Tales from a Texas Fly Fisher

texasflymannequin

2011-07-17T19:31:00.003-05:00

Thursday morning I drove down to South Padre Island for a short family vacation/reunion. I of course took my kayak and fly rod in the hopes I would get some fishing in.

After getting to the condo and unloading everything in 67% humidity and temps in the 90s that felt like the 100s, we first went down to the beach for a few hours. I took my fly rod but didn't bother using it since the beach had too many people around even out to the second gut. I surely didn't want to snag someone on my backcast or with my fly in the water so I just enjoyed playing in the water with the kids.

Later after sunset I decided I would try and fish along the Queen Isabella Causeway. I waited for about 30 minutes but only the street lights near the middle of the causeway came on. The bridge is almost three miles long so I really didn't feel like paddling all that much. Not that far from the bridge to the south is Pier 19. It used to be a fishing pier for the longest time but now the whole pier is a restaurant and bar. It still has some lights on it though so I decided to go there and try my luck.

As soon as I got there I could see some trout swimming around and people on bridge pointing down and talking about me and what I was doing. I anchored and tied on a cactus shrimp fly as the trout were chasing shrimp along the surface. I could hear the smacks and pops as the trout ate them.

Right away, the people on the pier above were telling me where to cast and that there were a "hundred" trout right where I was casting. Soon I started catching trout but not on every cast. Most of the trout where just shy of keepers. I did catch a couple fat little trout and had one nice one that broke me off. I probably spent two hours there catching and releasing schoolie trout. Eventually after a couple of drunk patrons mistook me for a mannequin (they actually said "dummy") in a "dingy", I decided to call it a night. They did apologize for the mistake though.

The next couple of days was taken up with family visits and other activities but I enjoyed the short adventure paddling the Lower Laguna by the light of the full moon. It was invigorating. It was way better than walking around drunk mistaking live people for dummies.

Inks Lake State Park

2011-06-12T18:49:00.006-05:00

On Friday, I packed up the truck with kayaks, tents, fishing gear and the family and departed to Inks Lake State Park about an hour northwest of Austin. It was time for our semiannual camping trip which was planned and booked about 6 months ago.

This tiny park is quite popular and gets full quickly. Our camping trips as of the last couple of years have been multi-family events with three other families. This year, due to the extreme drought condition, we couldn't have grills or campfires so it was propane camp stoves and burners for cooking and roasting marshmallows.

The small lake had a couple of short fishing piers that were not far from our lakeside camp so after dark, I went with my son and another boy to try our luck. There were already a couple of folks there so we had to wait until a spot freed up near the deeper water and one of the lights. As much as we tried, we couldn't catch a thing so around 11pm we headed back to camp.

The next morning, my son and I took the kayaks out to fish a bit. He with the fly rod and I with a spinning rod. I ended with one 15" largemouth bass and my son caught a nice brim. The rest of the time we lent out the kayaks to the rest of our party so they could paddle around the small lake.

I expect that due to the small size of the lake and its popularity as a camp site, it must get heavily fished so I felt pretty good about catching at least one fish.

The kids and the rest of the folks did a lot of swimming, paddling and jumping off cliffs into the cool water due to the nearly triple digit temperatures.

It was a lot of fun and I am looking forward to our next camping trip this fall!

Memorial Day

2011-05-30T12:53:00.002-05:00

To those men and women who made the ultimate sacrifice to safeguard this country's freedoms, we remember you today. To all the servicemen and women, thank you as well. Everyone have a great Memorial Day!

Minnow catcher

2011-05-16T19:02:00.003-05:00

My son participated in a two-day youth tennis tournament this weekend where he did well. On Sunday he was too tired to fish but youngest daughter wanted to head to the park and use her dip net to catch minnows. So that is what she and I did.

With her dip net and mason jar, my youngest went around the edge of the park pond swiping the water and collecting tiny fish. She was having fun. In one spot I sort of directed the fish towards her.

So that she could see in the water a little better being it was sunny, I had her wear a pair of Native Eyewear polarized sunglasses that I picked up on sale at REI recently. I had not been able to find my good pair of Smith Optics sunglasses that I have owned for over six years.

Anyways, those sunglasses looked really big on her. We spent about 45 minutes scooping up minnows so she had a couple of dozen in the jar. We released them all and left. She had fun.

One thing I noticed was there were a lot of sunfish in that pond so at some point I will be back with my son with the 5 weight fly rods to catch 'em.

Community Park Fishing

2011-05-01T08:48:00.008-05:00

A chunky green sunfish

This morning my wife was helping with coordinating a car wash fundraiser for the high school band so I had the kids. I told my son and youngest daughter to get dressed as I was going to take them to a local park with a couple of ponds that we haven't been to in a long time.

I used to fish this park years ago and it used to contain large brim and some decent bass but droughts and then a really bad flood years ago changed it and seemed to have wiped out most of the bass. The park went through a renovation last year with a new club house with deck, sidewalks, new playscape, parking and boulders placed along the pond shore for small casting decks. It is quite nice now but how was the fishing?

These little guys were super colorful ... and fun!

I only took my son's Albright 5wt fly rod as I wanted him to practice his casting and catch some brim. We started with the quick reminder lesson. His false casts had nice tight looks but whenever he made his final cast, he would drop the tip and open up the loop so we worked on that. It was also very windy which for any fly fisher is a pain. He soon started catching small brim quite regularly.

After a while, he mentioned going over to the second pond on the other end of the park. The only problem with that pond is that except for one spot, it is surrounded by trees. Of course, the one spot faces into the wind so casting was a challenge. However, he was catching some better quality brim. He ended up landing a big green sunfish as well as small bass for some of the better catches from this spot. After a couple hours being at the park, regularly catching brim, we all got hungry and left to get pizza for lunch.

I enjoyed taking the kids out to the park and watching my son fish. I hope to do this again soon.

Spring Break Fishing

2011-03-28T20:50:00.007-05:00

A couple of weeks ago, my cousin invited me to fish with him in Corpus during Spring Break. On a Tuesday afternoon, I drove over to Corpus Christi. My son came along with me which made me quite happy. My cousin suggested we sleep in his travel trailer which is pretty nice with a double bed, a couple of bunk beds, stove, microwave, bathroom, etc. Really nice.

We were up before 6am and on the water by 7:30am. The weather was on the cool side but it looked like it was going to be a nice day. We would be fishing with live shrimp under popping cork today since my cousin said that would be the ticket.

I think I was the first to pick up a fish, a trout. My son also picked up a keeper black drum. Through the morning until the fish turned off around 11am, we probably caught close to 30 fish, mostly trout and had 17 keepers in the cooler. I picked up a 24" speckled trout and a 26" redfish that ran under the boat but somehow I landed him even without a net.

There was one incident that made me feel pretty bad afterwards. I was casting a large topwater plug and at some point and as I snapped the rod forward, my lure hit and hooked my cousin in the shoulder! My cousin didn't even flinch. I hit him so hard that two of the #1 treble hooks bent open! He had two holes in his flesh and his shirt from the hooks. I was thankful that they didn't penetrate past the barbs or we would have been in real trouble.

We returned to the ramp shortly afterwards to clean up and prepare for the evening.

We planned to run the sail line that evening. We made our way by truck to a spot to run it. My son and I got into waders and started to setup the lures on the sail and let it out. In the distance, you could hear coyotes yipping. A couple of trucks were about 400 yards away shooting into a large dune. You could hear the ricochet bullets zinging. Eventually, they ran out of ammo and left.

Fishing was slow and we caught three fish in two hours so we packed it up and decided to turn in.

I was thankful to have had the opportunity to fish with my cousin again. I was thankful for the fish, too. Most of all, I was really happy that my son got to join me this time and had some new experiences.

Fishing adventures

2010-12-28T19:42:00.007-06:00

I originally had a trip to Corpus Christi planned this week which got canceled. I was planning on taking my 13-year old son with me. Although today was a rainy and drizzly day, I decided it would still be fine to take the boy out on the river to test out his new waders.

Finding a pair of decent waders for my son was a challenge. Youth waders are just too small for his size 9 1/2 feet. Men's waders had the right size for his feet but the chest was too big. We eventually found a pair of Magellan waders sold at Academy in a men's small that were close enough to work. At some point when he stop growing so quickly, we'll invest in a good pair of Simms waders.

So, we got to the river and right away noticed something odd along the shoreline. It looked much more bare than I recall. Some time ago this year we had a lot of rain and flooding. Apparently, the river flooded heavily as well. A lot of the trees were broken and stripped by the flood water. We could see large trunks with roots 10 to 15 feet up in the branches of other trees.

We paddled upriver and the water was quite clear and certain parts of the river had changed once again. The large pool where I took my son had a long gravel bar now dividing it. While we could see catfish, gar, bass and carp in the deep clear water, we could not get them to bite.

We fished below some rapids as well as above but got absolutely no bites. My son was wading across different parts of the river getting used to the waders. He said it felt weird when the water compressed the waders around his legs.

Eventually we paddled back to the low water crossing and headed home where I made him some hot chocolate and we prepared for dinner with family at a sushi restaurant. I would have liked him to have caught fish but I know that being out with his dad paddling along the river and wading in the cold water with his new waders was an adventure for him. After all, fishing trips big or small are adventures which is why I even write about them.

Thanksgiving turkey

2010-11-24T09:33:00.004-06:00

Not fishing this week as we are planning to have Thanksgiving with my wife's parents who were not able to make it up to our place this year. Therefore I am working on the turkey today that we will take to them tomorrow.

For the past 14 years or so, I have been roasting a turkey on our smoker grill outside. I use a combination of mesquite wood and charcoal. Charcoal to help keep some consistent heat and the mesquite for the wood flavor. Originally, I tried smoking a turkey at the lower temperatures but that took forever. I usually had to start past midnight to ensure it was done for dinner in the evening. I now just roast it at a higher temperature simply for convenience and due to the fact that I brine the turkey for around 12 hours, it does not affect the juiciness of the meat.

As I mentioned, the brine has been the key to maintaining a moist turkey. I basically use the following (for a 12 to 14 pound turkey):

2 gallons of water
2 cups brown sugar
1 1/2 cup kosher or non iodized salt
1/2 cup dried thyme
1/2 cup dried rosmary

I stir that all together in a pot big enough to hold the turkey fully submerged in the brine and chill it in the refrigerator for a couple of hours. I add the thawed turkey in the brine and then refrigerate once more for 8 to 12 hours.

The morning I prepare the fire, I remove the turkey from the brine, rinse it off and put in an aluminum pan and cover it tightly with aluminum foil. I then roast it for whatever length of time it needs for the size and towards the last two or three hours, I remove the foil to brown the turkey. If you don't use foil, due to the wood smoke, the turkey will come out almost black and the mesquite flavor will be a bit too strong.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving y'all!

Paddle, fish, eat, sleep

2010-11-14T11:05:00.004-06:00

Thursday afternoon I drove down to Corpus Christi to get in some fishing before the cold front arrived early Saturday morning. My cousin had planned for us to fish a few spots in the Laguna Madre from our kayaks. It would turn out to be a long day.

We got started around 8am fishing along the JFK bridge that spans over to North Padre Island. I picked up one keeper trout and the occasional "dinker". We paddled for almost 3 miles around the bridge and just not finding any decent fish. We were also dodging showers and towards the end of the morning I could see a whiteout on the opposite side of the bridge so we anchored underneath the bridge just as a small squall passed through with some heavy showers and rain. We decided to load up and drive to a different spot once it cleared.

This other location had some deeper holes as well as lots of oyster shell and looked much more promising plus no rain in sight anywhere. No sooner than we got there, we picked up a few undersized redfish. Moving along to shallower water, I later picked up a 21" redfish, lost another and then before leaving caught a 23" redfish. I thought I was going to lose that last one as it made a run under my kayak, the line wrapper around my paddle. As I struggled to undo that lifting the paddle with one hand while still fighting the fish with the other, I got it free and then the line got wrapped up with the stringer I had the first redfish tied to. Luckily the second redfish reversed direction and somehow got untangled and I directed him to the starboard side of the kayak where I finally netted him. Victory! One interesting feature of this redfish was the spot on the tail looked sort of like a heart shape which you can see in the photo. BTW, the rechargeable batteries in my digital camera no longer hold a charge worth a darn so I had to take these photos with my camera phone.

Later that evening with fished near Bird Island Basin and I was only able to pick up a couple of keeper trout. We were so tired that we were done by 10pm. Almost 14 hours fishing off and on that day.

On Saturday, the cold front came through as predicted bring rain, high winds and colder temperatures. In a way, I was glad because I don't think I could have paddled around and fished all day again. So, we had a good breakfast, cleaned the fish and as we got back to my cousin's home we saw this old 20s Ford at the end of the street. One of my cousin's neighbors restored old Ford's and he had a couple of beautiful ones in his garage that he was working on. I never knew that.

On Saturday evening after I had gotten back home, I went over to my brother-in-law's home and prepared the redfish on the half shell on the grill and we had that for dinner before watching the Manny Pacquiao / Antonio Margarito boxing match on pay-per-view. It was a great evening. Later in the week, we'll have some of the trout for dinner as well.

As always, I had a great time with my cousin and his wife and hope to see them again soon.

Lake Travis on a cloudy day

2010-10-22T10:57:00.006-05:00

I got up before 7am today which is late for me but it was my day off and I still had my kayak and gear in the truck from yesterday so no need to rush. This gave me time to have a muffin and coffee and contemplate on where on the Lake I would go today. Since I pretty much had not been to nearby Lake Travis in months, I decided to go to nearby Sandy Creek park and launch from there.

I was on the water by 8am and the sky was still very overcast with some sprinkles which was actually a good thing. I like fishing under these conditions. One thing though, it was starting to get a little windy. This I don't like as it tends to push my kayak around and my casts start to get worse than normal.

A minute after I got on the water, a gentlemen with a spin rod and fishing vest popped onto shore and asked me if I had any luck. I mentioned I had just gotten here. He said he could see some activity but hadn't had much luck and off he went. This was slightly disappointing as I know it is peak full moon time and sometimes that does affect the catching during the day. I was not going to be deterred and continued on.

