I have today and tomorrow off. Originally, I was planning to go down to the coast to fish the Laguna Madre but my cousin called and said we would have to postpone. So, since I still had the time off, I decided to fish a river that I have been wanting to for some time, the Llano. With some information from the Fly Fishing the Texas Hill Country book about the access points available. I picked a section along a low water crossing off CR-103 just west of the town of Llano.
It was a nice hour and a half drive out to Llano this morning and the access point was easy to find. Presumably the deeper water was upstream from the crossing so I put in there and fished to about 500 yards upstream.
The water is very clear and it makes it hard to determine the depth of the water. Fish get easily spooked in clear water as well so I was going to have to be careful. I noticed a lot of baby frogs so I tied on a Gurgler top water fly. This fly would turn out to be pretty productive. I ended up catching about 8 or so small largemouth and Guadalupe bass along with several brim. A couple of bass really killed the Gurgler when I dropped it on the water. In one section, I paddled right over a hole that held a 2 pound bass. In retrospect, I should have fished it before paddling over it. Oh well.
This river has a lot of granite along it and unlike the San Gabriel, it tends to be wide in most parts. I also noticed that not a lot of trees line the river bank which is something I really like about the San Gabriel. Comparisons aside, I liked fishing this river and hope to do so again.
Later in the morning a southerly wind started to really pick up making it difficult to stay in one spot (in some wide open sections I was getting blown upstream) and cast well so I headed back to the low water bridge as I was getting hungry.
On the way back through Llano, I stopped at the famous Cooper's Old Time Pit BBQ restaurant. I got some sausage and brisket and a large cup of sweet iced tea. The place was packed! That was a great way to end the adventure this morning!
3 comments:
it's nice to have plan b's. out here in the trans pecos, there aren't many plan a's. so plan b's are pretty much out of the question unless you can really change your parameters! 2 days off is hardly enough time to go fishing from here. lol
Hi Ken, I am pretty lucky that there are several choices of water around me to fish and I can get to the coast in about 4 hours. Maybe you should retire out this way, no? :-)
well you can bet dollars to donuts i won't settle down out here! lol
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