The cats are messed up with all these little front coming through. Couple days wind from the south, then a couple the wind from the north. Being a shallow lake like it is, these little changes can make a difference. We've been catching some but not like we should right now. Catching in 4 ft to 15 ft of water. Shallow early, then adjust back as the day goes on.

Bites are right at sun up till about 10, in 3-4' then moving out in 10-12'

I went out last night and it was super slow. Seemed like they were not biting at all. We had tons of perch still left on the hook untouched. Ended up with one Blue and one Channel.

Over the past month Iv had some of the best fishing I have ever experienced on Granger. Been averaging 10-15 fish each trip with several around 9-10 lbs. Yesterday we brought home 9 blues and channels and released a blue just under 17 lbs. All caught on shad in 2-8'. Granger certainly looks like it's on a good trend right now and it's producing much bigger fish that in the past, for me at least. Hopefully those 10 lbers can get some more time to grow up and really turn this lake into a quality bluecat fishery

Never happen.... Granger will always be a eater type lake. I've been catching huge blue cats out of the San Gabriel river sense the early 70's. My uncle's in-laws use to farm in the area now called the road bed. Granger is to shallow, and to much pressure for a 4000 acre lake. On shallow, the lake is silting in quickly!! By 2030, they expect to lose over 50% of water surface. Look at the river channel already, trees growing on new land. Willis Creek area, will go dry in summer with not average rain fall. Silt is the reason they moved the pump station to Wilson Fox. Deepest side of the lake and only that's around 25 ft., you will find a few deeper holes, but they are holes. The pump station has the capacity to remove over a million gallons of water a day. Granger over all average depth is 4 ft. Have you ever duck hunted Granger, you can get by with hip boots. Granger was built in the late 70's. The San Gabriel has a great number of blue cats in this area, plus they stocked it with blue cats around 1993. Granger was built for flood control and flood control only. The boat ramps and parks was a after thought. They were not even going to open it to the public, but pressure made them do it. Oh, you ever notice all the bar wire fences that barely go under the water, they are to keep the cows from getting stuck in the silt when the lake drops. With the size of this lake, the pressure from people and silting in. It will never happen. If you even put a slot limit on it, now way. You fish it as much as I do, you will see nice size cats floating dead on the lake after being released. I've seen cats over 3 ft floating dead. Time of year, shallow lake equals oxygen levels. They are stressed after being caught, if the oxygen level in the lake is not good, they die. The true reason why I's so successful on fishing Granger, I've learned to fish the oxygen levels for that time of year.

I'm like you Jerry, I wish it would become a good blue cat lake. It's design, overlay of the land and pressure will not allow it to be.

I could see silt being a problem in that lake. Lot of farm land around there.

You make some great points big zee. Silting in, and the depth are the 2 major factors that will prevent it. No way to stop that.. however, the pressure and harvest rates are something that can be controlled. With proper regulations, and education, the amount of fish harvested from the lake can somewhat be controlled.

It really doesn't make sense to me, that little ole mud hole Granger, and many other lakes across the state just like it, have the same harvest regulations as some of the biggest lakes in the state. Those lakes are so very different, how can the same management plans be effective on such different lakes.

I'll probably get shot at for this, but I think harvest regulation would be a good start. I don't see the need for a boat full of people to harvest 25 fish apiece every time they hit the water. Catch a few, leave a few. We all know that's not going to happen. Maybe bag limits and making it a slot lake like Waco is the answer.

Myself on harvest. Granger is in between two worlds. Big city and those good ol country boys. Harvest want work, not enough Game Wardens to enforce the law. To many illegals fish this lake and they don't care for harvest. By illegals, that means in those without licenses. The biggest fine on Granger is fishing with out a licenses. These people don't care about harvest. Granger is over 40 years old now, the limits that are in place are good enough. Have you looked at Lake Somerville Blue cat record, over 80 lbs. Same limits, same type of pressure, but pressure from Houston area. The difference is Somerville is much larger! Much deeper. It still has a silt problem, but much less. The Yegua has a Duck Unlimited project up by Iron Bridge that catches a lot of the silt. But the lake is bigger and deeper, translate to colder waters. Blue cats are a cold water cat. If you duck hunt Somerville, you can still use hip boots, but you don't, why, the water is much colder in the winter when the blue cats make the biggest growth, so you wear waders for warmth. Same weather pattern, same cold fronts but deeper lake, translate to colder water.

