum Kingdom Lake as well as sections of Frio, Trinity and South Llano rivers.
State ponds suitable for family fishing across various counties from Dallas to Tarrant will also undergo stocking. Families in the Dallas-Fort Worth urban vicinities can enjoy relaxed angling via the Neighborhood Fishin’ initiative.
All above water bodies currently espouse cool surface temperatures, perfect for a species that can only survive in southern states in winter.
Winter fishing has therefore been an annual event in the past 40 years, affording anglers a perfect holiday timing to fish.
At this shopping season, commercial fishers command trout prices in the range of $2.65 to 2.80 a pound, as of 2023/2024 years.
Fishing Rainbow at Ease
Besides, the season extends fishing ease in form of accessible gear such as rods, flies or just tackle.
Helping along is the fact that most of the trout from Texas and other states average 2.6 to 2.8 pounds apiece. This is despite the fact that the state has ever landed a rainbow trout weighing a record 8.92 pounds.
An additional bonus for fishers is the lack of minimum length catch regulation although the daily bag limit stays at 5 fish per person. Special year-round fishing zones on the Guadalupe river are the only exception to this rule.
The 2025-26 rainbow trout fishing schedule in Texas will notably last lesser time than the 2024-25 one (which extended November 27 to March 9). However, it will bring the usual thrill of fishing back. The highlights below look at the federal equivalent encapsulating all of trout.
United States/Texas Trout Statistics
Many trout species from cutthroat to brook and rainbow (Oncorhynchus mykiss) frequent streams, ponds and rivers in the United States. Top trout-producing states include Idaho ($36,948,000 in sales, 2023), North Carolina ($8,827,000, 2023) and Pennsylvania ($7,392,000, 2023). Other states featuring Texas together represent $43,653,000 (2023) of federal trout sales, per the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)’s Agriculture Counts.
The 2022, 2023 and 2024 surveys of national trout sales were as follows, per the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS):
2024 – $123.921 million.
2023 – $112.736 million.
2022 – $119.093 million.
Sales could have been more but for losses of 10.3 million fish annually (2024), 72% of which from disease.
How many live trout pounds does Texas and other states land annually?
According to the USDA’s Agriculture Counts, ‘other states’ (that include Texas) produce nearly 1/3rd of all trout catches annually. In 2023, they produced 15.26 million pounds out of 43.041 million pounds while in 2024 some 14.17 million pounds out of 39.68 million pounds. The leading states by landings are Idaho at 23 million pounds, North Carolina at 3.1 million pounds and Pennsylvania at 1.18 million pounds (2023).