Its been a looong time, but....I did quite a bit of electrofishing on Monticello in the mid-eighties as a contractor for TP&WD. One night we fished and fished with little catch to show for a long night of electrofishing.

When we got back to the huge ramp, I remember iot being like 6 lanes wide, we electrofished a small cove to the left (facing out) and around the ramp. We absolutely loaded up on bass from around 6 to well over 12 pounds. Not what we were looking for, but amazing to me to find so many large fishm in a small area so close to the boat ramp.

I had my old college roomy with me, he was taking pics for a newspaper article. He was angry...."I launch here then go waaaay up the lake looking for big ones, and they are all at the boat ramp."

Thirty years ago nearly now. I spent a lot of time on Martin Creek, Monticello, Fairfield, and Alcoa Lake collecting fish with my shocker for TP&WD. At the time I had the first ever "legal" electrofishing boat not owned and operated by the state. Mine was so much better than anything they had, they just hired me to do the work. Nowadays everybody and thier uncle has a shock boat, and the state can afford some very nice rigs as compared to the homemade stuff back then.

My permit required me to have my person within 50' of the boat at all times when it wasn't in a locked barn at the farm. It could never be allowed out of my sight, and if I spent the night I HAD to stay in motel with my rig parked within sight of the door to my room.

Best ever electrofishing trip was in the Trinity River below Lock and Dam. Second best ever was in the Houston Ship Channel and Green's Bayou. Mostly we did ponds with bass and bluegill, boring. Good places were rivers,canals, and especially oxbows.

Old fishery biologist's joke....give a young biologist a Pirate Perch (Aphredoderidea) and ask him to find its anus. No I ain't telin' look it up. But the answer you usually get is, "It doesn't have one." That is not the right answer.

RIP

RedSkeeter,

Why did Monti kick out those big hawgs back in 80's?

Was it from being stocked by TPWD?

Or a new lake?

And did they catch all those hawgs in the summer or winter?

I have seen those pics at the country store, very impressive

I had forgot about those, That was freaking insane wasn't it.

Good times out there........

I was 21 when Jimmy caught that fish, he had been crappie fishing with out much luck, decided to throw a lil crankbait for a while before heading in for the day and history was made. I know Jimmy would fish the lake in mid summer when it was hot as heck an do well.. Back around 1980 he didn't share a lot of info, later on as we grew older he'd share some..

This is not what I have heard.

Places like NorthLake in Irving is Nat. Gas and they don't use it anymore because of nat gas being so expensive

the plant is old and the EPA wants a cleaner source of energy. Nothlake cost to much to operate at the time. Mountain creek the same way so it was sold. Natural gas runs just everything in Texas because have plenty of it. Same as coal we have a ton of it or can get it. Squaw creek produces a ton of electricity so the smaller plants are not needed as much around here.
EPA bad for coal industry, boats ( E-15), and jobs..

All they would have to do is take down the gates at the dam. Probably not a huge cost there. The lake levels were different though so Lake Monitcello would fall about 3 feet if they took out the dam.

And the rest was history! Monticello was part of the states "Florida Bass Experiment". They stocked some "hot water" lakes believing the Florida strain would'nt survive the winters in non-power plant lakes. Your uncles state record would have been one of those first fish stocked but the record did'nt stand long as the states stocking of Florida's statewide took off. Hope the power company finds a way to continue operations in spite of the EPA but regardless that little lake gave me tons of winter memories. Running into some "hillbilly" out there in the fog in a little stick-steering boat that turned out to be Jerry Dean from Honey Hole, running into Bill Wilcox regularly, ice on my eyelets, lost in the fog, falling into 75 degree water dreading getting out into the 30 degree air, driving there after work-fishing all night-returning to work the next day, A Ft. Worth fireman named Bob Garcia tied up on "his hump" every two days that he was not on duty throughout the winter in search of a new record, taking my father, taking my then fiance and her sleeping all night and wondering why I would want to do this, letting her out at the Rail Road tracks so she could "relieve herself" by walking over to the other side in the dark for privicy only to look up from her squatted position to see boats all around her, rod/reels combos dropped overboard at night, nutrias swimming up to the boat at night......gosh maybe I will miss it!

+1

I don't know what to believe....had a buddy tell me they were off on Wed and Thur and another buddy text me at first light this morning that one stack was blowing and they are generating. I guess I am about to find out who my friends are. Lol

That lake is a favorite.







Good memories. I'll bet it isn't over.

stack number 3 was smoking yesterday.

Thanks Heath....

I sent you the pictures Shawn.

luminant won recent court battle to keep all three units up so for now the can run all three. One stack is up EPA stanards and the other are not. It will cost them alot to get them up to EPA stanrds. I hope it does get shut down. I hope the people get to keep their jobs and I get to fish in the winter.