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This spring I happen to be at the local GCA steak dinner/fund raiser. Some locals were talking about a power plant lake in our area and the Texas Parks and Wildlife department. Rumor has it that they may be planning to implement a salt water species (Red Fish) into Fayette Lake. At first I thought these guys had a few to many trips to the beer tap -- I dismissed it as drunken talk.
About a month or two later I was board and decided to check out the story on the Texas Parks and Wildlife site:
You will have to cut and paste the link. It turns out for some number of years now TPW has been stocking 4 Texas lakes with Red Drum! Look at the numbers -- Calaveras happens to be about an hour and a half from my home town.
Turns out Red Fish are able to survive in the high mineral content water that is discharged by the cooling process in plant lakes. They grow to be enormous but are unable to reproduce in the fresh water. I read an article that during certain times of year in these lakes the red fish school up and devour any and I quote inferior fresh water fish in their paths. Sounds like fun right -- on further investigation I began to find some interesting size records coming out of these lakes. In the fresh water lakes there is no upper catch limit and Calaveras had a record 38in and 29lb red fish caught. This is on a lake that is only 3600 acres.
Let’s make the trip. One morning a friend of mine stops by and I show him my findings. He suggests we head out the next morning to try our luck. The next day we head for Calaveras -- the weather is crap seeing there was not a lot of planning that went into this outing.
We arrived at the lake by 7:30 AM and put the boat in the water. I always feel weird putting my Whaler in the lake seeing I grew up fishing the coastal waters. Today was different -- there were center consoles everywhere. We proceeded out and began our search for this fresh water red. After fishing in the rain all morning with no bites we decide to call it quits and laugh it off as a rumor that any red fish could survive in fresh water.
As we get back to the dock and pull the boat out of the water I approach another salt water looking boat and inquire about their catch. They 2 guys produce 6 huge red fish which they claim to have caught in less than an hour and a half. I am floored -- if I had not seen it with my own 2 eyes I would not have believed it. After getting a few fishing tips and stocking up on live crawfish we head back out to the area they told us to try. I am not a fan of fishing like they suggested but wanted to experience that line pull bad!
We headed over to the intake channel of the lake. There were 4-5 boats parked along the wall with rods everywhere -- it was like fishing the Jetties at the coast. The idea was to hook up a crawfish, throw him out along the intake shore and let the games begin. While waiting for our catch we see large red after large red pulled from the water. Most of the fishermen had big surf rods with open bail reels and 45lb test line. I was beginning to feel very under equipped with me light tackle and 17lb test line. The guys fishing next to us had rigged a 3/8in rebar post and welded pipe to it to place in the concrete wall. They must of had 8 poles out at once -- I hear someone yell fish on and look over in time to see the rod buckled over and the 3/8in rebar starting to give. As the poles flies out of the pipe rod holder the guy catches it by the reel and sets the hook. A few seconds later the fish breaks the 45lb test line and is never seen again.
At this point I have decided my hand wrapped graphite rod and vintage abu 5500 are no match for these monsters. In the next 2 hours we sat drinking beer watching giant red fish being plucked from the fresh water. In total I saw 16 fish in the 30in plus range pulled in one afternoon. I have never been back but always get a thrill out of sharing the story and showing the picture below to people. The fun part is when you tell them it was caught in FRESH water.
Paul - Is that not just the strangest thing. I do not know about you but something just isnt right. You need the salt air to make the deal complete. Did you take them home? I heard they taste different.
