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Hey man good to hear from you. I think it got a little break from the guides during COVID.

Thank you!

I was a Navy Corpsman stationed in San Antonio from 1986-1990 at Ft Sam Houston. I practically lived on Calaveras when not at work in Camp Bullis or Ft Sam. I loved fishing in the hot water discharge by the power plant when it was cold out. The temp on the rest of the lake was around the middle 30s and where we were fishing I remember stripping down to shorts and t shirts while in the discharge area. I have never caught so many catfish, whites, & stripers in my life. I also used to park the boat near the middle of the cold water inlet and fish in the inlet for redfish and corvina. That is where I caught the biggest Blue I ever saw up to that point. It was around 18 lbs. I actually caught it on a large blue Shad Rap. Imagine my shock..... I was fishing for redfish and corvina and I hooked an 18 lb catfish instead. WOW!!! That was my first fix on the catfish front and turned me into an addict from then on out. Prior to that I never "JUST" fished for catfish. Now I mostly fish for cats and accept it if I catch anything else. Although I do get excited if I catch something that can be used live or cut to catch cats LOL!!! That big ol blue was my first catch and release and now I only keep 20" or less cats for eating. Anything else goes back to get bigger.

Thanks guys for the Calaveras memories, you made my day.

Great memories alright!
That area, the "hot pond" is no longer open to fishing thanks to 911 and probably will never be opened as it was back in the day.
You can still do pretty good fishing the lake these days, but it's a shadow of itself from what it was back then.
Even the famed "Crappie Wall" has been fenced off after kayakers entered the restricted canal zone!
Those huge blues are few and far between now!

I heard that they stopped stocking corvina (orange mouth sea trout). Corvina back then was a major draw to the lake. They grew big quickly and were faster and more powerful than a similar sized redfish. What a hoot to catch with medium tackle. Way better fight than spotted sea trout at the coast. It was like hooking a torpedo. I cut my index finger on the razor blade front teeth on a 7 pounder I caught. It's been 34 years and I still bear the scar.

But I digress.... This is a catfishing forum..... The restricted canal is what we called the cold water inlet and is where I caught the 18# blue cat while sitting on top of the crappie wall. We thought we were being extremely bold by just sitting on top of the wall and fishing. I can't imagine someone actually putting a kayak inside the channel. So I guess things have changed a lot over the years. Leave it to a few idiots to ruin things for the rest of us. Also thank you for saving me a trip down to SA to go back to my old fishing hole. That would have been very disappointing trip. At least I still have my memories at least the ones that are left after the stroke.... LOL!!!!

S.B.

If you would make the trip S.B. you would be very disappointed with what you would see.
The park has become very rundown. They don't cut the grass until it's over knee high, or pick up the trash with most of it along the shoreline, and only randomly put in some effort picking up trash on the bank!
They don't empty the fish barrels often enough, and the buzzards sit on the ground, as many as 20 or 30. and they don't even fly off while some of the guides are cleaning their clients fish on one table, and the buzzards are sitting on the other table and all over the ground waiting for them to leave.
It's totally unsanitary, and I also blame the fishermen that don't rinse the table after they are done.
If those buzzards didn't have scraps on the table or overflowing barrels under the table, they wouldn't be there.
I'm sure nobody complains because it would fall on deaf ears, and then it would only give them an excuse to close the lakes down.

That's just sad. Calaveras was one of those memory maker lakes that had it all when I was there. I remember the day a guide brought a dead black bass into the HQ building that he found near the dam that weighed right at 20 lbs. A bass that size was unheard of in that area at that time. Not to mention the corvina, redfish, stripers, hybrids, whites, and catfish all in large numbers and good size. As with all good stories I guess this one has come to an end. The buzzards put an exclamation point on what I am saying.

Yes, I have so many fond memories and a lot of stories people wouldn't believe so I'll just let it go at that!.....It was a good run!

Thanks Steve, I'm glad you enjoyed it! I sure wish they still have the Corvina in there!