Renovated Texas Freshwater Fisheries Center to Welcome Visitors Again

As sunlight danced between the clouds on a mild day in late May on the edge of the East Texas Pineywoods, a crowd of nearly 150 excited onlookers gathered to celebrate a new beginning for an old, trusted resource.

It was a sneak peek at what the public will get to fully enjoy when the calendar flips to July this week with the long-anticipated reopening of the Texas Freshwater Fisheries Center (TFFC) in Athens. When the doors swing open, visitors will immediately notice the full reboot that took place over the course of nearly two years, a remodeling and upgrade project that should solidify the unique facility as the best in its class.

Spurred by more than $7.5 million in private funding, the updated TFFC will be a destination for avid anglers and visitors alike to learn about the science of modern fisheries management in the Lone Star State through interactive and immersive displays, including more than 300,000 gallons of updated and new aquariums. Additionally, ponds on the campus—now known as Lake Zebco and Strike King Pond—have been enhanced while existing exhibits have been updated.

It’s the first major public-private partnership between the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department and the Texas Parks and Wildlife Foundation, and the initial feedback has been very positive.

“The Freshwater Fisheries Center has always been such a wonderful place for Texans and people across the country to connect to the fish, fishing and fisheries resources of Texas while learning of the important work the men and women of the TPWD Inland Fisheries Division conduct to conserve and manage these resources,” said Tom Lang, the Outreach Director for the TPWD's Inland Fisheries Division and the director of the Freshwater Fisheries Center.

“With this renewal of TFFC’s facilities, fishing ponds and piers, equipment, exhibits and educational programming, we again have a first-class facility to support the fisheries conservation journey of visitors for decades to come.”

Dubbed the Edwin L. Cox, Jr., Texas Freshwater Fisheries Center, the facility opened in November 1996 and was named after a former chairman of the Parks and Wildlife Commission. With a visitor center, educational exhibits, aquariums, fishing ponds, the Hart-Morris Conservation Center and meeting facility, a wetland trail, TFFC also boasts a state-of-the-art freshwater hatchery facility (completed in 1999) that has 45 hatchery ponds spanning 37 acres. In addition, the TFFC also was made home base for the famed Toyota ShareLunker program.

By any measure, the first 30 years of the TFFC were a success as the center drew more than 40,000 annual visitors and some 25,000 wetting a line and participating in fishing while on the grounds of the 106-acre campus.

Those visitors were drawn to, among other features, a 23,000-square-foot Visitor Center, sprawling aquarium space; the 24,000-square-foot indoor hatchery facilities and labs; three acres of public fishing; 56 species of fish and reptiles on display in natural habitat exhibits and a 25,000-gallon dive tank aquarium.

The latter was one of the center’s focal points in its first 30 years, showcasing piscatorial critters like Splash, the 121.5-pound blue catfish from Lake Texoma. It still stands as the state record blue cat and former International Game Fish Association world record caught by the late Texas angler Cody Mullenix as he fished with friends in January 2004. The angler donated Splash to the Freshwater Fisheries Center, and before the big whiskerfish died in December 2005, Lang says the center saw its visitor count increase to nearly 60,000 people per year.

But Lang also knows that was then and this is now, and after nearly 30 years, the TFFC was showing its age a bit back when he started in 2019. And it wasn’t long before a facelift was in the works.

The renovation process was not without challenges, though, Lang said. The planning process was lengthy, and the pandemic presented its own set of challenges, but Lang lauded the devotion of his TPWD colleagues and staff at the TFFC for helping maximize construction funds and deliver a remade facility they all are proud to show off.

“We had an idea of what was going to be done,” he said. “When we were closed (during the early days of the pandemic), we went to work and redid all the floors as we were able, pulled the curtains down and repainted. We were limited to what we could do, but we began to move toward the facility officially closing for renovation in 2023.

“I’m very proud of our employees,” he added. “Because of their dedication and hard work, they allowed us to stretch those dollars and allowed us to do more.”

Giant Largemouth Bass

In the remodeled Visitor’s Center, those walking through the front door will find out a lot about fishing’s current status across the Lone Star State, along with plenty about the state’s much anticipated future. That includes the Lone Star Bass—described as a pure Florida strain largemouth bass that TPWD’s hatchery work has produced exclusively from broodfish coming from the agency’s Legacy Class (13 pounds or more) entries into the annual ShareLunker program.

As the Lone Star Bass stocking program has accelerated, biologists believe the program will give Texas largemouths stocked across the state a genetic super boost as the quest for another state record bass, if not a world record bass, continues.

Since Lone Star Bass now make up 100% of the state’s annual largemouth bass stocking efforts, it shouldn’t be long before that work from the Freshwater Fisheries Center is seen. Already, the state’s newest bass lake, Bois d’Arc Lake near Bonham, Texas, has seen significantly better than average growth rates for the fledgling reservoir that opened up only last year.

In a state where the current largemouth bass record sits at 18.18 pounds, and with nearly 700 giant bass weighing 13 pounds or bigger having been caught and donated to the state’s ShareLunker program since 1986, the largemouth is indeed the state’s king when it comes to sportfish. And with gleaming scientific showplace facilities and the passion of TPWD’s Inland Fisheries biologists, the hope is that the reopened Freshwater Fisheries Center will help lead the way deeper into the 21st century with better bass fishing, bigger bass, and biological work and stocking efforts that benefit every freshwater species that swims in Texas waters.

But there’s more to what goes on at the TFFC than just the largemouth bass production and the ShareLunker program’s official home. There’s also a nod to the sport’s past across the state with TFFC serving as the home of the Texas Freshwater Fishing Hall of Fame. And there’s also a nod to Texas’ place in the nation’s fisheries work, since the TFFC is also home to the American Fisheries Society’s Fisheries Management Hall of Excellence.

“We’ve got over 200 freshwater fish species in Texas, and our doors reopening will bring a good opportunity to learn about a lot of those other species that not everyone knows a lot about,” he said.

Lang is anxious to get the doors open this week and start welcoming back visitors so he and the TFFC staff can show off the renovations and get back to the work of educating and entertaining Lone Star State anglers.

He anticipates good crowds this week as families take advantage of the summer break from school and vacation season, along with plenty of anglers taking advantage of the newly renovated fishing ponds. Lang is especially proud of those waters, noting that more than 13,000 people have caught their very first fish at TFFC during its long history.

Everything kicks off this week with the July 1 re-opening and ribbon cutting ceremony with the Athens Chamber of Commerce and plenty of invited guests scheduled to participate. And with the 4th of July looming at the end of the week, there will also be activities that culminate on Sunday, July 6, 2025 with the annual City of Athens Independence Day celebration event known as "Fireworks at the Fisheries,” a spectacular fireworks display over the TFFC hatchery ponds.

“I’m anticipating that we’ll have plenty of visitors the rest of this summer,” he said. “Over the years, we’ve had 1.1 million visitors, and I’m pretty sure that there is a backlog of people who want to visit us again since we’ve been closed for a good while now.”

Come Visit

Interested in visiting the newly renovated TFFC this summer? Summer hours (through August) will be 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday and 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. on Sunday. Adult admission is $5.50. If you're planning a trip to Athens this fall or winter, be aware that from September through February, the facility will be closed on Tuesdays.

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