Actually, the chance there may be a fish of giant proportions in Calaveras wouldn't be too far out of the realm, since TPWD in the past, around the late eighties and early nineties, used both Calaveras and Braunig as experimental stocking lakes.

That's the reason for the decline of native species, and the emergence of the fresh water reds.

They tried all kinds of exotic species, and some where even Tarpon and Nile perch, and Orange Mouth Corvina, which they mysteriously stopped stocking after only a few short years, and they grew fast and became popular amoung anglers.

So the ground work had been laid for a monster to lurk the dark waters below, and next time you get your reel stripped, you can thank those early visionaries who so stocked our beloved Calaveras and Braunig lakes so many years ago.

I'll be on Cali Saturday. This just makes it more interesting.I run in to a lot of old timers out there and love to listen to them talk of the day.[hopefully that me someday]. Definitely got a conversation starter here

The lake records do show them. 1978 and 1979 for Nile perch and 1984 and 1985 for tarpon, but they are Braunig not Calaveras. People have the lakes confused.

https://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/fishboat/fish/action/stock_bywater.php?WB_code=0106

This is true! They did officially only stock Braunig with those species, and I reiterate officially.
Back then it seemed they had some mad scientist working at TPWD with all these wild ideas, so I've always had my conspiracy theories.....They do pump water from Braunig into Calaveras to bring up it's level from time to time, so how many fish get pumped in from Braunig as well?....Who knows? Also with the lakes being so close together, one has to wonder if some of those fish didn't make it into Calaveras....Un-officially??????

Going back and looking at the stocking history you can see they've slighted the LMB and have concentrated primarily on stocking the redfish, which I guess to most that is the most popular species.
2008 was the last stocking of LMB @ 11,000
The Hybrids fall just behind the reds in popularity and stocking of 44,309 in 2013.
The most popular and most stocked yearly are the redfish @314,257 in 2013.
So pretty much Braunig and Calaveras are put in take lakes.
If you are a die hard Bass fisherman you have you're work cut out for you if you want to bass fish on either lake.
Long gone are the good ole days of 10lb. plus LMB, and when 5 to 8lb. bass were common, and then there were the weekly bass tournaments!...Excuse me, I think my allergies are acting up again, or I've got something in my eye!

I wish they'd bring back the mad scientist to TPWD. I would love to see more variety again. I'd be happy with the return of the corvina even though I know it'll never happen.