TPWD has had a very good year at the hatchery with an excess of redfish fry to stock less productive lakes like Lake Bryan. The inland fisheries tech called me in mid September to video the stocking but I was held up at work and could not make the date. A reported 53,000 redfish fry were stocked throughout the two sections of the lake and are expected to reach catchable size in two to three years.

Please ask your friend where else they might have stocked the excess redfish, Searching the TPWD site, it does not show that Bryan Lake was stocked. So it makes me wonder where else they might have stocked them (??)

Here is the site I looked at"

http://tpwd.texas.gov/fishboat/fish/management/stocking/fishstock_state.phtml

The website has not been updated yet. Sometimes the stocking information is delayed for a while to ensure the stocking took hold. Lake Bryan is a questionable venue for redfish survival and growth. I could not find any more information about the redfish stocking program for 2015 as it appears to not have been updated.

Thanks for posting. Would be nice if TPWD would issue a press release explaining the change at Lake Bryan.

For example,

- if this small lake struggling to produce enough forage to support a population of bass or crappie or catfish is stocked with up to 53,000 surviving bottom feeding Redfish, what will all the Redfish find to forage on?

-will the Redfish unable to feed on shrimp or crabs in a freshwater lake negatively impact the meager bass and crappie and catfish population now dependent on feeding on the few bait fish?

-will the Redfish survive winter cold periods when the plant will at times go off line? and summer temps when the power plant really heats up the waters?