One reason I decided on Lake Travis is that it is close to my house and this week's fishing report that I read last night said folks were catching bass in 5 to 8 feet of water with plastic worms and top waters. Those are fly rod accessible depths. I ended up leaving the Gurgler fly tied on that I used yesterday when I fished the Llano river.

To get out of the wind, I went around a cove and started pounding the banks. I came across one of those PVC pipes that people use to draw water out of the lake. In the past, I usually have had pretty good luck catching fish around them. For some reason they are attracted to this structure. My fly got some nibbles from some small brim. Suddenly, the fly disappeared and my line started moving and I set the hook. At first it felt like I had gotten it snagged on a log as my rod tip bent over. It was a fish! For a few seconds it ended up pulling my kayak along. Fortunately I had my small hand net and netted a nice largemouth bass that had the fly hook in the skin on the inside of its mouth. The bass measured just shy of 18" and seemed a little thin for its size but it had still put up a good fight. I was excited now as the fish was caught in about 3 feet of water so I was hoping more were close to the banks.

I ended up catching a couple of smaller fish at the end of the cove in the back of boat docks. I had to force one over one of the mooring lines so it didn't tangle me up. The wind started to pick up again and after it blew my hat into the water, I decided to call it a morning. I was only on the water for two hours but it was still great fun plus I caught a few bass. Better than working in the office y'all!

Fishing on the Llano RIver

2010-10-21T14:21:00.009-05:00

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!

Land that time forgot?

2010-10-10T20:32:00.009-05:00

I need a snack. Seen the FGFF guys around?

This weekend the family and I traveled north for a weekend of camping with three other families at Dinosaur Valley State Park near Glen Rose. This is the hometown of my casting instructor, Mr. Allen "Ol' Al" Crise, who passed away earlier this year. I was looking forward to fishing the same river, the Paluxy, that he did since it ran through the park.

The first morning I did some recon of some of the spots on the river and found most of them were clear and very shallow but running. Eventually we did find a pool called Blue Hole that seemed deep. There were also several dino tracks along the shoreline. This what the river looked like from the top of the canyon.

The river is well known for the various dinosaur tracks imprinted in the limestone riverbed that can be seen better when the water is really low though we did see quite a few. They were discovered in the early 1900s. They weren't as big as I thought. Supposedly some human like prints were found nearby as well which are thought to be fakes or those of smaller dinosaurs and they just happen to look like human prints. I wish there were some prehistoric size bass in the river. While looking into the head of the pool, we saw a couple of really nice bass over 16".

We then went back for our gear and found some spots to fish and started to fish the pool. The boys also did a little bit of exploring. We weren't there for very long when all of a sudden like 40 people started coming down the trail to the river edge making all sorts of a ruckus. And as they say, "that was that". The boys left the rod and did some more exploring. Eventually, we gave up as people kept pouring in a returned to camp. My son said there was a spot to wade in the shallows down river from the pool so I decided to return in the afternoon.

In the afternoon when I returned there were still quite a few people but not as many so I decided to give it a try once again. This time, a troop of about 50 boy scouts came down. However, I think they scared a small school of bass to my side of the river and I was able to catch one. People were swimming in the pool so I headed upstream to explore a bit. The water was cool, clear and not as deep. Unfortunately, after a mile or so I did not find another deep pool so I came back and headed back to camp.

The next morning the whole gang hiked down to another section of the river that I had not been to so we could look for more tracks. There were a few here and I walked down to a sandy bend that had a decent hole away from everyone. However, we had to return to camp to pack to leave. So even though I didn't get to fish it, the weekend was lots of fun hanging out with all the families at camp. We were already planning our next multi-family camping trip. I was hoping for something along the coast but most likely it will be one of the camps along the East Texas piney woods, hopefully with a lake or river near camp. Can't wait.

Fall is almost upon us

2010-09-05T14:01:00.004-05:00

Early yesterday morning I headed to fish one of my favorite spots on the San Gabriel river. The morning air temperature was pleasant. A sign that autumn is almost here.

As I got out to unload my gear at the low water crossing, I could here gunfire all around. Another sign that fall is almost here. Dove season started on September 1 here in Texas and hunters were out in force this morning.

As I unloaded my kayak, there was also the unmistakable stench of something dead. Nearby in a ditch, there was a young dead pit bull puppy partially covered by a cloth. I am not sure if someone dumped him there or if he got run over. Regardless, I hate seeing that sort of thing.

As I paddled and waded two miles upriver to my destination, shotgun blasts continued all the way. Like I said, the hunters were out in force. About 5 or 6 years ago, I was fishing a small lake early in the morning that was near some property where some dove hunters were close by. So close in fact that as they shot up at the doves, the pellets rained down around me. No harm but just strange.

When I got to my destination, I tied on a black and purple #4 cactus shrimp and cast it to a spot along the opposite bank that looked "bassy". On my second cast, the line started moving down river. Fish on! I then saw what looked like a 3lb bass shoot upriver and head to a broken piece of concrete pipe and he pulled hard and then he broke me off at the 10lb tippet! Dang!

I caught a few small bass here and there but never saw the 3lb bass again. I also had spotted gar taking swipes at my flies. One surprise was catching a nice Rio Grande Cichlid. I think this is the first I have caught this year. I've caught several in past years. I find the turquoise dots on their body to be a really nice color.

On my paddle back, I ran across a father and son in WS Tarpon 120 kayak. His 7 or so year old son had a small fishing pole with him. We exchanged hellos and asked how each did. Apparently, the boy did really well and had a limit of bass on a stringer. Pretty impressive and they likely had a tasty lunch. I thought that was such as great lesson being taught to another generation.

It was a great morning on the water. The river had a bit more algae and color to it than in the spring but all in all still running which was a blessing. I hope to get out fishing again soon.

The river changes yet stays the same

2010-06-12T15:15:00.006-05:00

I haven't been to the San Gabriel river since the first week of January. I had a chance to go out there this morning so I packed up my flies and 5wt and got there at 8am.

Water felt really good on a warm, muggy morning. Rains from a week ago look to have washed away some gravel bars and reshaped the river, widening it somewhat.

I paddled up to the first pool and caught a small bass and a couple of brim. I saw a lot of spotted gar in the area so I tried to sight cast to them just for the challenge since they looked hungry. It was windy so several times, the wind would "feather" the surface making it very difficult to find the fish. I did get a couple of gar to chase my fly and take a swipe at it but no hook ups.

I continued upriver and passed a couple of guys dragging a small canoe downriver as we walked on the shallow flats. I got to deeper water and continued the paddle upriver to a favorite spot I call "The Narrows" because it is a section where the river narrows for a small length. Above it is a S shaped chute. This place usually hold a lot of fish (bass, brim, carp, catfish, and gar) because it is like a conveyor belt of prey for these guys. They just park and wait for something to sweep by.

At the narrows, I caught another small bass. After catching it, I looked down and saw what I thought was a carp at first but it turned out to be a huge river bass! It looked around 4 to 5 pounds. It then disappeared into the deeper, darker water along the opposite bank. All attempts to coax it back out failed. I walk up a little to the S chute to try my luck there.

I like this part because as the water comes down and turns, there is a pool on the opposite side of slow water. I like to cast my fly in there because there are usually predators there. I picked up couple of nice brim and then as I cast to the exposed roots of a tree, I got a really good hit and the fish swam into the current, putting a nice bend in my 5wt. I played the fish to the bank and lipped a nice healthy 1.5lber! It seems this bass and the brim liked the #4 chartreuse bucktail clouser minnow I was using.

After a mom and dad and couple of young kids all paddled by in their individual kayaks, I ended up making my way downstream to head home for lunch.

It was nice to get out again and nicer still actually catching some fish. I hope I get another chance soon.

Mother's Day weekend family camping trip

2010-05-11T21:47:00.005-05:00

This past Saturday, the whole family went to a park along Lake Georgetown in nearby Georgetown, Texas for a Mother's Day weekend camping trip. We joined three other families we know to camp on three adjacent camping sites. This was our first time at this park and it was actually very nice. I brought along a ton of stuff which included some fishing tackle and our two fishing kayaks.

Weather conditions on Saturday were fairly nice with overcast skies and temperatures in the 70s to 80s. The days before we had started seeing temperatures with highs in the low 90s but a cool front came through late Friday evening. The one thing that wasn't particularly positive for kayaking was winds between 15 to 18 mph with gusts above 25 mph.

Lake Georgetown, like pretty much all the Texas lakes, is a man made lake caused by damming the North fork of my beloved San Gabriel river. It is a good size lake covering about 1,297 acres. Besides largemouth bass, crappie, white bass, catfish, and striped bass it supposedly also contains smallmouth bass which is a species I have yet to catch on the fly.

The kids all wanted to paddle the kayaks so we went down to the swimming area of the park and I let them paddle around. After they had their fill, I took one of the kayaks on a scouting paddle to go fishing on Sunday morning. The shoreline was mostly rocky with some vegetation but not a lot. Not a lot of ledges either that I could tell. The wind was pushing me quickly which meant I would have a hard paddle back so I didn't go far and came back to the beach.

That evening I made burgers, hotdogs and sausage for 17 of us and we ate really well. I was stuffed! We made smores and toasted marshmellows, played some games and told some stories around the campfire. I turned in around 10pm.

I got up just before 6am and loaded up the kayak in my truck and headed down to the shore. It wasn't as windy as the day before but as soon as the sun started coming up, so did the wind. I fished the shoreline for about an hour and got just one bite. My stomach was grumbling so I came back in and headed back to camp.

At camp, I started up a grill to heat up an iron pan to make pancakes while someone else made omelettes. Once again, I ate way too much! Sometime later we all went down to the shore to fish for a little bit before returning for lunch and then packing everything up to leave before 2pm. Needless to say we didn't catch anything.

Regardless of the fishing, the rest of the weekend was a lot of fun and I hope my kids had fun, too. We plan to do this again in the fall when the weather is cooler.

Kayak anglers in Corpus Christi are shot at

2010-05-07T17:42:00.002-05:00

Read this story a couple of days ago and my cousin in Corpus saw it on the news as well. Pretty scary night for those two kayak anglers. Thank God for the game warden and that the two kayakers came out OK.

The new pocket fisherman?

2010-04-26T10:28:00.008-05:00

Recently, I received a Emmrod kayak king compact fishing rod combo as a birthday gift from a family member. Obviously, it is because I fish out of a kayak. It took us a while to figure out how to assemble the stainless steel coil tip. I appreciate all gifts given to me but I don't think this one will replace my Sage XPs anytime soon but I thought we should keep an open mind, be appreciative and maybe be surprised by trying to fish with it.

So, anyone remember the famous Popeil Pocket Fisherman? My dad had one when I was a kid back in the 70s. I remember trying to fish with it and the biggest problem with it was casting since the tip really didn't load or flex much. The Emmrod sort of reminds me of it except it has a coil in it that I suspect is meant to help in casting. My son was particularly excited about trying it out and he had watched the video on how to do a slingshot cast with it so we picked up some worms and headed to a nearby pond for a trial.

Personally, I couldn't see just how this rod can cast as far as a 6' fishing rod or have the same leverage if you actually caught a fish with it. I was able to cast as far as with my daughter's first Barbie pole which is to say it didn't cast too bad but with a light weight, less than 1/8 ounce, the coil tip wouldn't load and it cast fairly poorly. Obviously, this was meant to cast slightly heavier lures but we didn't have any at the pond we were at.

My son decided to fish with it anyways for a while. He eventually figured out how to cast it well enough but the fish were not biting though the red-ear turtles were going nuts and attacking the worms and were careful not to hook any of them. My son was sort of disappointed in the lack of fish and in the casting ability of the little rod though he wants to give it another test sometime. We may bring it along with us on a camping trip we have scheduled for Mother's Day weekend coming up.

Supposedly the rod weighs 8 ounces but I think it is probably a little more than that. This is a big difference in weight from my son's 8' 5wt Albright fly rod and reel that probably weighs less than half of that.

In looking at the website, I was astounded to find that besides a spincast and baitcaster version, they have a fly rod version of this! It doesn't really mention what the line weight to use should be. I have had fly fishing instructors that could cast and shoot plenty of line with just the tip section of a 4 piece fly rod but this seems weird.

Cheap Trick at SXSW

2010-03-20T11:30:00.007-05:00

I am a product of 80s music for the most part. While Hendrix is probably the only exception, I was a teen during the 80s so the music of that period is some of my favorite. During the 80s, I went to many Spring Break concerts on the beaches of South Padre Island. I saw Steve Ray Vaughn a couple of times as well as a lot of the popular bands of the day and one of my most memorable was the one with Cheap Trick. I thought Cheap Trick was such a cool band. I went out and bought the "At Budokan" live album and really liked it. I have a "best of" CD somewhere that I have played for the kids a few times. All my kids know "I Want You to Want Me" and "Surrender".

Yesterday evening, I went with my wife and family downtown to Austin's Auditorium Shores for a free concert for the South by Southwest (SXSW) festival headlined by no other than Cheap Trick. Lots of freaky looking folks around but once Cheap Trick took the stage at 8pm, all was forgotten and we enjoyed the music until about 10pm. It was like 1986 all over again. Cool.

Milton Reimers Ranch Park

2010-03-18T20:26:00.009-05:00

This morning my wife informed me that my son had a tennis lesson and my youngest daughter had a birthday party to go to and suggested I got fishing. I had taken vacation this week to get some things done along with doing things with the family such as when we went to the Star of Texas Rodeo yesterday. I decided to go to a place I haven't been to in years; Milton Reimer's Ranch Park near Dripping Springs.

Reimer's was acquired by Travis County in 2006 from the original owner as part of the county park system. It offers bike trails, hiking, rock climbing and of course fishing. During the early spring, it is a popular destination for the annual white bass run as the white bass enter the creeks and rivers from Lake Travis to spawn. That is, when there is water. This year, thanks to all the rain we've been having, the Pedernales river is running at peak capacity.

So, being unprepared, it took me some time to get all my gear together this morning and load up my kayak. Since white bass was the target, I took my 5wt with Teeny T-130 sinking line and a selection of Clouser minnow and Cypert minnow flies.

I arrived at the park around 11am and finally was in the water about 15 minutes later. There were several folks fishing by the time I got there. I found a spot I could wade and proceeded to fish.

