Fishing for freshwater redfish in San Antonio.

Living in San Antonio it’s not always convenient for me to hit our beloved bays every weekend. In San Antonio we have two freshwater power plant lakes that are stocked with redfish. Since they are power plant lakes the temperature stays fairly warm. In the past TPWD has experimented stocking these lakes with everything from speckled trout all the way to tarpon and Nile perch eventually settling on reds. TPWD stocks these redfish by the hundreds of thousands every year as fingerlings and they thrive. These fish cannot reproduce as that requires salt water so they are stocked for the sole purpose of recreation. The depth of these lakes is right around 50 feet with not much structure on the bottom other than depth changes. There are guides on this lake that produce fish by trolling around using down riggers and rattle traps. Others soak bait. You’re not going to sight cast these fish as the water is murky enough to lose sight of your trim tabs. I’m not one for trolling or using bait so I throw lures along the bulrush and cattails along the banks. Another thing that’s been working really well this year is spot locking or power poling on a point or lake hump where the depth drops off. I have been throwing Ned rigged and Texas rigged Z-man crawfish in 15-20 feet of water and very slowly bouncing the crawfish up the slope. I prefer Z-man brand as they float, with a Ned rig or Texas rig they will stand up on the bottom in a natural crawfish defensive position. It seems the reds travel in large schools. When one of these schools comes by it can be a fish every cast. These fish eat well and fat bulls are not uncommon.