The excessive netting by said group at Lake Fairfield is very disturbing. Lot of fish like bass, catfish and the occasional redfish are being netted and kept right in with the talapia going thru the fillet knife at the cleaning stations. No regard for the law or rules and I understand the Rangers just can't stop them all. So sad!

Yep it is sad about Fairfield, what a place to go catch bull reds daily. The Talipia netter's are doing nothing illegal. They are not a game fish and they can keep as many as they choose. Yes, I knew the Park Ranger and he fished with me for many years. Said it did no good to ticket them for anything(illegal fish, no license, or anything else) because they would not show up in court and had no drivers license or ID.
Fairfield is a great fading memory, thanks TPWD for the many great years of string stretching here locally.

... For what I have read about Fairfield it was once the best Bluegill lake in Texas.

Very likely the best Bluegill lake in the USA! There's one lake in North Carolina that "In Fishermen" shows that is managed for trophy bluegill and it looked like it could give Fairfield a run for its money but still Fairfield was superior, IMO.


The mid-Feb closing of Big Brown power plant marked a huge change for the future of Fairfield. Without it, stocking redfish is no longer an option regardless of TP&W decisions...and as related to the netting, it will completely disappear over time. One hard cold winter will remove the last of the remaining Blue Tilapia (as well as redfish). That could easily happen this winter. Water temps at 55 deg or below will wipe them out.


Its speculation, but in my opinion, the reason Fairfield was such a spectacular Bluegill lake was the relationship to the redfish and the Blue Tilapia. The redfish helped manage the Bluegill population and the Blue Tilapia provided tons and tons of small baitfish that helped propel the copper nosed bluegill there to huge sizes not seen anywhere else in Texas. There will be no comeback that will reach the previous levels without the reds and Blue Tilapia.

Everybody looses, i.e no more possibility of redfish, no "comeback" by the spectacular bluegill of Fairfield, and nothing for the netters to legally go after.

It's a sad ending to a chapter of truly World Class fishing that was available to those who were able to enjoy it while we had it.

Got me to reminiscing about the great, great fishing at Fairfield and some great friends who were absolute masters of fishing that Lake.

First and foremost was Jackie Kennedy who had just about every record for the lake and the ones he didn't have belonged to Don Miller who was a fanatical artificial lures angler of the highest skill level.

Don and I teamed up to establish the freshwater redfish state record on the fly which stood for several years and still remains as the Lake record.