Tarpon?!!! Seatrout, Spotted X Corvina?!!!

They actually stocked speckled trout there one year, and tarpon for two years. Along with that, the stock redfish every year that I can see.

All of this in a freshwater establishement. If there was a place that I could go that you could fish for bass, tarpon, specks, reds and crappie, I don't think I would fish anywhere else. Now, about the tarpon-tpwd stocked 17 two years in a row in the mid 80's. The odds of there being any left are slim. Or...maybe not? Wouldn't it be cool if somebody was throwing a rapala one day and a giant 90 inch tarpon surfaced with it?

These stockings just come as a surprise. It would be really interesting to fish that place sometime.

Its a power plant lake and with all the warm water it was testing center to see how fish would adapt back then..

Braunig is pretty much nothing but a catfish, redfish and hybrid striper fishery!!! Bass fishing is extremely poor along with crappie fishing but everyonce in a while u can catch some decent bass...

That always was a sore spot with me, and also for a lot of anglers from this area that fished both lakes from the time they opened to the public.

Both lakes were top notch crappie and black bass lakes back in the 70's and 80's, and those two species went down hill practically overnight once they decided to make those two lakes into dumping grounds for their experimentations by TPWD.

The only success that you can point to from all they dumped in there, was that they made the two lakes into put and take trophy redfish factories, and as far as the catfish, they always were good producers for that species even back then.

In my opinion they (TPWD) ruined those lakes, but that's just my opinion, and counts for little!

I might add those who were responsible for those decisions are long gone!

Have they ever stocked it with bass again?

They stocked it many time since but neither lake are even close to what they used to be before the introduction of those exotic species.

Back in the seventies and early eighties there was somewhat of a competition between Calaveras (south Texas) and lake Monticello which was similar to Calaveras up in north Texas to see which lake would produce the next state record. Monticello went on to fame for it's trophy black bass and to this day is still a producer of trophy black bass and crappie.

You could catch limits of crappie out of Calaveras right in front of the boat launch which I did many times fishing a submerged Christmas tree that had been sunk there.

These topics alway jog my memory so I apologize for tripping down memory lane, but back then they had a bulliten board with pictures of the big fish that were being caught , and they would take a picture of you and put the picture up on the board for everyone to see.

Eight pounders were so common that anything less wouldn't even raise an eyebrow or get your picture taken unless you were a younster with his first catch. It was crazy back then! LOL!

No more!

Brings back memories of what my dad used to tell me about sneaking over the wall to the intake and bumping cranks along the rocks, slamming 10lb bass all the time, not only is there a fence keeping you from doing this now, but i doubt the numbers and size of fish are anywhere near what they used to be. All though i will say, there are still some decent bass in both, as will.i.am can atest to, but definitly are not as easy to find, and the areas to fish where decent bass would spawn is and has been blocked off for a while, i wish we could get back there about now to see whats really going on. The best bass i have seen in recent years came out of braunig last year by my roomate, big female went 7+

Almost forgot, for the originator of this topic, they also at one time stocked nile perch in braunig, i bet those things had a field day eating up all those potential trophy bass.

FYI - Cuba has a lot of lakes with land locked tarpon in them. They do quite well and will grow to a decent size.

I still say they need to pick one lake and turn it back into a bass lake!!

I say turn Calaveras into a bass lake! Then you have two great lakes for all kinds of types of fish right here next to San Antonio!!

Calaveras has tons of talapia for them bass to grow huge in there!!

oh....this topic again?!?!?!!!?

I agree with turning cali into a bass lake, although tilapia are part of the problem, then feed on eggs, mainly bass eggs, seeing as they are one of the only game species in that lake that actually have a somewhat succesful spawn, the bass would do much better if it was not for the intense #'s of tilapia in that lake, and unfortunately not much that can be done, seeing as they spawn like 10+ times a year

Just wondering if the catfish feed on the talapia? if so there should be many large and healthy cats there

ttt

Calaveras was a hell of a bass lake in the mid to late 80's. Used to wade fish all the cat tails when I was younger(ton of snakes). Seen and caught some hawgs outta there.

Yes the cats feed on the tilapia, but only the smaller ones, that i know of, have caught a few of them while fishing for reds, just not enough to regulate the overcrowding. There are commmercial fisherman, that net fish for tilapia, and they fill boats daily, and this still doesn't hurt the population.