You're doing good right now because, when Granger has a flood prone year, like the last two, the water is colder from the rain, once again translate to more prime blue cat water during flooded years. These fish will be harvested out very soon, why, pressure. Even if you drop down to only keeping 15 cats a day, you still have a population of over a million people to the west and it's growing. I watched them build that dam, my brother in law first job was building that dam. When the lake had a 9" cat limit, or even when it had no limit, we caught bigger blue cats, bigger yellow cats and bigger channel cats. Also in those days, you didn't see many boats on the lake, and most of them where 14ft flat bottom with a 15 hp on it. It was a country boy lake all the way. Then Austin started to grow, and the pressure increased, the size went down. Like I said, you can drop it down to 15 cats a day and the harvest rate will still be much more then Lake Waco, due to the amount of people fishing the lake. It's called volume, or simple, supply and demand. Granger can not keep up with the supply, because of the demand. Between the bank fisherman, the kayak guys and those in boats, Granger averages close to 750 people fishing each weekend. Much more then Lake Waco. 750 x 52 weeks= 39000 people a year. Number rise during crappie season. Remember cats bite minnow also. The biggest problem with Granger is the poaching. Cats, Crappie and Bass. Game wardens caught some guys this year, 3 had over 100 fish, that's cats, crappie and bass in the mix. Those guys had been doing this for a long time they said and just finally got caught. How many go by each weekend that don't get caught. Don't blame the Game Wardens, they have some from Milam County, Bell County and of course Williamson County patrolling it. To much pressure for law enforcement, plus a lot of times the GW get's tied up enforcing other laws there also. A lot of times you see the GW and then Williamson county sheriff right behind them. You hear people talking about all the drug use in river area while they are fishing, do they care about harvest.

I will predict, because of the internet and social media, in 10 years all lakes in Texas will be slot lakes. No more trotlines and jug lines. Most likely you will only be able to use two rods in the boat. The old tradition for fishing will be in the past.

All good points.

Look at the way TPWD manages deer populations across the state. For example, south Texas has a very different deer population than the Texas Hill Country. Those 2 areas are managed very differently with different yearly bag limits, antler restrictions, and even different seasons. Great job on this TPWD!

Why can't we have specific regulations for Catfish on each lake, rather than a statewide standard for all lakes?

Zee where did you get your numbers on how many people fish Granger each weekend? I was just curious.

Completely agree with Zee on this one. I lived in Austin for 10 years, i looked hard to find a decent place to fish that didnt have 1,000 people elbow to elbow and ended up out at granger and the san gabriel that feeds the lake. The first couple of years wasnt to bad until crappie and white bass spawn time then it got a little crowded at times. 2013/2014 season was the last time i fished there, usually everyone i met while going out there was nice and courteous to other fishermen. That last year was horrible, i saw people keeping undersized fish ( reported doubt a game warden had time to out and check though), i watched another guy skip an undersized crappie off the bank before it fell dead in the water. I caught a few fish, only to have 4 people come within an arms distance and put lines in right where i was fishing. I dont live there anymore, and do not fish there either. My only hope is that the hog population gets out of control and runs some of them folks off. I am back on my home lake Belton, we still deal with some of those problems but not near as bad i dont think.

Zee you make a ton of great points that I agree with. The biggest problem Granger has is that it has so much fishing pressure on such a small body of water. I also agree that the floods the past 2 years is the biggest reason for the increase in the size of fish this year. I think the floods, fishing pressure, and size of fish all go hand in hand. Just think about how many days over the past 2 years all the boat ramps on Granger were closed due to flooding. All that time of closed ramps resulted in a rest on the fish with no pressure. That resulted in months of no fish being pulled from the lake, and gave a lot of fish more time to grown. Even when the ramps did reopen, the high water levels result in more flooded water shallow areas and more places for fish to hide, and be more difficult to catch during those high water times. The floods gave the fish a break and time to grow. Now we are seeing the benefits of that with much better quality fish being caught.

You are exactly right though. With current regulations of 25 fish per person per day, and the return of the extremely high increase in fishing pressure the lake will receive over this summer, it will not be long before the majority of those fish that had some extra time to grow up, we be caught out of the lake, and Granger will return to the little ole mud hole full of 2-3 lb fish that it is known for.

For the record, I never said I was in favor of a slot limit on Granger like Waco has. While it may be slightly helpful I don't believe it is the right answer for Granger. If not many fish ever make it to 30", then a regulation requiring releasing fish over 30" doesn't do much good. I feel a reduction of the daily bag limit would be a good start. After 5 years of that re-evaluate the lake on the numbers of larger fish and make revisions to the bag limit if needed.