I plan a trip to Calaveras and/or Braunig Saturday & Sunday. Never been freshwater redfish fishing. We are taking our boat. I'm getting away from salt water fishing for the moment, and wanted to try the freshwater reds.

I would like, and appreciate any info on types of bait, live or artificial. availability to buy live bait at any stores in the area? Trolling, fishing the bottom, or using a topwater? area on lake to fish? Are the reds bigger at Braunig or Calaveras?

I keep hearing about the crappie wall, and 181 cove? Sounds like good places to start.

Thanks.

You might have better luck at Calaveras but Braunig isn't bad either.

Calaveras - If you go to the crappie wall, use a ballon rig and you can find that info just search ballon rig calaveras or throw rattletraps/spoons/swim baits. 181 coves are more for catfish BUT I have caught a few 24''+ reds there on more than one occasion. Or you can try your luck at the dam wall, just squeeze in their with the rest of the boaters.

Only bait I would purchase is shrimp, everything else you can catch if you have castnet(tilapia/shad)

Braunig - Head straight out from the boat ramp to the discharge area of the plant, either tie onto the bouys or back off of them till around 10'-15' deep. Free line/slip bobber/bottom rig with live bait(shad/tilapia).

Or you can venture to the dam wall or on the other side of the jetty where the intake is.

There is a gentleman that has posted good sattelite images of both lakes with refrences on it, good stuff just search.

Good luck!

EDIT* The gentleman is the texas alien and here is one of his maps for braunig.

I have caught a few at Braunig trolling with rat-l-traps around the discharge areas and towards the northern tip of the lake

ive been to calavaras twice and have a pretty good plan put into place. the reds move in schools around the lake, so you better be ready to wait. we went to the 2nd boat ramp but stayed onshore. This may sound weird, but using 10ft surf rods and 4oz weights we waded out to our armpits,and cast out as far as possible(about 10-15 feet)using crawfish. Then we waited, and when the school moved through,2 nice reds. We watched another guy use the same plan a few days before. He and his son caught their limit with a 37in red topping it. And that doesnt include the cats they caught.

I agree with all of the above. If you have a boat, either lake can produce fish. If you are looking to troll and have downrigger's Tony Acetta spoons are good as well as some other normal strippers lure's. The average depth most fish is between 5-20ft. Dept of wildlife have good weekly reports as does San Antonio River Auth who maintain the parks. If you want to still fish I would recommend live bait for Reds, Chicken liver or cut bait for strippers and Big Marv's for the cat's.

Awesome info! I appreciate it all. Thank you! The bank fishing thing doesn't sound bad either. We fished the Port Aransas surf last weekend. It's kind of the same.

In any case, sounds like I need to make a decision on which lake to fish first.

Again, thank you all for that great info.

The map is great! thanks Jonas. (& TX alien)

I see all those guys with surf rods but for the most part they dont do much better if they do better at all. I normally use a med action rod with 8-10lb test to fish for reds. I stay dry and I have a spot where the schools run about 8-15 feet from shore.