Caught this guy in my cast net this morning on Lewisville. Isn't this a tilapia?

Yes

That's nuts. I would have thought they would not live through a winter as cold as the lake gets.

Probably arrived in someone's bait bucket & grew up over the summer.

Very cool! LL may be deep enough to survive the winter.

Probably washed in from a pond that was stocked in the watershed. We have stocked tilapia in our ponds for 10+ years now. Last year was the first year they did not all die in the winter. Even with the mild winter we had last year, just the males survived. Don't hold your breath on them surviving the winter. Outside of a power plant lake, they will not live through the winter most years.

Tilapia start going fins up when water temps reach 50 degrees......

Come to think of it you made a good point. We used to live in sunset point in little elm. There are some ponds/canals that eventually dump into the lake. My wife caught a nice tilapia under a bobber there about four years ago. I guess someone or the HOA stocked them. This could have come from there. The canals flood every time it rains and wash fish into the lake.

I wonder if they will eventually adapt and become an invasive nuisance

I have only seen them survive in power plant lakes around North Texas

I suspect cold water kills them

They will not survive any winter on Lewisville. Cool to catch one tough.