Just in time for the annual white bass run, Texas Parks & Wildlife magazine is launching its first-ever online-only extra, “Texas Fishing 2012.”

Proposed regulations under consideration by the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department would enlist anglers and boaters in the fight to prevent further spread of exotic aquatic species into Texas waterways.

The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) has scheduled five scoping meetings this winter, starting Nov. 30, about two possible regulation changes for 2012. The scoping items include consideration of a new state scientific area to protect seagrass in the Laguna Madre near the John F. Kennedy Memorial Causeway in Nueces County, and a clarification of emergency rules to protect fish during coastal freezes.

A rare catch of a red-breasted piranha in a community lake near Houston recently illustrates the need for prohibition of invasive aquatic species in Texas waters.

Today scientists collected fish threatened by drought in the upper Brazos River and take them to Possum Kingdom state fish hatchery to weather the drought, with plans to use them to restock the river later. Similar collections of other aquatic species imperiled by drought are being considered for Central and West Texas.