The sun has risen on a new year, and now its time to start making plans for fishing and hunting in 2025. (Steve Knight/Tyler Morning Telegraph)

Here we are again. Just about the time we settled in for the 2024 hunting seasons, it becomes 2025 and the seasons are winding down.

The good news is that as soon as we put the guns up it will be time to pick up the rods, at least for those of us fair-weather fishermen who took the winter off.

Except for some odd weather, including an October that felt more like July, 2024 was a pretty good year outdoors wise. Locally, Tyler ended up about 30-inches ahead on rain from its average. That meant for at least one summer lake levels did not plunge as they have in the recent past.

Mild weather and decent rainfall throughout much of the state resulted in two notable comebacks last year with both dove and deer numbers rebounding.

However, with only a couple of days of really cold weather, most waterfowl hunters are probably hoping 2025 begins better than 2024 ended.

For fishermen the higher water levels usually mean better spawns, but those won’t be noticeable for several years. It is still important and a good omen.

As for trophy bass fishing, it was another good year for western Texas and specifically, O.H. Ivie which continues to rule the Toyota ShareLunker program. But hopefully the new year involves better results for East Texas, and the really big fish start showing up here again.

Lake Fork continues to be the top dog of the program with 263 all-time entries, but has not produced a ShareLunker entry since 2021. Ivie has been the hottest lake in recent years, and now has 51 entries, including 12 in 2024.

Looking ahead for hunters, good rains this fall should mean good range conditions come spring. That is important for white-tailed deer fawn survival as well as antler development for bucks. It will hopefully mean good plant growth for game bird populations from dove to quail and turkey.

The new year is promising not only for hunters and fishermen, but campers as well with the 4,900-acre Palo Pinto Mountains State Park expected to come online in the coming months.

The park, located near Strawn (think chicken-fried steak) will be the 89th park in the state system, and the first in 25 years in North Texas.

The good news is that Pal Pinto is just one of several new parks in the pipeline as the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department is receiving more funding for parks through the Centennial Parks Conservation Fund and dedicated funding from the state’s sporting good tax.

Personally, I do not make New Year’s resolutions anymore. What am I going to say, I am going to hunt and fish more?

No, but I do hope to get out more — visit more state parks even if it is just to walk the trails for a little exercise somewhere other than on a sidewalk or in a gym.

I also hope to start training a new dog in the spring. My Lab, Sadie, is aging, and like any older athlete her joints are just not what they once were. Also, her recovery time from a hunt is getting longer. So maybe it is time not to retire her, but to start training a replacement.

If I get another dog, I plan to downsize to something like a hunting cocker spaniel or a Boykin spaniel. Both are smaller dogs, requiring less strength to handle and less food to feed.

I hope to also keep learning about the outdoors. It is funny, I can remember the first time I ever shot something, and, in my mind, I can see exactly where I was. It was a dove, and it was in an area between Dallas and Fort Worth that is most likely a subdevelopment today.

As key as that was to my interest in the outdoors, I have found what is important to enhance wildlife populations, whether dove or deer, bass or bream, is equally as important, or maybe more so as Texas’ population explodes and climate change impacts wildlife and fisheries one way or another.

I also plan to use the new year to keep bringing my young grandsons into the outdoor world. They have so much more going on than even their dads did, so it is a different process. One is just getting old enough to shoot targets and the other loves to fish. It is just a matter of finding time to get them out there doing it.

Yep, it is another year, and like everyone who enjoys hunting and fishing I planned to do pretty much what I always have done, hunt and fish.