The CCA Texas Habitat Today for Fish Tomorrow (HTFT) program continues to pursue its aggressive goal to develop reefing projects in state waters all along the coast and has announced plans to drop 4,000 concrete culverts in a designated 160-acre reefing site off Port Mansfield this summer. This latest habitat project, set to begin in June 2011, has been funded with $50,000 from the CCA Texas HTFT program and is being done in partnership with the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department Artificial Reef Program and Alamo Concrete.

“Port Mansfield is an attractive place to fish for Texas anglers as well as the thousands of tourists who travel from other states to spend a few days fishing and taking advantage of our tropical winter weather,” said Robby Byers, executive director of CCA Texas. “This new reef will give anglers another place to fish and help make the Port Mansfield area an even more attractive destination for anglers.”

CCA Texas’s announcement of a new reef along the lower Texas coast is the latest project for the chapter’s habitat program and follows the completion of the Vancouver Reef expansion on the upper coast in the summer of 2010 and the announcement of a $100,000 mid-coast reefing project off Matagorda scheduled for completion in the spring of 2012.

“These kinds of close-to-shore reefs are very popular with many anglers who can now find good fishing opportunities without having to travel far offshore,” said John Blaha, director of CCA Texas’s HTFT program. “It’s a win-win for marine resources and for Texas anglers. With the great partnerships we are developing with TPWD and with good corporate citizens like Alamo Concrete, the CCA habitat program is in great shape to keep the underwater building boom going strong.”

The CCA Texas habitat initiative was launched in 2008 and has already set in motion a number of habitat projects important to Texas recreational anglers. In addition to the nearshore reefs, CCA Texas has also been a part of several marsh restoration projects, including those at Goose Island, Nueces Bay and Snake Island. In its commitment to restore and enhance marine and coastal habitats, CCA Texas has funded more than $350,000 for these and other projects.