Received a text from a friend yesterday that said he and a friend of his caught a Tilapia while fishing Lake Hodges.
Has anyone else seen or heard of Tilapia being in Hodges?
Received a text from a friend yesterday that said he and a friend of his caught a Tilapia while fishing Lake Hodges.
Has anyone else seen or heard of Tilapia being in Hodges?
theres this fishing app that i use, i did see a few pics on people catching tilapia there
Tilapia were illegally introduced by a private aquaculture facility/hauler from the Imperial Valley with a load of catfish a few years ago.
I don't know about you guys, but Tilapia are great eating and if we could get a great fishery for them local that isn't the disgusting Salton Sea, it could be fun. Not sure about sacrificing Hodges for them though. I'm not sure how disruptive they would be to other species.
I've bass fished Lake Novia down in Mexico for the past 15 years. It's loaded with Tilapia. I can't say they've hurt the bass fishing, but they commercially gill net the tilapia for sale in the USA by the thousands each week. I'm afraid they'll take over Hodges.
without the commercial removal of the tilapia, do you believe the bass fishery would be what it is there? a commercial gillnet fishery would not be allowed should tilapia get loose and established at any of our local lakes. There are already numbnuts bringing flathead catfish from the river to local lakes to compete with and predate upon the treasured gamefish in our local lakes. Once Pandora's box is opened, you can't close it.
Kinda reminds me of Striped Bass getting into our 2 premier Bass lakes. (DVL and Castaic) I thought for sure in the 1990's Castaic was going to produce the next world record LMB. (no way now!) What about DVL, it had so much hype by that biologist they hired. (what's his name) For a few short years the LMB and the trout were living up to the hype. But alas the stripers got in there and reproduced and now it's a put and take trout fishery only and no holdovers to speak of. Still a decent LMB fishery for the people in the know. But not what they hoped for!! Maybe it was a fools wish anyway!
Last edited by etucker1959; 09-24-2018 at 05:53 PM.