While I was able to see fish in the water, I was only able to catch one keeper white bass in the almost hour I spent there so I started heading upstream. I paddled about a mile and a half to a set of rapids and there were about three guys fishing around them so I kept going but the next set of rapids were too fast and there wasn't enough sandy bottom there so I turned back.

As I passed the first rapids I noticed two of the guys had moved downstream so I beached just below the rapids. This spots looked ideal because there was slower water with seams meeting up to the faster water. Additionally the water had a little more color than where I was fishing the first time. And lastly, the bottom was sandy.

Within the first two casts, I caught my second keeper, a 11" male. In the next hour and 45 minutes, I caught around 20 white bass from 11" to 12" with one going 14" so they were mostly males.

The bite was really on for a while and all the fish were caught on an olive green and white translucent supreme hair clouser that I eventually snagged and lost. It also had a bit of peackcock flash on it plus brass dumbell eyes to keep it on the bottom.

That seemed to be the trick, keep the fly bouncing off the bottom so that basically required me to cast the sinking line and then stick the rod down towards the river bottom so there was no slack in the line. The bite was sometimes hard to detect and just the lightest of pressure.

The fish all fought hard for their size. I was thinking of staying until I got 20 on the stringer but my wife had mentioned she was going to go out with some of her friends so I started my way back to the put in.

Just as I was getting in sight of the primitive launch, I saw a couple of empty anchored kayaks start shaking and one flipped all on its own. Very weird sight. It shook violently and a couple of PFDs came off the kayaks. A boater nearby told me it was a small water spout that did it. Weirdest thing I've seen in a while.

Once I got home, I cleaned all 14 fish which took a while. I forgot how small the fillets are but it should be enough for dinner tomorrow. I am very grateful for these fish and the chance to get out on such a nice day. I hope to do it again soon.

Snowing in Central Texas

2010-02-23T15:52:00.006-06:00

Got some of that weird white fluffy stuff today. Lake levels should be close to normal after it melts. Cool!

The passing of a great Texas fly fishing master

2010-02-18T09:41:00.006-06:00

I was reading through Ken Morrow's blog today and saw the news that Allen Crise of Glen Rose, Texas passed away this week. I was really saddened by this news. Mr. Crise was one of the few Certified Master Casting Instructors in Texas. He was also my teacher for fly casting and fly tying when I took it up in 2004 and I imagine he probably taught a good number of my fellow Texas fly fisherman. He was a great gentlemen as well. My heart goes out to his family and friends. I'll really miss the man and never forget him.

A little mud on the boots

2010-02-07T20:57:00.007-06:00

A couple of days ago I drove the four hours from my home near Austin to my cousin's house in Corpus Christi looking forward to a couple of nice days of fishing.

Right before 7:00am on Friday we got to Oso Bay and launched on a high tide. The water was brackish from quite a bit of water flowing in from Oso Creek due to recent rain. We almost got the truck stuck in the mud before we launched and later that day spent over $10 at the car wash trying to get most of that mud off the underside.

We paddled for a while and got to our destination and found a couple of wade fisherman there. One of them was doing well catching trout. I had a really difficult time catching anything. I hooked up once with something that put a deep bend in my rod and pulled drag only to do a long distance release of it. My cousin was doing quite well for himself with several trout on his stringer. I also caught a small multi-spotted redfish with a pink worm fly I was dragging on the bottom.

An hour into fishing, we heard some woots from the wade fisherman and turned to see them holding one of the largest trout I have ever seen! We went over to where they were to check it out. The boga grip read around 9 1/2 pounds! They measured it at around 31 1/2" long! It was a once in a lifetime speckled trout! The guys, visiting from Houston, were shaking from excitement and with one of their cameras I took a photo of the two holding the trout. I had left my camera in my dry bag in the kayak and kick myself for not having it with me so you could have seen this trout.

After a couple more hours of fishing, we headed back to the truck to get something to eat, clean the truck and prepare for some fishing that night.

That evening we went to Bird Island basin and between crossing the JFK bridge, the temperature dropped around 12 degrees. It was pretty cold that evening with the humid northeast wind. In addition, the mosquitoes were out with a vengeance. We were only to pick up one additional keeper black drum before we got back to the house around 11:30pm. A long, tiring day. I slept like a log that night.

Saturday's plan was to fish the same area in Oso Bay though we got a later start. I did manage a couple of trout. The tide this time around was pretty low so there was a lot of walking through a deep muddy bottom.

And folks in Europe pay big bucks for mud like this!

That afternoon when we got back and cleaned everything up, showered, changed and drove to Port Aransas to have dinner at a place called Moby Dick's. I ordered their fried shrimp plate and it was really good! It was a good way to end the trip, enjoying some good food and company of my cousin and his wife. This time I got to bring a few fillets back. I am looking forward to the next trip.

Maybe I should take up ice fishing

2010-01-09T15:22:00.003-06:00

The last time I went fishing in below freezing conditions was early in the morning on a day in February 2003 (same day of the Columbia shuttle re-entry disaster). While I was doing OK catching some white bass that morning, I had problems with the tip top guide accumulating ice and then my monofilament line breaking off on casts as it absorbed a little water and then froze. I have an old fishing buddy who grew up in Minnesota and he mentioned fishing through the ice and I thought that was insane.

The past couple of days we have had record low temperatures due to the same bitter cold weather gripping a large portion of the country. Yesterday we had lows in the teens and barely got above freezing. This morning it was 13F! Needless to say I did not head out to the lake or the river to try and catch popsicle bass. I just hope that this cold weather doesn't cause any fish kills on the coast as in years past during long lasting, real cold weather caused the death of lots of speckled trout.

Anyways, I just dumped out the 2 1/2" to 3" thick solid piece of ice from the metal washing tub that serves as the water bowl for my dogs. Hope it thaws out tomorrow.

Waders required

2010-01-02T20:24:00.005-06:00

I've had my kayak loaded in the back of my truck for a couple of days now itching to get some more fishing in. We had a cold front come in on the evening of New Year's eve and I got up late on New Year's day and had a few things to do so I didn't get out. I had a late start this afternoon but thought I would try the San Gabriel river once again.

Last time I was here the water level was high and the current was fast. The level went down just a bit and so did the current so that was good. The thing this time is the water was cold (probably in the 50s) and it was extremely clear like green glass. I haven't seen it this clear in a long time.

As I paddled upstream headed towards a favorite spot about 2 miles upstream, I could see some fish, mostly carp and spotted gar, every once in a while. I could see the bottom in spots that I know where around 6 feet deep.

The rapids were not too bad to get past but the shallower, fast water just upstream was a pain as I had to wade it since I couldn't get my paddle stroke deep enough in the water to make much headway that way.

Just before I got to the section I wanted I came across a deep pool that held several dozen spotted gar with some around 3 feet in length that looked like torpedoes. I've caught them only a couple of times when they have been feeding but I was really after bass this time so I kept going.

Once I arrived at my destination I realized that the river had changed here. It looked as if flooding from rain changed it somewhat. Since it took me about an hour just to get there and the sun was already getting low, I only had a few minutes to actually fish. I had to wade in the cold water since there was brush along the shoreline in my way.

No fish were caught and so I headed back to the low water crossing. Needless to say, the paddle downriver went way faster. I did get out once and misjudged the depth in the clear water as I went from shin deep water and stepped off into a drop-off where the water came up to my waist! Good thing I didn't fall!

I'm grateful that I was able to get out on the water again even if I haven't caught that first fish of the year. I will try again soon.

Last fish of 2009

2009-12-31T16:13:00.006-06:00

I've been on vacation for just over a week and a half now. Time seems to have gone by pretty quickly with family visiting through Christmas and right before the new year. The wife said I should get out and do some fishing so I did.

Since I had not fished around my favorite section of Lake Travis in some time, I headed to Arkansas Bend to see how things looked. When I got there I noticed the boat ramp was still closed and even though we are finishing December with a 2" surplus of rain, the lake still looks awfully low. I drove down along the shoreline which is typically several feet underwater and launched my kayak.

The coves I usually fish felt much smaller as I paddled around. I fished a few points, large coves and finger coves for a while with not much luck. I spotted what looked like a carp rooting but then noticed it swimming rapidly into deeper water while still on top and proceeded to follow it.

Normally, if you get close to a carp and it spots you, it will high tail it out of there but this carp must have been sick or injured because I was able to paddle right next to it and it didn't submerge or try to evade me.

I should have known better than to down some coffee before heading off to paddle around and fish as I had to find a suitable beach to land on that had no homes around to relieve myself as I was about to burst! Whew!

After I paddled off again, I saw a splash that gave away the location of a bass and that turned out to be the only fish I was able to catch. It also turned out to be the last fish I caught for 2009. It was a spunky little bass though.

I hope 2010 brings more fishing time and better catches and I hope it does as well for anyone else reading this. Happy New Year!

Pier fishing across South Padre Island

2009-12-29T12:29:00.004-06:00

Last week, just before Christmas I went to visit family in deep South Texas. I had a couple of hours to spare so I took my son to the Pirates Landing fishing pier in Port Isabel just before the bridge that spans over to beautiful South Padre Island. We would of course try and do some inshore saltwater fishing.

Driving through Port Isabel we looked at the landmark lighthouse and my son asked me about it. I remember as a kid climbing up the spiraling staircase during a school trip. It is really narrow inside but kind of cool. Some other time we'll come with the rest of the family and take our own tour of it. Today we were going to fish.

The pier has a restaurant and bar next to it and it has the biggest rod and reel I have ever seen there. Interestingly enough, it is a fly rod. Here is a photo of it.

Is that a 200 weight you got there?

It was a bit cold out so of course not many locals were on the pier and we had our choice of where to fish. According to the guys working the counter, sheepshead was the species most likely to be caught.

I haven't seen a sheepshead in quite a while. It is wide bodied fish with silvery white color and large convict black stripes across the body. It's a good fighter and quite tasty.

Sometimes you see them in Chinese or Vietnamese restaurants at the buffet, broiled whole. If you look at the skeleton you can see why they are called a sheephead. Their mouth and teeth look a lot like that of sheep and other grazers. They are mostly mollusk feeders so I expect they use those teeth for scraping off barnacles and such.

In the distance my son noticed a barge along the channel heading towards the bridge. As we were watching it slowly passing through the center of the bridge, I mentioned to him a tragic accident that occurred right there back in 2001. A barge struck a couple of columns late one evening which later caused an 80 foot section of the highest point in the bridge to collapse leading to the deaths of four people that drove off the missing section into the water below. This was just a week after Septemeber 11 when folks were still dealing with that tragedy. When they repaired the two sections of the bridge above, they look to have reinforced it with steel, I supposed to help avoid a similar issue in the future.

We rigged up a Carolina rig and cast it out tipped with shrimp. However after an hour and a half we didn't catch a single fish. It was also dark now and getting colder so we left. I was quite disappointment not to have been able to have my son get into any fish. In the past, we had fished at this same spot and had fish on almost every cast so that is what we were hoping for but it wasn't to be. The sunset was beautiful though.

Maiden voyage on Brushy Creek Lake

2009-11-25T18:19:00.004-06:00

Brushy Creek Lake is a small lake located in Cedar Park near the town of Round Rock. Before it was opened to the public by the city of Cedar Park, people used to trespass and fish the lake illegally. There were rumors of big bass in it and when it first opened, I was there with other fisherman and indeed some large bass were caught (but not by me). I did manage to catch some decent bass, crappie, catfish and even carp there but after a while it seemed "fished out" and it got significantly more difficult to catch a bass though folks on occasion still caught some decent bass over 16".

Due to the small size of this lake, lack of any significant current and lack of motorboats, it seemed an ideal place to take my son so he could continue learning how to maneuver and fish from a kayak.

We got there fairly late in the afternoon. We carried our kayaks to the canoe/kayak launch and then paddled out to a particular spot I wanted to stay in that is popular with a lot of folks.

My son worked on figuring out how to position his kayak and set anchor. I fished close by but let him figure things on his own and explore. He found a small island with what looked like bird houses set aside for owls. There was a mayfly hatch and the sunfish were going crazy but we were here for the bass so our hooks were in the 3/0 size.

We hung around for a while, not really catching anything but enjoying the water nevertheless. As the sun was starting to quickly set, we started to paddle back to the launch in order to get home for dinner. On the paddle back you could hear some classical music, Bach's Brandeburg Concerto I believe, coming from the nearby golf course. The water was glassy smooth and the air was cool. A great way to end the day.

Quick trip on Lady Bird Lake

2009-11-24T21:23:00.004-06:00

This afternoon I continued my quest to find a spot I could fish with my son and this time drove to downtown Austin to check out Lady Bird Lake (previously known as Town Lake).

I parked near the high school and launched from the canoe launch and headed downstream to the entrance to the spring fed Barton Creek.

The water was fairly clear and flowing nicely. The day however was windy. I worked my way upstream and in one location I had a bass trail behind my fly but no bite. That was actually the only fish I was able to see. I kept moving upstream avoiding the inexperienced folks that were trying to paddle the rented canoes from the canoe/kayak rental shack upstream.

I spent some time fishing along a large drain emptying into the creek but without any luck so I started my paddle back since I wanted to get on my way long before rush hour started.

I am considered just going with my son tomorrow to a small lake near our house that I rarely ever fish called Brushy Creek Lake. That's right, it has the words creek and lake together. It is a place I once caught a 16" crappie on the fly there. However, it was heavily overfished and so I stopped going there. Like Lady Bird Lake, it is a motorboat free lake and so kayak friendly. We'll see how this trip works out.

Quick trip on the San Gabriel River

2009-11-24T20:54:00.007-06:00

I am officially on vacation this week so I am trying to catch up on fishing as it has been quite some time since I have been out.

With the rain we have had lately, I decided to head out to one of my favorite spots on the San Gabriel river. I wanted to check it out to see if it was good enough to take my son out on a subsequent trip. I got everything loaded in my truck and left around mid-afternoon.

When I got to the low water crossing, I noticed the water was indeed high and flowing fairly fast. It took some careful planning to get in at the low water bridge and start paddling upstream.

I got to a narrow section in the river with a bend and had a hard time crossing it so I had to beach and drag my kayak a short way over to some slower water so I could continue upstream.

