Fished on Fairfield on Thursday and was surprised to find thousands of dead floating Tilapia and shad. The dead fish covered an area from the cove where the hot water discharge is at all the way to the cold water intake of the power plant with dead fish scattered through out many other areas of the lake. We have been fishing Fairfield at least once a week for the past few weeks and this is the first time we have ran across any floaters like this at all. The water was also so very turbid in the main lake and along all of the current flow areas, left a very bad stain on the boat and smelled like #$%$. The bite was poor to say the least, did finally catch a few fish in some water that was still clear and didn't have any dead fish floating around. Hope this is not a fish kill that will get the bass but it is doing a number on the Tilapia for sure.

Did you report to GW for your area?

We talked to the Rangers at the Park and they were already knew that something was up as a few other people had reported dead fish over the past few days. BY Thursday it was way more than a few and many had been dead long enough to really start to smell. All the dead fish we saw were tilapia with a handful of shad floating here and there the worst smell was in areas where there is a brown greasy scum on the top of the water. The ranger told us that some campers had brought the smell to their attention.

Probably the same thing that has caused all the minor to massive die-offs on that lake over the years.
It's overly concentrated nutrients that cause it to happen. That lake runs on the ragged edge of too much.

It's the thing that makes for such a high growth rate in the fish but it's also the thing that starts the cycle of what causes the too low dissolved O2 levels and kills the fish. The fish that are fast enough and smart enough to swim out of the kill zone before it's too late will survive if the area is not too large.

This explains it in detail Fairfield fish kills

I posted this on 9/27.

http://texasfishingforum.com/forums/ubbthreads.php/topics/12444849/I'm_hoping_the_best_for_Fairfi#Post12444849

Since Big Brown will be no more in 2018 the Tilapia will be all gone in a short time.

So will lots of other things that made that place magical at various times over the years in a multi-species sort of way. Big Brown was the catalyst that allowed the rest of the ecosystem to run like a blown fuel hydro on steroids that was right on the edge of making the engine come completely unchained. It'll still be a nice lake, but the magic will be gone.

OT, but cool I thought. There was a river otter there that lived about halfway back in one of the arms on the north side of the dam a few years ago that was not tame but not overly fearful of humans. Got to see him or her several times at fairly close distance. Cool critter. I know they're not exactly rare in east Texas but I'd never seen one that close in the wild before so it was cool for us to see that one a few times.

I fish Fairfield a LOT.

This is the beginning of the kill. Same scenario A few years back. .

Too much sun for too many days. It's gonna be a sad next few days.

Ugh, not again. One thing about the plant closing next year maybe this won't happen again...

I fished Fairfield in the early 1970's, right after it opened. It was magical! The road to the lake was a red dirt road that was impassable during rains. The ranger office was a portable building that open at 6am and closed at 6pm. A girl named Donna was one of the rangers, she had owned most of the land on the Big Brown Creek side of the lake and was a valuable source of info on that part of the lake. She showed us where her old building foundations and such were at. We caught 2 to 3 pound crappie by the hundreds! Just like some other power plant lakes, the crappie never spawned and disappeared after a few years. Catfish in the hot water discharge all day. Bass, all you had to do was anchor on a tree line and catch them all day. The only launching ramp was on the point around from the ramp across from the discharge, and was really fun on a north wind. We pretty much had the lake to ourselves, the word had not gotten out yet. I transferred out of Teague in 1979, just before the big fish started being caught.