Does anyone have an idea of when Tilapia spawn at Braunig & Calaveras lakes? I am guessing it's when the water temperature hits a certain point but any help would be appreciated.

Thanks.

Tilapia spawn every 7 to 8 weeks. Eggs hatch in 2 to 5 days and the female guards the young for an additional 8 to 10 days.

Good info - is this year round?

Depends on what kind of Tilapia we are talking about...but in general, they spawn best at water temps above 80 deg. Some spawning happens all the way down to about 68 deg. but the numbers of offspring produced in each spawning cycle drops considerably with the decrease in water temp. The spawning cycle runs 20 days (for Nile Tilapia) to 28 days (for Mozambique). They are reproducing machines....and continue spwaning as long as water temps permit.

Being a year around Tilapia breeder i can tell you that my females will spawn every 21 days IF the variables are all correct. Such as water temp, number of hours or daylight and a few more things that are all critical to spawning. Tilapia are very tolerant of water quality for survival, but spawning is different. More info go to this link and get your FREE eBook i have for you Tilapia Spawning

What lakes in North Texas have these monsters other than Squaw Creek?

All of them. At least any with any sort of heat source will have them. Tilapia are ubiquitous in the environment where it is warm and they have been introduced. Only far Northern Texas is so cold they cannot gain a foothold without a heat source. South of I10 they will winter over 2 out of 3 years.

Thus far, even TP&WD research shows a positive correlation between the presence of tilapia and an above average bass fishery in Texas waters.

This is BS.

I'm just going by what I've seen happen on Calaveras and Braunig lakes where once the Talapia got a foothold the bass fishing went into total decline.
You can go out and look at the natural bass spawning areas and you can see the fanned out nest where the talapia make their nest and it's the same places that used to be used by the Largemouth. That is direct competition by an invasive species that wouldn't be there before.
Yes, maybe TPWD research might be on a larger body of water who knows but on those two power plant lakes the bass fishing is no longer and not near even close to what it was before those talapia took hold.
Even with the commercial netters they can't seem to reduce the numbers.
They eventually introduced the redfish which now thrive in those same lakes and hardly anyone fishes for LMB anymore but you can catch talapia anywhere on the lake and all you need is a castnet.
TPWD also require that you have to gut the Talapia when you remove them from the lake and it is illegal to take them as bait to another body of water.
So if they are beneficial why the above regulation?

Taken from the TPWD website:
�Possess tilapia, grass carp or any other fish listed as harmful or potentially harmful, without immediately removing the intestines.

https://tpwd.texas.gov/regulations/outdo...aquatic-species
Doesn't sound like a positive correlation to me?

guess youve never been to Fayette.....

its almost comical to complain about one introduced invasive ruining the fishing for another introduced invasive

Don't argue with me, argue with TPWD that considers it invasive to the pooint that it's illegal to transport Talapia to another body of water to the extent that you have to gut the fish before you can keep it.
What's comical is people defending them when TPWD says it's illegal!

Brett,

Do you happen to have a link for that research? I'd like to read it.

Sometime ago, years actually, I did a lot of research on Tilapia effects on bass fisheries...and the majority of the research came from lakes in Mexico.

The conclusion I got from several scientific articles was the following:

1) lakes with Tilapia and local netting have a thriving bass population

2) lakes with Tilapia but no netting the bass fishing suffers.

Remember that in Mexico, there is no die off...much like the power plant lakes here. What they found was that older, larger Tilapia eat fish fry, including bass fry and that the netting on those lakes that had them resulted in the removal of the large Tilapia.

I can tell everyone with high confidence based on many years of personal hands on experience, that the presence of Tilapia in ponds in which they die off each season, without question aids a bass fishery.

I fully expect to enter the largest private waters bass ever in the share-a-lunker program next winter, assuming I can catch her again.

Looks like folks need to argue with TPWD to get the law changed.
Why TPWD made it a law there was a reason.
Opinions are a dime a dozen until TPWD says otherwise and I'm sure fish breeders have their own as well.

What needs to be changed? Nothing as far as I'm concerned. It is perfectly legal for me to buy, transport, and stock Tilapia in my ponds.

I have huge LMB because of it....and anyone lucky enough to fish in them will always go away happy. LOL...argue with what? Happiness.

Indeed there is a disconnect between the "rules" and the situation as it exists in the field. But why then the huge market for tilapia to be stocked into all manner of private lakes and ponds for the express purpose of improving the largemouth bass fishery?

What one has to actually review is not what popular media and politically driven motivations inside state government, but what is the actual case and what has actually occurred here and elsewhere with the introduction of tilapia (which includes over 100 species of fishes that are very different from one another).

Sure, it hasn't all been a positive, but it has not been all negative either.

I've spent a lot of time working on reservoirs in the past and have seen for myself positive and negative impacts of newly introduced species, not just tilapia, and not just from another continent. Any movement of a species or sub-species from one watershed to another is an exotic introduction. Hence "Florida Bass" being as exotic as tilapia in Texas watersheds.

Tilapia are ubiquitous in our aquatic environment, and their impact has been both positive and negative, and not nearly so severe as another species that is considered nowadays "indigenous" the common carp.
Ask yourself this question with respect to the rule listed above....

"Who makes the list of "harmful or potentially harmful" species and what are the motivations behind the species on that list?" Are these motivations purely biological in nature or may politics have a play in the construction of such a list?

Also ask yourself, "What manner of pristine fishery habitat are lakes like Braunig, Calaveras, Martin Creek, Alcoa, Fairfield, Monticello, and others like them?" Might such habitats actually be more suited to a different group of species, than say a lake like Caddo or even Toledo bend?

It is easy enough to give a blanket statement such as , "Tilapia have taken over the lower Rio Grande," than to think about it and say, The deteriorization of the lower Rio Grande habitat and water quality has gotten to the point that only a fish like a tilapia can thrive in it."

A google search will yield plenty of information with respect to the positive correlation between the presence of tilapia and largemouth bass growth, reproduction and recruitment.

While I strongly support TPWD and applaud them for much of what they do for our state (We got state parks, fishing and hunting to make most states jealous) I also recognize that much of what they do and say is politically rather than biologically driven.

BTW, most species of tilapia (Genus Oreochromis) spawn readily at water temperatures above 77 degrees F. I've seen them still spawning just fine at temps approaching 95, so it is unlikely that it will get too hot for them. They'll slow down again below 75 and be done by the time it gets close to 70.

TPWD needless to say, has never published any research they've done that would support changing the current rules on tilapia.

However, without going too deep into it, the current research with respect to tilapia and largemouth bass is usually emphasizing ways to increase tilapia production using bass as a predatory polyculture species. Research strongly supports growing tilapia and bass together as a good way to make tilapia get big fast.

Research on their impacts to largemouth bass spawning and recruitment is less easy to find. That which is avaialable supports a theory that tilapia standing crops over 2000 pounds per acre will greatly inhibit largemouth bass reproduction and recruitment, and that inhibitory effect may go as low as 1000 pounds per acre of tilapia. We hardly see such standing crops in lakes or reservoirs. Research supports lower standing crops of tilapia while perhaps inhibiting some species of bass forage (gizzard shad and bluegill) in some cases, still actually provide a boost to the bass population as compared to them not being there.

http://www.researchgate.net/publication/...ilapia_nilotica

http://www.bassresource.com/fish_biology/trophy_bass_prey.html

http://sepond.com/fish-stocking/tilapia

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