I saw some backs popping up which were obviously carp feeding but by the time I got within casting distance they all disappeared. I thought I had been quite stealthy but apparently not.

I continued upstream towards the rapids and the current was quite strong to where I simply couldn't get close enough so I started drifting back. As I drifted, I cast along promising spots.

I passed a section where a small creek was emptying into the river and decided to try here. I let my fly drift and felt a hit and I had a fish on. Unfortunately it came off after a brief fight. I am positive it was a catfish from the way it fought.

It was a quick drift downstream with the increased flow. It didn't give me much of a chance to fish many spots. I only caught one small sunfish on the way before I finally ended up back at the low water crossing.

All in all I fished maybe for just over an hour. I decided to try a different spot the next day as this spot, while plenty of water now, was a bit risky to bring my son along.

Traditional knives

2009-09-24T18:01:00.014-05:00

Case XX 6332 Stockman (circa 1940-1964)

I came home feeling I should write about something yet I haven't been out fishing since my last trip a few weeks ago. We have thankfully been getting rain almost every other day so I am sort of excited to see what the rivers will look like soon. Maybe I can finally get out to target some wily carp! But until then I think I can talk about another favorite subject of mine, pocket knives.

Much in the same way that some time ago I gravitated from conventional tackle to fly tackle, in recent years I have gravitated from the one-handed "tactical" knives to the more traditional type; slipjoint knives to be more exact.

Case XX U.S.A. 6318 stockman (circa 1965-1969)

Nothing wrong with one-handed knives but just like there is a indescribable satisfaction to casting a fly and then some close quarter combat with a fish that just ate it, there is a satisfying feeling in using a traditional multi-bladed carbon steel slipjoint to, let's say, handle a mundane task such as slicing up an apple. The patina that develops on those blades along with the natural handle materials such as jigged bone also gives the knife a sense of "soul".

When I was 10 or 11 years old my dad got me my first pocket knife, a small Buck stockman. I loved that knife and one day I broke the main blade in half trying to use it to dig out some dirt clods.

Several years ago when we moved my dad into a retirement home, I ended up with the last pocket knife he carried which was an Schrade Old Timer 8OT stockman he purchased in the late 1980s. I cleaned the old knife up being careful not to remove the dark gray patina, sharpened and oiled it and placed it in a knife box for safe keeping though I have carried a couple of times for nostalgia sake.

I have several production traditional slipjoints from makers such as Queen, Case, Schrade and Great Eastern Cutlery. Most are three bladed stockman knives and some other patterns like trappers and canoes in carbon steel and one or two in stainless steel. All are users. I am also on the waiting list of a custom knifemaker now to get my first custom slipjoint made. I can't wait!

Charles May FireAnT fixed blade knife

Being outdoors when I can, I have also seen the need for a good fixed blade knife. I have had a couple of them but I recently received my first custom from a great knifemaker by the name of Charles May from Mississippi. I was looking for a small, high quality pocket sized fixed blade knife for every day use as well as for attaching to my lanyard. He had a model called the FireAnT that was perfect. I communicated some of my requirements (such as S30V stainless steel for when around saltwater) and waited over a year for my turn to come up. Besides being a great knifemaker, Mr. May is known to be a great outdoorsman, hunter and fisherman. I highly recommend his well thought out knives.

My hope is that one day I will pass on some of my well loved traditional slipjoints to my kids or grandkids and hope they experience the satisfaction of carrying and using a lovely old tool.

Grateful for the rain but ...

2009-09-11T18:10:00.003-05:00

I was in South Texas this week to visit family and get some fishing in. I spent Wednesday in Harlingen visiting my parents and then in the evening drove up to Corpus Christi to meet up with my cousin to prepare for fishing on Thursday and Friday.

I woke up at 3am to the sound of heavy rain. By 3:30am there was thunder and lightning. At 5:30am when I got up to head out with my cousin to pick up a friend who was going with us, it was still raining.

We kept watching the radar for a break in the weather. By 9am we headed to the boat ramp. It was still raining but no thunder or lightning. No other trailers at the boat ramp either. This was either foolish or we are hard core.

Since my cousin is a USCG certified captain, I trust him when he said the rain would let up in time for us to fish and that in case it didn't, he knew what to do if the weather got worse.

After an hour of being out on the water, the rain eventually subsided and I took off my rain suit. The afternoon was fairly nice with cloudy skies. The bad part is that we threw everything but the kitchen sink and only ended up with a couple of small trout to show for it. We think all that fresh water getting dumped into the Laguna Madre did something to the fish.

I was hoping to fish some on Friday from the kayak but the morning ended up with more rain and so I headed back home earlier than planned. It rained all the way back to Austin.

I am grateful for the rain but wish it would have rained the week before or after I took vacation to go fishing. I'll get those reds and trout next time.

A little fishin' and a little rockin'

2009-09-07T13:16:00.004-05:00

My son has been asking me all weekend to take him to the local guitar music store for their big labor day sale. He got a Gibson Epihone SG for his birthday in July and probably plays it every day. He invited a guitar player friend of his, John, from school to go with us. But before the store opened we were going to the local pond to fish.

We got to the pond around 9am and my son started off with foam spider fly. John was fishing with a small spinner lure on his baitcasting outfit. I could see some decent bass in the shallows and we saw fish jumping out of the water several times attempting to catch dragonflies. However, catching was a bit slow.

As I was reminding my son on casting the fly, I dropped the fly near a bass and as I stripped, a small bluegill hit it instead. I had not brought a large selection of flies and nothing to mimic the dragonflies so I tied on a size #6 yellow foam gurlger fly and showed my son how to strip so that it would pop and gurgle and I handed the rod over to him. While the fly lay there, I suspect a bass was eyeing it so on his first strip he got a bite and we landed it.

We could see small bass here and there but the boys were eager to head to the guitar store. I did take about 15 or 20 minutes to give John a lesson on the basics of fly casting. He was good at using the baitcaster reel and so I told him that just like he learned to use his thumb in controlling his cast, he would have to teach himself not to break the wrist when casting with fly rod and that it would take practice. Lots of practice.

The boys were done and we came back home to pick up my youngest daughter and we all headed to the guitar store. The boys really like this store because there are plenty of amplifiers and cords to plug the guitars in to play them. There is also a room for the acoustic guitars as well as a room with drum equipment. We spent more than an hour in the store then stopped by a burger joint for lunch before heading back home.

I have to rest for a bit since my oldest daughter and her boyfriend want to borrow my kayaks this afternoon to paddle around a small local lake. I also have to start getting my gear together for a trip I am taking to the coast in the middle of the week.

Have a relaxing Labor Day y'all!

Fishing recession

2009-08-13T18:52:00.003-05:00

Other than taking my son for an hour of fly fishing at a neighborhood pond, I haven't really done much fishing lately. My favorite river is pretty dried up. The nearby lake had its last public ramp closed today due to super low water levels. The lake is over 31 feet below the August average. Sad really. We need rain, and lots of it, badly.

I do have a week of vacation in late September and I hope to be able to go to the coast for a few days to fish for redfish and trout.

I hope my fellow fly fishers in other locations are fairing better than I. In the meantime, I'll hang in there and hope this fishing recession ends soon.

Video of four-wheeling through the pass

2009-07-09T14:37:00.002-05:00

This is a video I shot with my cousin last week when we drove through Yarborough Pass from the beach side to get to the Laguna Madre. We first checked to see that the pass was clear before he revved up and powered through the sand and the pass. I always feel like we are going to flip the truck but of course that doesn't happen. Enjoy...

Potlickers and secret spots

2009-07-04T22:13:00.014-05:00

I got the opportunity to head to Corpus Christi for a day and half to do some fishing with my cousin.

I got there on Thursday afternoon and we decided to fish the lights from one of the bridges. We got to the bridge just before sunset and loaded up the kayaks and paddled out to anchor before the lights from the causeway turned on. There was a strong outgoing tide and the wind was blowing from the opposite direction and so it was tricky anchoring in the right spot but we finally settled in. Nobody was around.

The lights soon turned on and we proceeded to fish. I caught a nice 16 1/2" speckled trout on shrimp fly that I had tied. I also caught a big ladyfish that jumped out of the water several times. My cousin caught a small snook and lots of small trout. At this point is when I noticed a small jon boat with two guys come by and then anchor in the next stall right in the center of the light. Aw man! Potlickers!

That word, "potlicker", needs some clarification because it can have many derogatory meanings in contexts other than fishing which is not the one I want to convey. That is not to say in the fishing context it isn't a derogatory term as it actually is. The best definition I found is from and old fisherman by the name of Earl Humphreys from Corpus who used it as far back as the '30s.

"A potlicker in fishing is a man who is too lazy to go find fish on his own, so he looks for someone who is already on fish and then he moves into that man's spot. He potlicks, he's a lazy bastard who depends on what others find or leave him."

His definition is exactly correct. These are the same folks that anchor in front of you when there are dozens of square miles of water around you and nobody else around and drop a line right where you are fishing. Sometimes I think they are plain ignorant and don't really think they are doing anything wrong. Sometimes I think they do know and are taking advantage of fisherman that did all the work to find fish.

The guys in the jon boat would cast where we were and after a while we told them to let us fish and go cast somewhere else. They pretended not to hear but eventually they just fished their stall and when I moved to a different spot, they took my spot over.

Anyways, I could go on and on about the many potlickers we have run into but that post would scroll off the page. Suffice it to say, we left after a while to leave these guys to fend for themselves. It seemed that after they moved in in the center of the light, the bite stopped.

The next day we decided to fish a remote "secret spot". It is actually not all that secret but we like to use code when speaking about where we are going while out in public. This time we were going to wade an area as opposed to kayaking.

After driving along the beach for an hour or so we saw a couple of signs which were interesting.

You better believe this sign!

This was one of the reasons that I got my CHL.

We got to the spot around 4pm and there was one truck there with two other wade fisherman. They had gone left so we went right.

The water looked good but was bathwater warm. We fished for about two hours with only one small red and a few small trout. We headed back in to drink something and rest for a few minutes then go back out.

As we got to the truck so did the other wade fisherman. My cousin went over to talk with them. We found out they had caught a few nice trout and where and on what. We also found out that one of the wader's blood sugar was dropping quickly and was diabetic. He asked us for soda but all we had to offer was some cold Gatorade. My cousin gave him one and one for his buddy as they left. Hopefully he got better because it was a long way from medical help where we were. There is no cell phone coverage that far out.

We headed back out to fish some more after they left. It was getting to the "magic hour" before sunset. Sure enough, the trout start getting aggressive and we had some steady action and some keepers. Before the sun hit the horizon, we started walking back because we had seen lots of stingrays in the area and they are harder to see at night.

After leaving and driving down the beach my cousin helped pull a Chevy SIlverado HD that had gotten too close to the water and sunk in the soft, wet sand.

As always, I had another set of fishing adventures with my cousin that we can reminisce about on some future fishing expedition. I am looking forward to the next one.

Lake is low and fishin' was slow

2009-06-06T14:22:00.003-05:00

I got to Lake Travis around 6:20am and found a fellow kayaker already at the boat ramp. We exchanged hellos and he continued fishing from shore. He said he was waiting for a friend of his that also fished from a kayak. After a brief pleasant exchange, I paddled off and started fishing.

Water visibility was fairly good. I could see between 3 to 4 feet below the water. In the past clarity has been far better (up to 8 feet or more). The water level was even lower than I recall. I believe the lake is now about 21 feet below the historic June average. Dang drought.

For the next hour I caught zip, nada, nothing. I switched flies to a #6 gray bead chain clouser tied with EP fibers and then caught a small bass.

Fishing was still slow. I caught a couple more bass. One was tiny at about 8 inches long. He was an aggressive little fellow though. As I was putting him in the water, I felt it clamp on to my thumb and after letting go with my other fingers he held on for a minute; enough time for me to snap a photo of him. He finally realized he could spit my thumb out and split and so he did. Good thing bass are not man eaters. I think this one liked the way I tasted.

I then paddled back to the ramp and passed the kayaker from this morning and his friend and I introduced ourselves. He indicated he fishes the surf and bays around Corpus Christi often but mostly the surf.

After I got to the ramp and brought my truck down, the first kayaker also came in while his friend continued to fish. About this time, a park ranger walked down to the two of us. We all started talking about how low the water was noting the ramp would likely be closed for motorboats if it fell another four feet. We could pretty much see the end of the ramp below the water.

As I left the park and headed down the winding country road, passing cyclists, I saw a glimpse of a deer crossing the road ahead and then saw a young fawn that as I approached decided to lie down on the road so I slowed and stopped. Upon getting out to try and get it off the road, it stood up and bolted for the fence and was gone. A couple of cars were now behind me so I got back in my truck and went home.

With June heating up like it is July already, I think I may start fishing the lake at night. I may have better luck then and hopefully it will be slightly cooler, too.

Memorial Day Fishing

2009-05-25T20:56:00.002-05:00

First of, God bless all those that have served and kept this country free!

I got up around 5:30am to prepare to be on the lake by 7am to get in a couple of hours of fishing before heading over to my brother-in-law's house for a Memorial Day cookout.

As I was turning into Jonestown Park I noticed a mini van following me. When I parked, it parked next to me and a guy came out telling me that he was a fellow kayaker and he knew a spot where I could drive the truck to the water's edge to be able to launch quicker. We talked for a bit and he was a fellow member of texaskayakfisherman.com. Nice guy and it was good to talk tackle and kayaks with a fellow kayak angler. He also pointed out a couple of fishing spots I could try. I wished him luck and paddled out to some boat docks across the lake.

About the time I paddled out, a heavy fog set in. I cast around the docks and up against the rocky shoreline. I caught a small bass on a red and yellow seaducer. I later switched to a purple and black crystal minnow. In all, I caught five spunky little bass before paddling back to the put-in to talk with the fellow kayaker before packing up and heading home.

My friend mentioned he had caught a small spotted gar on a bass popper which was interesting. He promised to upload a photo he took on his phone to tkf.com when he wrote up his fishing report.

I enjoyed the short time fishing and also getting the chance to meet a new fellow kayak angler. Hope to fish with him in the future.

Smells great to me

2009-05-22T15:24:00.007-05:00

I took a vacation day today from work in order to go fishing. It has seemed like ages since I have been fishing. Since we had gotten some decent rain last weekend I decided to see what the San Gabriel river looked like.

I got to the low water crossing just before 8am and noticed a little algae and the smell of, well, zoo water. You know the smell from the man made streams at the zoos. That smell. No matter, it smells like the outdoors; take it in!

I headed upstream and found some muddying carp and spent what seemed like twenty minutes trying to get a take. Nothing. I moved on further up the river.

I fished above some rapids and eventually landed a small bass. He looked like he had some sort of skin problem as it had red sores on the body and tail. I spent some more time at the pool but nothing. I moved on further up the river.

Traveling upstream I could see lots of silt on the limestone bottom. It seems that the river keeps getting nastier and nastier every year. I recall when the river looked so pristine (and didn't smell like zoo water).

On some flats I found a tailing carp and started stalking it low to the water. I took a shot and my leader touch it. Spooked the carp. :-(

I found a couple other carp in the shallows but kept alerting them and so they would just swim off out of range.

Continuing on I ran into schools of spotted gar. Most less than a couple of feet long though as I paddled quietly I spooked one that was at least three feet long and looked like a fat torpedo. Whoa!

I finally made it to a narrowing in the river and beached the kayak. This area has always been great for bass and catfish. After a few casts I had a bass. For the next hour it was brim and bass at a good pace. I caught more than a dozen bass with a couple over 2 pounds. One of the bass regurgitated a baitfish when I started removing the fly. Smelled good!

That ain't no tongue with eyes mister!

It started getting pretty hot around noon and knowing I had a long paddle and wade back to the low water crossing I headed back out. As I paddled back under the shade of the huge trees along the shore, I would hear the loud buzzing of swarms of bees working the flowering plants. I also saw a large deer dash into the thicket ahead of me. Cool!

Too bad y'all can't smell me now (especially after pulling the kayak out through that nutrient rich black river mud). It smells like I've been fishing!

Easter fishing

2009-04-12T19:15:00.004-05:00

Last night we went to Easter vigil mass and today on Easter Sunday we spent the entire day with family, had a great lunch, and the kids had the traditional Easter egg hunt. Later that afternoon I took my son and youngest daughter out to the YMCA lake for some more practice with his fly rod.

Not surprisingly there were some families out there enjoying the park as well as fishing. We found a spot in the shade and my son proceeded to cast and fish. During all of this, I tried offering advice to correct issues I saw but otherwise he was fishing. It didn't take long before the first bluegill hookup!

He caught another fish and we moved around a bit and worked on the casting in the meantime and tried a few different flies.

After discussing some strategies about fishing the edges of weed lines, my son caught his third little bluegill. This one was the smallest of the bunch and this is the one he wanted a photo of to show just how small it was.

Check out my cool fish bone polo shirt!

We started getting hungry so after walking around the park for a bit checking out future fishing spots, we headed home for dinner. It was another successful and fun trip.

Son's first fish on the fly rod

2009-04-04T20:25:00.005-05:00

I went with my two youngest kids out to the small lake by the local YMCA to give my son some additional casting lessons with his fly rod.

While my youngest daughter ran around and played, my son assembled his two piece 5wt and I showed him how to properly pass the fly line through the guides and we selected a fly and tied it to the end of the leader.

It had been some time since we had last tried casting and we had to focus once more on the pickup, sudden stop, line control, keeping the loop intact, removing slack and stripping. Lots of things to remember.

One lesson that was learned was to mind your backcast as the first fly was lost to an oak tree behind us. We then moved to a small fishing platform along the shoreline.

The platform offered better casting and we decided to cast towards the shore where we saw small baitfish getting spooked. As I was showing him to how to get the line right up to the shore, I got a nibble so I was positive we would get a hookup.

After a few casts my son hooked a small bluegill! First fish on the fly! He was pretty happy and so was I.

We spent some more time casting but we received no additional bites. He started jigging the fly along the edge of the platform and we could see brim approaching the fly but no commitment. We tried several different flies yet nothing worked for him.

It started getting dark and I rounded up both kids and we headed home. Both declared they had fun so that made me happy. I would love it if we could get more rain so that I can take my son on a river trip where he try for some bass on the fly. That would be very nice.

TV Fishing Personalities I like

2009-04-04T08:52:00.005-05:00

A while back the guys over at Fat Guy Fly Fishing brought up a TV outdoor person, that well, wasn't quite liked by a lot of folks. It got me thinking of who out there in TV land I do like. Here is my short list:

The number one guy in my book for the best TV fishing show personality has got to be Bill Dance. The guy has a great sense of humor. He's incredibly knowledgeable when it comes to fishing for bass, a species I really enjoy going after. Oh yeah, he's had his show since 1968 for goodness sake! More than just watching him fish, the guy gives you a serious and professional education on all the variables that go into fishing. His tips are gold in my opinion. I have watched his show for years and am kind of interested in seeing his new saltwater show where he will be targeting saltwater species such as redfish and speckled trout that I also like to go after.

Another guy that explains a lot of what he is doing and looking for while fishing is Al Linder. However, as great a guy as he is, I just don't get the same vibe as I do with Bill Dance. Maybe it's his Minnesota accent. I don't know. He also fishes for species like musky and walleye that we don't have here in Texas so I don't really have much interest in those shows. I still think he is great instructor though.

Larry Dahlberg is a world class fisherman. While I am not as interested in the big fish he goes for, I am more in awe of his tenacity, versatility and inventiveness. He is a guy that will throw a plug from his baitcaster at one point and then switch it up with a fly the next moment. Of course he invented some of the best big fish flies like his famous Dahlberg Diver. I have seen him create molds and pour his own top water plugs. The man knows his stuff. He is a great guy to watch fishing. I just wish he would speak more about what is going on in his mind. I know the guides he goes out with learn a lot from him.

What can I say about Roland Martin? He's a really likable guy. He has a cool song about him on his show. He is of course knowledgeable about fishing. You could have a drinking game based on how many times you catch him saying "Son!" and be drunk my mid-show. He is also an excellent fisherman. Though his show is mostly about bass fishing, he has ventured out into saltwater fishing from time to time which is cool. I also have seen him cast a fly a few times on his show as well. He is another guy that gives good tips though some of the products that he pushes are sort of weird (like the Rocket Fishing Rod for kids). His son, Scott Martin, is trying to follow in his steps with his own show though I have seen it a few times and it really isn't as good as his dad's. One thing about Roland that I really like is that he is truly an old time gentleman.

On the saltwater end, I really like Flip Pallot. He is also an amazing saltwater fly fisher. I dig watching him go for sharks, tarpon and billfish. These are fish I have never personaly gone for. It is just neat watching the guy. He reminds me of the old weathered salts I sometimes come across at the fishing table when I am at the coast that are fishing machines. They have so much experience and know precisely when to go out and when not to and where they can find the fish and what the fish want. That's what I think about when I watch Flip.

I know I missed a few such as Hank Parker as I haven't really seen his show all that much. One thing I know about Hank is that he has fished out of a kayak before. I wonder if Bill Dance would ever go kayak fishing with me? It would probably be another infamous blooper opportunity as I expect he'd flip it or paddle right into a hornet's nest or something. On second thought...

I own a fleet!

2009-03-09T19:42:00.009-05:00

OK, a fleet of plastic boats but a fleet nonetheless.

I met Roland from Lakeline Watersports at the shop this afternoon and he kindly installed the extra Scotty rod holder mount I had and also the anchor trolley system I bought from him.

The anchor trolley is something I am really glad to have purchased since it will allow me to face in the direction I want when fishing regardless of which way the water current is flowing. This was always difficult with the old setup I had since I had a pair of cleats in which my anchor line was wrapped so I was sort of limited to the position in the current.

I got home with the new kayak and showed it to the family. My wife likes the brighter yellow of my old kayak. I admit that the golden yellow sort of looks like baby poop yellow color but I still like it.

My son came over and sat in "his" kayak and one of our dogs came over to congratulate him.

I have a fishing trip to Corpus Christi late next week where it will receive a baptism in saltwater and hopefully some speckled trout slime.

I may also take it out this weekend in Lake Travis if the weather cooperates.

A kayak with character and memories

2009-03-08T14:13:00.006-05:00

I was out by the shed out back where I keep my kayak trying to figure out how I am going to stow two of them now. While planning out how I would screw two by fours to the wall to stack them, I took a good look at my old kayak. The thing has character.

The bottom of my kayak is a series of scratches. There are a few deeper gouges here and there but otherwise the hull is sound. That polyethylene plastic sure is tough stuff.

Even then, I had to repair the keel a couple of times as it had worn thin from dragging it on concrete, oyster shell, and limestone rock. It looks pretty bad but should be fine for a few more years.

The cockpit has a few blood stains here and there that don't ever seem to come out. The bungee cord is weathered and doesn't stretch much anymore. The hard plastic pieces here and there have cracked and the bungee that holds my seat back has broken.

The interior has algae from where water occasionally still gets in it. The reflective tape on the stern that my cousin added five years ago so he could spotlight the dark to find me at night is barely there.

The rubber cup behind me that holds my C-Light for night fishing is crumbling apart.

I don't think I can count the number of speckled trout I have caught in this boat. Hundreds. Maybe more. Lots of bass, too.

All my kids have paddled in it with me from time to time.

It's been a good boat and I am going to miss paddling that kayak but will try to still get in it from time to time. It is a nice thought to know that my son will be paddling it alongside me sometimes.

Buying a new kayak

2009-03-07T20:54:00.003-06:00

My wife went out of town with my son to visit her parents this weekend so I stayed to take care of our two girls. Even so, fishing wouldn't have been possible anyways given the high winds. Instead, I took this opportunity to take a look at some kayaks that I was interested in. In particular, one was the latest 2009 version of the Wilderness Systems Tarpon 120 that I have owned for the past 6+ years. The other was a very similar boat by Native Watercraft called the Manta Ray 12.

The new Tarpon 120 has had many improvements to it. This topic on the texaskayafisherman.com forums provides a good review of the '09 models. It describes major upgrades to the hatches, improvements in the seat, gear packets, and paddle holders as well as other improvements. It is a very nice kayak and I got to see a couple of them at REI (I wouldn't purchase it from them but it was the closest place that had them).

The second kayak, the Native Manta Ray, was one that I had been reading about for a while now. It is a boat that a lot of folks really like. It has a comfortable seat, tracks well, well thought out storage options and so on. I wanted to see this one at a shop since it reminded me so much of my own trusty Tarpon 120 except a little nicer.

I wanted to stay with a 12 foot kayak. The 14 foot ones are roomier and tend to track better, are more stable in choppy water and paddle faster but are not the best choice for small rivers. Rather than have one boat for lakes and the bays and another for the rivers, I wanted another general boat like my Tarpon 120 since the Tarpon was going to my son.

I went over to a nearby small kayak shop called Lakeline Watersports and spoke with the owner, Roland, about this model. He was very helpful and he mentioned he had two new 2008 models on closeout at a reduced price. One was red and the other yellow. My current kayak is yellow. I like high visibility colors like orange and yellow as opposed to colors that blend in to their surroundings. I do this so motorboats can spot me easily as well as when part of the kayak is hanging out the bed of my truck, it can also be seen by motorists behind me.

While I would recommend to anyone to paddle a kayak before purchasing it, the Tarpon 120 was already familiar to me and I had read the Manta Ray was very similar to the Tarpon. I did want to try the seat out and after adjusting it, it seemed quite comfortable. So, I pretty much committed to Roland that I would take the Manta Ray and for him to hold it for me. I just need to wait until my wife comes back tomorrow to get a Scotty rod holder mount out of my truck so that he could install it and also rig up an anchor trolley to it and I would pick it up on Monday or Tuesday. The price was just too good to pass up. While the new Tarpon 120 is very nice, I really couldn't justify the $150 to $200 extra cost. With the savings, I decided to order a new Stohlquist Fisherman PFD from REI that should get here next weekend. I'll review it after I get it but it is the type of fishing PFD that I have been looking to get for a long time.

So, I am pretty excited about this new kayak. My current Tarpon 120 will become my son's kayak. He already has a good Stohlquist kayaking PFD and a Carlise paddle that I had as extras for it. I hope it serves him as well as it has served me.

More news on Fly Fishing the Texas Hill Country

2009-03-04T21:09:00.005-06:00

Kevin Hutchison was kind enough to provide me with some additional information including some exciting news about kits that may be coming for tying the flies in the book. Thanks Kevin!

In answer to a few of your questions and statements.

First, I am very proud of the cover art, my Daughter did it. She is a Fine Arts major at North Texas State and she worked hard to achieve the "look" i was going for with the Sunfish. Working from a photo I gave her she did numerous test drawings until we were both happy with the resulting image. The original watercolor is a treasure that I will never let go of.

Second, we will be adding recipes for all the flies on the web site (www.fishheadpress.com) in the coming weeks and months. Along with the recipes you will be able to buy kits for each of the flies. Each kit will come with ALL the materials needed AND a DVD showing the fly being tied by one of my staff. I have always hated fly tying kits because they usually don't give you all the materials and they never have good instructions, ours will have both!

Third, I can't take credit for the spiral binding. Bud had the spiral binding on the first and second edition, it was lost, along with any integrity, in the third edition. I wish you could have stayed to hear the history of the book and that third edition. The Priddy and I have very strong feelings about that edition. I'll just say that it took me about seven years to convince the Priddy family that I would put the book back in it's original form and rewrite the content back to a useful form. The third edition was a train wreck...enough said.

Well, I hope that everyone finds the book as useful as you have. Remember, it will only get better if the entire fly fishing community tells me what they want and need the book to be. If there is a mistake or something that needs to be changed just let me know. If I forgot your "special" spot and you want to share that with your fly fishing brothers let me know that to. The book is "organic" and will change over time, that is truly what Bud would have wanted.

Sincerely,

Kevin Hutchison

New edition of Fly-Fishing the Texas Hill Country

2009-02-28T15:50:00.011-06:00

We had a cold front come in through the area last night that put a damper on my fishing plans this weekend. This is not necessarily because of the cold as the highs are supposed to break 60F but due to the very windy conditions with gusts to 40mph during the day. In any event, Chris Johnson, owner of my favorite local fly shop Living Waters Fly Fishing, was holding an all day event today at his shop with some presentations from local guides on fly fishing for white bass. In addition, local guide Kevin Hutchison and now author, would be selling and doing a book signing of the long-in-coming 4th edition of the "Fly-Fishing the Texas Hill Country". Kevin is a very well known and respected fly fishing guide in the central Texas area and he's a heck of a nice guy to boot. Funny, too.

I have a dog eared copy of the 3rd edition of the "Fly-Fishing the Texas Hill Country" published in 2000 that I bought in 2005 after searching high and low until I located a few copies at a fly shop that Kevin worked at. They sold out quickly so I was glad to have gotten a copy.

The third edition contained some updates contributed by a variety of experienced Texas fly fishers. It still had a lot of the original knowledge from the original author, the legendary Bud Priddy, in those pages. The book is more than just a collection of access points about the local rivers and streams; it contains information on the species that can be found in each river, flies that are appropriate for each as well some guidance on techniques to catching them. The book is an invaluable treasure trove of information for fly fishing the Texas Hill Country. As good as it is/was, it had been some time since it had been updated and so of course, like the rivers and streams themselves, things change.

This latest edition took nine years to present itself primarily thanks to Kevin. I am not sure anyone else was better apt to make it happen. I've attended several presentations of his and he is a great instructor. He's personable, knowledgeable, witty and the one quality I think that is the reason for this new addition seeing the light of day...passionate. Passionate about fishing and traversing the area lakes, rivers, and streams. Passionate about the fish that swim in them. Passionate about providing fly fishers with the knowledge to make their experience fishing these waters all the more productive and memorable.

There has been a lot of anticipation these past couple of years about this book once word got out that Kevin had acquired the rights and permission to publish the 4th edition. I can only imagine the stress. I am sure Kevin is relieved now that the book is out. There are a lot of fly fishers looking forward to it.

I had several family commitments today so I couldn't spend more than an hour at the fly shop. Just as I was going to leave, Kevin showed up with a box full of the new edition. Chris laid them out on a shelf. I took the first one and asked Kevin to sign it and apologized for having to leave early. He made some joke about me probably getting bored with his presentation that afternoon but I really wish I could have stayed.

When I was finally done with all of my family commitments, I started reading the book at home. To begin with, the cover art is fantastic. It's a watercolor of a sunfish. For some reason it reminded me of another favorite book of mine, "The Sunfishes" by Jack Ellis, though the cover art is not at all similar just the subject.

The sections on the local fish species and techniques for catching them was improved quite a bit. In addition, now there are four complete pages listing descriptions of recommended flies along with color photos of each. Very nice though tying recipes would have been very much appreciated. Maybe they can be added to Kevin's website in the future. By the way, this is another appreciable difference in this latest edition which is the introduction of references to Internet web pages. It also opens the possibility to have a vehicle to extend the book and accommodate change.

Another improvement is the introduction of GPS coordinates for all of the access points listed. I have a handheld GPS unit that I have used a few times to locate some lake and bay fishing spots and for measuring paddling distance that I now have a new use for. Very practical improvement.

While I have not read every page yet, it is obvious that a large majority of the information across the book has been revised or completely improved upon. This is no small feat as I am sure it required a lot of verification in the field to ensure it was correct.

Lastly, one subtle but very welcome improvement in this edition of the book is that it is spiral bound. This make it possible for it to be placed flat on a table and the pages stay put while, for example, you are typing an entry in your blog on your laptop while enjoying a read or two of the book at the same time. :-)

In summary, this latest edition of "Fly-Fishing the Texas Hill Country" should be required reading for anyone wanting to get the most out of fly fishing this area of Texas. For those folks that don't have access to one of the local Austin area fly shops, I would recommend they visit the publishers web site at www.fishheadpress.com and contact them directly as to how to obtain a copy of it for yourself.

No longer hardcore?

2009-02-14T14:59:00.006-06:00

I haven't been fishing in over a month (no tears please). Last night the planets aligned and I loaded up the kayak to try and do some night fishing. I loaded my 5wt reel with Teeny T-130 sinking line as the hope was that I would get into some white bass.

I got to the lake around midnight and paddled out to a boat dock in water 8 to 10 feet deep and adjacent to a deep channel. The dock had several bright lights illuminating over the water. I could see baitfish nervously swimming about and then a couple of splashes. I tied on a #8 Cypert Minnow and made a poor cast. I let it sink, put the tip of my rod down below the surface of the water and started to strip it in. In that first cast I caught my first white bass. Cool!

In the next hour I proceeded to catch seven white bass, males between 11 and 12 1/2 inches long. From 1am to 1:30am not a single bite. At this point, the wind started to pickup and the temperature dropped as a week cold front started pushing through. My legs were still wet from the paddling and I was getting cold. My shoulder was also starting to hurt a bit. In the old days, I would have kept on fishing until dawn. I paddled back to the ramp and headed home. I was back in a warm bed just before 3am.

I got up four hours later as I had promised my daughter that I would take her and her boyfriend fishing today. We were back at the lake by 9:30am. The wind was a steady 15mph coming from the NNE. Air temperature was in the mid 40s and so it felt pretty cold. We found a spot somewhat sheltered by the wind where we fished for about an hour and a half and then we decided to come back home.

I filleted the fish I had caught the night before and we had them for lunch. I then remembered why white bass are more trouble than they are worth. The fillets aren't all that big and so it takes more fish for a decent fish fry. This means a long time filleting fish.

Once again, in the old days I would not have been complaining. I must be getting old and losing my hardcore fishing attitude. Man, I hope not!

Right now, after cleaning everything and putting it all away, I am dead tired. I think I am going to take a shower and go to sleep early. I am such as wuss! :-(

Oh yeah, Happy Valentine's Day! Hope you get some today! Fish that is! ;-)

No Monster Fish but a few Monster Trucks

2009-01-11T12:57:00.005-06:00

I didn't get any fishing in this weekend. My brother-in-law had invited my son and I to go with him, his brother and my nephew to San Antonio to go see the Monster Jam at the Alamodome on Saturday afternoon. This was our first experience at a monster truck rally.

We left around 3pm and got to the Alamodome just before 5:30pm when the gates opened for the 7pm show. The parking lots were full already and we were able to find a parking spot near a Mexican restaurant where they charged us $20 to park! No matter, it was relatively close to the Alamodome and it looked like it would give us better chance to get out of the area sooner than had we parked at the Alamodome.

After a short walk we found some of the trucks parked outside the south entrance and snapped a few photos. We then went in to look for our seats and get something to eat. The Alamodome is quite nice and the seats we had on the second level were quite good. My brother-in-law got my nephew a Monster Jam 2009 shirt and a "Grave Digger" cap.

The actual show was somewhat mixed. The first part of it were races which were somewhat boring. Just after intermission, they had these jet powered cycles come out that were really cool. They were also extremely loud but we had all brought along ear protection so the only way I could tell was by the folks around us all cupping their hands on their ears. When the riders turned the after burner flame on, you could feel the heat even up where we were.

The second part of the show was the really fun part with the freestyle competition where the trucks run the obstacle course jumping over cars and ramps. They had a couple of old buses that were a challenge to some trucks but the better drivers were able to handle it easily which the crowd loved. The "Grave Digger" truck flew over one bus and landed square on the roof of the other bus collapsing the entire roof and everyone went nuts! It was great!

After the show, it took us a while to get out of the area and we finally got home around 1am in the morning. Can you believe that seats for the 2010 Monster Jam go on sale today at 6pm?! Folks really like these shows. One piece of advice if you ever go and sit at the bottom level close to the arena, "Wear good ear protection". Those trucks and jet engines can get pretty loud.

Second casting lesson

2009-01-02T17:17:00.004-06:00

Yesterday afternoon I took my padawan learner to a small pond to get some additional practice casting with his fly rod. This time, we tied on a leader and fly so we could also work on retrieve techniques.

Among learning how to retrieve a fly, we also worked on picking up the line from the water. We also covered the haul as we did this to increase loading the rod for a forward cast. In addition, I showed him how to use his index finger and thumb on his line hand to create a "guide" for the line to shoot through.

All in all, there was a lot of information provided and I let him soak it in and practice his casts into the water. He did quite well. The lessons will continue...

Commitment Issues

2009-01-02T16:50:00.004-06:00

This morning I fished Barton Creek right off Lady Bird Lake in downtown Austin. The creek is spring fed and so is warmer than the main lake. I was hoping the warmer water in the creek would attract bass in from the main lake. This, as it turned out, would be the only hope I had that would come true.

Paddling along the creek was like paddling in a swimming pool. The water was gin clear. I could see down to nine feet deep quite easily. This, I think, was partially to blame for the difficult fishing.

First of all, between the pedestrian bridge and the street bridge that crossed over the creek, I found that the creek was absolutely loaded with bass. Most of them were in the 2 to 3 pound range but there were plenty there that were 4, 5, 6 pounds or bigger. I had never seen such a concentration of healthy bass in one small area before. I have also never had a school of bass in this size all follow my fly in such large numbers. I would have 5 to 8 bass at a time trail my fly. This is where the good news ended.

No matter which fly or which type of retrieve (slow, jigging, burning, start & stop, etc.) I tried, I could not get them to eat it. They would follow it until the leader itself passed trough my tip guide and then they would thumb their nose at me and swim off. Very frustrating!

I had folks on the bridge or the running trail yell things at me like, "Hey buddy! There's a huge fish right behind you!" and I would reply, "Yeah, thanks.". After three frustrating hours without a single bite, I decided I had had enough of these bass with commitment issues. I told them to all see a shrink and let me know when they were over their inadequacies so I could catch them all. I won't hold my breath.

Close but no cigar

2008-12-31T09:58:00.005-06:00

On Sunday night I arrived in Corpus Christi to spend a day or two fishing with my cousin before the year ended. The plan was to fish the Laguna Madre Monday from his boat since we would be joined by his wife's cousin from San Antonio.

On Monday we woke up around 5am, had some coffee and loaded up the gear in the boat. The temperature was right at 50F with a 5 to 15mph wind coming from the North. I layered up my clothing though for some folks this in itself is not cold but moving at 40mph across the water with an occasional spray of water on you can give you quite a chill. Frankly, I don't know how folks way up north do it.

Can you see me smiling for the camera?

After picking up the last of the live shrimp from a bait stand and launching the boat, we headed to our first destination where we found a few birds working the area. The first fish was caught by me on the first cast though it ended up being a two foot long ribbon fish. Impressive silvery sides and fangs on this guy but not edible.

Very soon we started catching small speckled trout though most were just shy of the legal minimum length of 15". However, they were fat little guys and some with beautiful spots all along their backs. We released them of course and kept drifting. We tried other spots all the way to Baffin Bay to the south which was about a 45 minute (cold) boat ride from where we launched and it wasn't too productive. We kept catching lots of small trout but nothing we could keep.

At one of the spots we tried, our other fishing partner hooked into and successfully landed a nice slot redfish. He would also catch the only two keeper trout that day before we headed back to the boat ramp at 2pm.

All we needed were just a few more like this one!

Conditions were tough and after cleaning all the gear and the boat, our fishing partner returned to San Antonio and my cousin and I rested up for the next day's outing.

On Tuesday we had a big breakfast and prepared the kayaks to fish around Oso bay which is a shallow, muddy bay. The weather was a bit warmer than the previous day. It was also cloudier and less windy. Much better kayaking weather. Also, the hope was that the dark mud would retain heat thus attracting the fish to the area. That was the hope. We spent about three hours paddling the bay and I hooked into an undersized redfish and my cousin caught a nice keeper flounder. Other than that, fishing was tough so we packed it up and left.

While I didn't come back with a cooler full of fillets, I did have a lot of fun and had new adventures. It's not always about the fish. I consider that a bonus though.

Padawan Fly Fisher

2008-12-26T15:22:00.005-06:00

Yesterday, Christmas day, my 11 year old son received his first fly rod. It was a combo I put together from an Albright 5wt rod and reel I purchased back in October when they were on sale. He was very pleased with it. Today we started the first casting lesson.

Of course, as luck would have it, the wind today is gusting to 29 mph so it was an added challenge among all the other challenges of learning to cast with a fly rod. We started with the basics such as starting with the tip low to pickup the line, making a short speedup and a hard stop to load the rod, getting the line moving and making the forward cast then making a hard stop and as the line shoots forward and the loop begins to unroll, dropping the tip a bit. Easier said than done.

I myself am a visual learner. I have to see how it is done to get a good grasp of the concept so I demonstrated the cast to him while highlighting what all is going on. I also held his arm so he could feel what I meant by a short speedup followed by a hard stop. I then placed my hand behind him at the point where his should stop so he hit it and would know not to over travel.

Teaching someone to cast, particularly a child, is not as easy as it seems. We spent maybe 20 or 30 minutes practicing before stopping. I didn't want to overdo it as the lessons will continue over time. I expect he will pick it up soon enough but the lessons are also helping me in concentrating on places where I have gotten lazy in my own casting.

Maybe one day when he is older and masters the fly casting arts, he will take on his own apprentice. In the meantime, I will resist the urge to talk like Yoda as I continue his education.

Might do some tying this weekend

2008-11-15T09:51:00.007-06:00

I'm waiting for some of my in-laws to come in town for a family get together. One of my youngest nieces is getting baptized tomorrow. I'll be preparing some of the fish I caught at the coast for dinner tonight. So no fishing this weekend but that's OK since a cold front came through last night and it's pretty windy to be on the lake. Also, tonight we are expected to get our first real taste of winter with temperatures dropping near freezing.

So, I think I may do a little fly tying today. I was looking at a really cool carp fly called Mike's Carp Candy (I linked a photo of it from the http://www.freestateflyfishers.org web site to the this post) that I think I will try tying for whenever I get a chance to go after carp again. I also picked up some Gamakatsu B10S stinger fly hooks for tying some bass flies with. I haven't quite decide what sort of bass flies but will likely be some sort of top water fly.

Fall fishing on the Texas coast

2008-11-03T09:20:00.006-06:00

Last Friday, I filled up my truck with gas at $2.09 a gallon. It has been years since it has been this low. This and other signs said I had to go to the coast to get some fishing in before things changed. And so I did.

My typical drive to the coast takes me through the backroads and small towns like Lockhart, Luling, Nixon, Kenedy, Skidmore, Tynan, and Mathis until I finally get to Corpus. Along the way, I pass over several rivers I wish to one day fish such as the San Marcos river, Guadalupe river, and San Antonio river. But I digress.

I arrived in Corpus late in the afternoon to find my cousin with his truck ready to go to a spot along the Laguna Madre for some night wading.

The area we went to was particularly nice with a drop off located about 100 yards from shore. The sunset was a beautiful one as they typically are this time of year. Up in the sky you could see the crescent moon with a bright star above it. As the moon set, it also turned a blaze orange just like the horizon. It is indescribable how cool the feeling is being outdoors on an evening like that.

We fished for a few hours that evening and only ended up with one keeper trout. I did see a meteorite slowly streak across the starry sky and eventually break apart into four smaller chunks before it disappeared. That was cool!

We headed home to rest and prepare to fish from the boat the next day.

On Saturday, we went out in my cousin's flats boat and fished several spots along the Laguna. I had to cast with my elbow tucked in all day to avoid stressing my bad shoulder. I caught the first keeper trout but my cousin ended with the most trout.

At one point, we had reeled in and weren't paying too much attention while drifting when all of a sudden, I look up and see a large school of black drum right in front of us. My cousin had a popping cork rigged with shrimp that he cast right in front of them and was able to hook up and land a nice drum. I was not prepared and so didn't end up with a black drum. We searched for the school but did not find them again.

Later at a different spot where the water was a beautiful green tea color with darker areas, I was casting a soft plastic minnow and hooked a redfish of around 23" that gave me a good run and then went into the cooler with the rest of the trout and the black drum. All we needed was a flounder and we would have a Texas grand slam. Around 3pm, we decided to return and moor the boat at the dock, rest up at home and go back out before sunset.

The idea was to head to a spot with some lights to fish for trout at night. We got there before sunset and hung around until 7:30pm but the lights never turned on and the mosquitoes were out in force.

After we returned to the boat ramp and trailered the boat and left it at home we drove to the nearby naval station. They had one long pier that was ideal for casting with the fly rod. I could see small trout everywhere and tied on a #8 glow Clouser minnow and the trout kept hitting it the whole time we were there which was only a couple of hours. None of the trout were bigger than 12 inches but it was still a lot of fun and they devastated my fly.

I was glad to have had the opportunity to fish the coast with my cousin and also to bring back some fish. I also got to fill up my gas tank for my return trip at $1.99 a gallon. Not bad. Not bad at all.

No fishing last weekend but good one nonetheless

2008-10-27T10:04:00.003-05:00

While I had no fishing this weekend, it was still a good one. My daughter's high school band hand a great performance and they were part of the top six bands chosen from the thirty bands that competed in the area marching competition to move on to state competition in San Antonio next week! Way to go Vista Ridge Band!

I also got to talk to my cousin in Corpus Christi and I will be heading to the coast to fish it on Friday and Saturday. I have high hopes of bringing back some trout and maybe some redfish as well. This will likely be my only chance to fish anywhere until possibly Thanksgiving week.

Big Guadalupe bass in Lake Travis

2008-10-18T11:45:00.010-05:00

This weekend is sort of a repeat of last weekend in that my daughter's high school band has yet another marching competition. My son has a birthday party to go to in the afternoon so I basically had a couple of hours this morning to fish. And fish I did.

This time, I launched from Jones Brothers Park in Jonestown which is just about 15 minutes from the house. I mostly stuck to a narrow arm of the lake across the park and fished along the shadowy cliff side.

The morning was cool in the mid 50s and the water is still warm in the 70s so there was a light fog on the glassy smooth water. It was beautiful. It was also much different than last weekend in that the skies were clear and blue.

I was tempted to tie on a top water fly but really wanted to try the experimental seaducer along with an all chartreuse cactus minnow I tied last night. The cactus minnow was the first fly tied on.

I love to target the corners of docks or any structure/cover that has a corner as I tend to find bass usually near there. However, I started with the cliff walls throwing the fly as close to them as possible. I was rewarded with a couple of small Guadalupe bass.

I continued working the docks and cliffs picking up a couple of more bass. Some of them gave themselves away as they chased baitfish up to the surface. Once I got into the sunshine away from the cliffs, I didn't get much action so I paddled back to where I started and had caught bass and worked along the other way.

By this time I had switched to an all olive and black seaducer and as I cast it to the back corner of a boat dock I saw a big hit and felt the rod bend as the fish dove deep. This is typically the sign of a good Guadalupe bass as they tend to want to dive while a largemouth surfaces and shakes its head.

The bass circled the front of my kayak and I got to see him and he was impressive so I pulled out the net and hoped it wouldn't come off. Once landed, I measured it and it was just shy of 16 inches. For this species of Texas native bass, this is a trophy size fish as they don't normally get much larger (the water body record for this lake is 18.25 inches at 3.69 pounds). The fish easily went over 2 pounds. I released the fish and packed it up for the day.

I was really pleased with the fish I caught in the two hours on the lake. I got a new personal best for a Guadalupe bass and it was on an experimental fly I tied. Couldn't get any better.

Back in black

2008-10-11T12:14:00.011-05:00

My oldest daughter has a marching band competition today and my wife was volunteering so she said if I wanted to go fishing, Saturday morning was my only chance and I HAD to be back by noon. You don't have to tell ME twice!

So, at 7:30am I was on my way to the lake. I watched deer crossing the road on the dark overcast, drizzly morning. I also watched a small armadillo walking along the side of the road and I was hoping the little guy didn't become roadkill that day.

I was in the water by 8am and paddled along to the opposite shoreline for a bit, throwing by experimental seaducer for about 30 minutes with no bites other than the tugs of small brim. Thinking through all the tactics I have read through the years, I recall that black or dark colors were recommended during dark overcast days so I switched to a purple and black cactus minnow I had tied earlier in the week.

The cactus minnow is simply composed of a cactus chenille body with a marabou tail. It also has a cone head bead to allow it to sink nicely. That's it but today this was the ticket.

Within a few casts along the drop-offs near shore, I caught my first bass. I also worked the fly towards the back of some docks and caught a 15" bass that looked somewhat malnourished. Its tail and head looked too large for its body. It also had a few gouges underneath as if it had been foul hooked and the hook ripped out. The bass is the one in the photo above. I released the skinny fellow back in the water.

I picked up another bass and lost a couple before paddling across the lake to a long rip-rap section of the shore near the ramp. My first fish there turned out to be a catfish which surprised me! He twisted around and slimed up my leader before coming off while I was trying to grab the landing net.

I proceeded to catch four more bass from 13" to 15" along the shoreline. Most were caught in two to four feet of water. Two of the bass I caught were really light green in color. One of the best fish I caught had the fly right in its tongue. I was fortunate not to have lost that one.

As I headed back to the ramp to make it back by 11am, I passed over a large, dark shadow in the clear water that I could easily see was a big catfish. That would have been cool to have caught on my 5wt. Maybe next time. Hope it's a dark day, too.

Albright Tackle Oktoberfest Blowout

2008-10-05T14:13:00.007-05:00

As I was reading one of the fly fishing forums today, I came across someone mentioning a closeout sale at the Albright web site. The link is http://www.albrighttackle.com/oktoberfest.html and they have several rods and reels for 70% off but selection seems to be diminishing quickly.

Since I have been meaning to get my son his own fly rod for some time, I went ahead and purchased a nice GP 8' 5wt for $37.50 along with a click and pawl reel for $14. Not bad! Once I scour ebay for an appropriate fly line, this will be a great Christmas present for him. Can't wait to see his face!

The closeout tackle doesn't come with the standard warranty but still comes with a product replacement guarantee. I just thought I should mention that.

Having fun at the TPWD Expo 2008

2008-10-04T15:16:00.011-05:00

Since I had told my kids we were going to the Expo, they were pretty excited. My youngest one was up promptly at 7am and was ready by 7:30am. My son took a little longer to get up and get ready but we were out the door by 8:30am.

Having experienced the limited parking at the Expo before, we have been taking the shuttle buses for the past couple of years. Once we got to the expo we headed to the required education for shooters, got our hands stamped, and then got in line for the clay shooting. Unfortunately for us this wasn't the youth shotgun queue and so we had to move and go get in another long line.

My son waited about 30 minutes and finally got his turn. They get three shots at three slow moving clays that pretty much are launched directly towards them as opposed to the side. He didn't hit any of them but still enjoyed it. He particularly liked how the shells ejected though he wasn't sure he liked the recoil. He still prefers shooting the air rifle for now.

After that, we moved over to the fishing area and took a look at some freshly caught fish that are on ice that kids are encouraged to touch. They had everything from shark to mullet on ice. They also had tanks with live sea creatures that can be touched. My daughter tried to touch a crab and it struck at her though its claws were bound so it couldn't hurt her. As she pulled her hand, she punched her brother in the nose as he stood behind.

I took a photo of my youngest in front of an exhibit sponsored by the Texas ShareLunker program. This is a program where by an angler that catches a bass weighing 13 pounds or greater can donate the fish to TPWD for breeding and study. In return, they are provided with recognition of their catch and I believe they get a replica mount of their catch. There a few replicas of bass over 17 pounds on display. They looked like real pigs!

We then moved on to the fly fishing tent and the kids sat down to tie some flies while I checked out what the various fly fishing clubs from around Central Texas had on display. There are a lot of great fly tyers in the area. When I returned to see what my kids had tied and they gave me their flies, I didn't know that my son's fly had super glue on it and almost got it stuck to my fingers! As I type this, I still have some tiny amount of feather on my thumb and index finger.

The next stop was to visit the Texas Buffalo Soldiers. Their exhibit had a real frontier feeling to it and their uniforms and dress were very authentic. They were all great story tellers as well.

After having some lunch, we visited some tents with some "critters". We saw a peregrine falcon, various amphibians, reptiles and snakes. My daughter startled a diamond back rattlesnake in a plexiglass cage and it took a defensive position and gave us a good warning with his rattle. I told my daughter that if she ever encountered one of these snakes on her own, to back away.

As the kids were getting tired after four straight hours of activities, we went to take a look at some native insects, plants, and walked one small trail before heading back to the shuttle bus. We barely got to scratch the surface of the exhibits, activities and events available. We saw a large tank that provided people with the chance to learn to scuba dive. We saw several folks wearing wet suits about to get in the large tank. That looked kind of cool.

All in all, I had fun, the kids had fun and it was a great learning experience for everyone as well. If anyone ever has a chance to be in Austin next year during this time, I highly recommend going to the Texas Parks & Wildlife Expo. It really is a great event.

Texas Parks & Wildlife Expo 2008

2008-10-02T07:38:00.002-05:00

I had to work this past weekend so I didn't get to do any fishing. For this upcoming weekend I may not get to fish either. That's OK because this weekend is the annual Texas Parks & Wildlife Expo at the headquarters here in Austin.

The expo is a great place to take the family to see and learn just about anything about the outdoors whether it is for shooting, archery, paddling, camping, fishing, hunting, hiking and so on. I am not sure other states have similar expos and this just might be unique to Texas. The other part of this is that all the events are absolutely free! So, you can imagine the place can get pretty crowded with tens of thousands of people coming through.

I expect we'll be in the fishing and aquatic zone quite a bit and I might try to convince my son to try the youth shotgun activity. I will also stop by the fly tying tent they usually have and say hello to the good volunteers that will be there. I volunteered a couple of years ago at the Wet Zone which has a 10,000 gallon tank where people can try their hand at paddling a kayak. My kids have done this before so we will try to do other activities we haven't before such as the Map and Compass course is the camping area.

So, I will take my kids and camera and report back later this weekend as to what we did. Should be fun! It always is when we go.

Experimental bass seaducer fly

2008-09-22T14:42:00.006-05:00

On my last trip to Lake Travis I took along my 6wt but I really wanted to take along my 5wt or even 4wt as I think it would be more fun to fish. However, I really would like to throw a "big" fly to get the attention of bass. I was thinking I could lighten up one of my current patterns and stay away from a lot of zonker strips. Instead, I thought about and decided on modifying the lightweight Seaducer pattern slightly.

The Seaducer is a great shallow water fly. It is composed of mainly feathers so it is light and is great to present to shallow fish in that it falls on the water softly. It is also buoyant and the hackle sheds water easily on the back cast. Those are great characteristics but I do need it to stay below the water so I decided to make a simple modification and add some medium bead chain eyes which are not too heavy but should be enough to get it below the surface.

In order to give it a little bit more "action", I added a small tip of olive grizzly marabou to either side. The idea behind this also serves to change the profile slightly so they look like fins (I hope).

The collar on the fly is composed of red hackle though I may do another one in black or olive.

The components of the pictured fly are:

Gamakatsu size #2 SS15 hook (a light hook)
Black medium bead chain eyes
Four Olive/Black rooster saddle feathers
Two grizzly marabou feathers
Peacock flash
Hot red saddle hackle
Red 6/0 UNI thread

The resulting fly is ample in size to attract a bass but it is also very light and I expect that I will be able to cast it on my 5wt with no problems. We'll have to see how it fishes though. I am kind of eager to go back to the lake this weekend and try some of these experiments. I'll see what other experimental flies I can come up with before then.

EDIT: It has come to my attention that this fly pattern is essentially a cross between a Whistler and a Seaducer fly.

Arkansas Bend at Lake Travis

2008-09-21T13:07:00.009-05:00

I think the last time I went fishing around Arkansas Bend at Lake Travis was probably a year ago. I did fish a different part of the lake in February though. Driving down the road as I approached the lake from the top of a hill, I could tell that the water level was low once again. I hoped that the water temperature was the only other thing that fallen in the hopes this would start giving the fish the idea Autumn is approaching and to start feeding aggressively.

According to lake level data, the lake is down by around 22 feet. A couple of years ago we had a really bad drought where the lake dropped by almost 40 feet. Thanks to rains in the spring of 2007, the lake recovered nicely.

I was able to park on the shore which is normally underwater and launch my kayak in calm, clear water. The air temperature was around 70 degrees and water was warmer than that at about 81 degrees. A power boat had started working the point where I was launch and the angler caught a nice bass on what looked to be a spinnerbait as I was paddling to the next point.

The first fly I tied on was a size #2 Gurgler top water fly in yellow and orange. It wasn't long before I had a bite. It was a big brim. As I worked the point I kept catching these big brim and seemed that each was bigger than the rest. I was really hoping for a bass.

I entered a nearby cove and worked my way around it and continued to catch big brim on minnow flies and managed one small bass. I then moved on and started working around the swimming platforms. Same pattern occurred on all of them as I would catch big brim along the shady side of the platform.

As I was undoing a knot on my fly line I felt a large tug and thought I had finally caught a decent bass. It tuned out to be a really big coppernose which is a hybrid type bluegill found in the lake that can be identified by a copper or golden color near the top of its head.

As I looked up I saw a big roadrunner trying to catch a meal along the grass and I paddled my way back.

Before leaving for the day, I started fishing around the point where my truck was located trying to catch a decent size bass. I was stripping my minnow back to the kayak when I saw not one but a school of four bass following it! They looked to have been about two pounds each! But they continued to follow it to the kayak, saw me and departed. Nuts!

I decided to switch to a black woolly bugger and work it slowly. After a few casts I felt some resistance and was fighting a very nice Guadalupe bass. I netted it, photographed and admired it and then released it. I fished for a little while longer but it was tough with all the ski boats, cigar boats and personal water craft making lots of waves and stirring up the bottom so I got out and headed home.

It was beautiful morning to be fishing on the lake. The water was a pretty green color and fish were caught. I'm not sure I could ask for anything more though I am hoping we get some rain soon so the lakes don't get any lower. I'll try fishing the lake after the next real cold front and hopefully I will catch some more bass.

Turtling

2008-09-14T19:11:00.006-05:00

I didn't do any fishing on my own this week as I was feeling somewhat under the weather with a chest cold. This afternoon while I was out in the backyard with my son, plinking with the pellet gun, he asked me to take him to the pond. My wife went to a movie and I took all three of my kids with me.

The water at the pond was really clear so I expected the fish to be somewhat spooky. The amount of grass in the shallower sections made for some great ambush points for bass. I explained this to my oldest girl. She tried her best but this was one of those rare days (which I have had in the past) where the turtles are in an aggressive feeding mood.

The pond is loaded with small red-ear turtles. You could see them poking their heads out of the water near where the bait fell. You could also see them making a bee line towards it and eventually picking it up. Sometimes as many as three or more would fight to get to the bait. Needless to say, this made for difficult fishing as the "bites" where mostly the turtles picking up the bait. Thankfully their tough beaks avoided getting hooked though a couple came close.

My son did manage to hook and land one bass which he was really excited about. Those pesky red-ear turtles ruled the day though. Turtling is a rare skill. That is, when they get in these moods it's rare you can catch any fish. We'll catch them next time...the fish I mean.

Living Waters Fly Fishing Blog

2008-09-11T23:04:00.002-05:00

Chris Johnson from Living Waters Fly Fishing in Round Rock has started a blog over at http://www.livingwatersflyfishing.blogspot.com/ to pass on news about special sales, new products, area fishing reports, and other useful information. Should be a good one to follow! Good idea Chris!

That reminds me, I need to stop by the shop and pick up some more of that Opal colored mylar braid to tie up some more Cypert Mylar Minnows! ;-)

Tying a Texas favorite, the Cypert Mylar Minnow

2008-09-07T17:30:00.006-05:00

Those of us in Central Texas that have fly fished for any length of time have heard of the Cypert's Mylar Minnow developed by area fly fishing master tier Charlie Cypert.

The Cypert minnow is probably the #1 fly recommended to folks during the annual white bass spawn. The recommendation is due to its ability to be used down near the bottom where the fish are typically. To help avoid snags while on the bottom, it is tied with bead chain eyes on top of the hook allowing it to ride hook up.

As effective as it is, it is also a simple fly to tie with just five basic materials:

2x to 4x long streamer hook
bead chain for the eyes
thread
woolly bugger chenille
Mylar tubing

I wanted to tie some of these flies to send to my friend Rick up near Fort Worth so I picked up some of the materials from Livings Water fly shop and got a quick instruction from Chris on how to go about tying them.

I also found some instructions in this thread at one of my favorite Texas fly fishing web sites at texasflyreport.com on how to tie them. This is another web page containing some tying information. Here is the excerpt from one of the posts by mickfly that gives the steps:

1. Place a streamer hook in the vise and tie in a pair of bead chain eyes about one hook eye width behind the eye, then spiral wrap the thread back along the shank to the bend.

2. Tie in a piece of medium chenille at the hook bend, then bring the chenille straight forward and wrap around one eye of the beadchain, then back to the bend.

3. Take two or three tight wraps around the chenille (still at the hook bend), then bring the chenille forward around the other eye and back to the bend. Tie it off and snip excess.

4. Take a length of mylar tubing that is four times the shank length, double it, and slowly work the middle over the hook eye.

5. Bring the mylar back to the bend so it sits above and below the chenille, like the back and belly. Take several tight wraps around the mylar to hold it in place, then tie off and whip finish at the bend.

6. Trim the tail (excess mylar) to the desired length, then use the tip of the scissors to comb out the tail.

7. Catch fish.

The only differences I did from the above instructions was that I wrapped the chenille instead of looping it, used red thread for all the wrapping and I added a few drop of glue to the top and bottom of the chenille just before putting down the mylar cord.

The flies in the photo were tied using:

Size #6 4x long streamer hooks
Medium silver bead chain
Wapsi small wooly bugger chenille in light gray color
Orange/red 6/0 UNI thread
Wapsi small mirage cord in opal color

I had a little bit of cord left so I tied two smaller versions on size 8 streamer hooks (TMC 5262).

I think I need to consider tapering the fly better towards the "tail" area next time but for a first attempt I don't think they turned out too bad. I hope Rick likes them.

Nice day to fish and explore Brushy Creek

2008-09-06T14:18:00.007-05:00

It seems like we are almost done with summer. Clear nights and drier air are making for cooler nights. This morning was really nice so I headed out to the same spot at Brushy Creek with the hope of also exploring further upstream this time.

Not long after getting in the water I caught a small green sunfish and while drifting the black foam spider down the center of the creek, I caught a nice little bass that shot straight up out of the water and I had to maintain pressure on so it wouldn't wrap itself around a rock or branch along the shoreline.

Typical of a river bass, it fought hard but eventually gave in and I brought it to hand. It was about 12 inches long and spunky. The fish was cool to the touch as were all the other fish I caught as the water flowing through the shade of the trees was also cool.

Moving upstream, I caught more green sunfish and another small bass. In a new-to-me narrow section that had a pool between two and three feet deep I finally caught another Rio Grande Cichlid. This one seemed a little different than others and I wonder if maybe it had bred with some other fish though I am positive it is a Rio as you can see from the photo.

About this time, a deer bolted from the brush and scared the crap out of me. Of course there are so many deer in the area that I was bound to come across one. I kept on.

I eventually got to a fork and stayed to the left until I got to a wide and slower section of the creek and could see small catfish but was not able to entice one. I caught some more green sunfish that were big enough that I could stick my thumb in the their mouths to lip them. I headed back downstream and caught a few more sunfish before leaving.

It was a lovely time on the water. I saw blooming red salvia plants along the shore and big red crayfish in the clear water. Vultures were perched high up in one of the trees. Some golden and red leaves occasionally dropped to the water so I expect Autumn is not to far off.

As soon as Fall weather starts to come, I really need to revisit my old fishing spots on Lake Travis. I look forward to it.

Rio Fest on Brushy Creek

2008-09-01T20:12:00.007-05:00

Having grown up in deep south Texas, a.k.a. the Rio Grande Valley, I am aware that the city of Harlingen has an annual festival called RioFest that occurs in the spring. Today I had a rio fest of my own but it was in no way related to the one just mentioned.

This afternoon, I decided to beat the close to 100 degree heat by wet wading the cool tree lined waters of Brushy Creek. I had gotten a tip from Chris at the Living Waters fly shop on Saturday of new spot to try.

This new spot was nice. There was plenty of room to cast the 8'6" 4wt I brought with me. I was in the water around 5pm and proceeded to wade and fish upstream. After a few casts drifting a black foam spider, I caught a tiny bass. I then caught a green sunfish.

Not long after having caught a few more green sunfish, I caught a nice Rio Grande Cichlid. This made the fourth one this year. Two of the other three had been caught in this same creek though further downstream and the other on the San Gabriel river.

The Rios can be pretty fish and kind of ugly at other times. They have brilliant turqoise spots all over and black bars or large dots closer to their tails. They have bright yellow eyes as well. I have seen some that have had what look like red bumps or sores along both sides of their bodies. Some look half black and half ash white while in the water but look a bit different once removed from the water. It is an interesting species to run across.

About 100 yards downstream I saw a man and little girl walking in the water so I started moving upstream. I continued catching green sunfish, small bass, and an occasional redbreast sunfish. However, I also caught two more Rios which sort of surprised me.

I headed upstream about another 200 yards and caught two more Rio Grande Cichlids. This made a total of five Rio Grande Cichlids which is the most I have ever caught at any one time and this was only in two hours of fishing. By contrast, last year I think I only caught two.

I recorded the spots where I caught the Rios to memory in case a fishing buddy ever wants to record a new unique species to try and catch on the fly.

The Rio Grande is a rare prize for some fly fishers. It is also selective on the flies it takes. I was able to catch them mostly on a #10 olive bead head nymph and on a #10 orange and pearl Cypert's mylar minnow.

It was refreshing to be in cool running water again and I am very thankful to have caught some fish that I don't get to catch that often. I'll be back some other day for sure. Maybe I will have my own annual Rio Fest, too.

Hurricane Gustav

2008-09-01T20:00:00.003-05:00

My cousin sent me some video he took earlier today that includes some incredible footage of an unexpected surge that came into the beach and reached all the way to the dunes. He was recording the huge waves pounding Bob Hall pier on the gulf side of North Padre Island when the big wave came on in (most likely thanks to Hurricane Gustav). He also mentioned there were dozens of dead stingrays along the beach.

Some cool fly fishing lanyards made here in Texas!

2008-08-19T19:18:00.005-05:00

My good friend Rick over at Water Walker Lanyards and Lures sent me a set of the lanyards he makes. He sent me three of his Southwestern model, one of his Dry Fly model, and one of his Gulf Coast model lanyards. Two of the Southwestern lanyards are for my son and I and the rest are for donation to the local fly fishing club courtesy of Rick. In short, these are the nicest looking fly fishing lanyards I have come across!

To begin with, I already had a lanyard made by Morning Star Lanyards. It has been a good lanyard that came with a retractor and fly patch but Rick's beats it in quality for a lower price! Same can be said for the similar fly fishing lanyards made by Orvis and MayFly™ which are more expensive.

What do I like about this new lanyard? Well, to begin with, I know that great care and skill went into it. I like the small touches such as the swivel in the shirt clip, the rubber shrink tubing that finishes off the cord ends, the beautiful beads, inline fly foam holders, and symmetrical location of the swivel connections. The inline fly foam holders are genius! I also like the light weight, that along with thick foam for the back of the neck, make for a very comfortable lanyard. The cord colors and patterns are pretty nice, too. Lastly, you have to love those beads!

I modded my lanyard as soon as I got it and added two retractors; one for my line clipper and one for my clamps. I also added a square foam fly patch for bigger flies that I would not want to stick in the built-in fly foam holders. I still have room for my tippet holder. Rick can add a fifth swivel connection in the center next to the shirt clip if you need one for a small fly box for example.

So, in closing, if you are looking for a quality made fly fishing lanyard for under $20 from a Texas craftsman, check out Rick's site. You'll be glad you did!

Exploring Brushy Creek

2008-07-26T14:54:00.003-05:00

About a 15 minute drive from the house runs a creek through some scenic views that I have been meaning to explore. So, I took my 4wt and decided to fish it for a bit for about an hour or two before lunch.

We had some rain a few days ago that were remnants of Hurricane Dolly yet the creek was running clear. The area I tried had had trees surrounding each bank and above it. In some spots the creek was somewhat narrow but casting was not hindered too much.

Wading downstream I was surprised with the depth of the water. I had figured it was going to be really shallow but there were some areas where the water went above my knees. This is of course more than adequate for a largemouth bass to lie in ambush for a woolly bugger.

I caught a couple of really bright orange spotted fish which I think were Pumpkinseeds, and some green sunfish along with a Rio Grande Cichlid. I could see beds in lots of places plus bass patrolling around these beds.

Farther downstream I found a hole that contained a school of dozens of baby catfish. In this hole were a couple of good size bass over one pound that were mingling among the catfish school. I wasn't able to catch either after switching out flies several times.

It was getting to be noon and I was really hungry so I went back upstream and left. I expect to be back to this creek and next time explore the upstream section.

One reason I had come to this creek was because of what I had heard about carp being in there though I did not find any in the small section I explored.

Catfish hole redux

2008-07-19T19:30:00.005-05:00

One of my nephews is visiting us for a couple of weeks this summer. One of the things my son wanted to do while he was here was to take my nephew and he to the place my son and I went a couple of weekends ago to the spot he caught a few catfish. So, I made preparations this week and rented a small sit-on-top kayak from a local kayak shop.

Yesterday, we went to the YMCA in town that has a small, shallow lake and I had my nephew practice his paddling skills since he was fairly new to it. After an hour, he got pretty good at moving forward, turning, stopping and paddling in reverse. I then got all the fishing gear together that night.

This morning we set off to the same put-in as before and headed upriver. My nephew found it a little more difficult paddling against a current (light as it was) but he did just fine.

Eventually, we got to our destination which was the pool where we had caught catfish two weeks ago and rigged up. My son was the first to catch a catfish though my nephew followed soon after with one on his first cast.

Both boys concentrated on their fishing and in the hour and 45 minutes, my nephew caught and released six fish with a couple around two pounds. My son caught and released five on his own.

We paddled back to the put-in so we could get home early to clean up to have lunch with the rest of the family. Both boys enjoyed fishing and paddling together and seeing cranes, herons, a raccoon and finding a sun bleached deer antler. I had fun taking them out as well.

Going back to basics - the woolly bugger

2008-07-14T12:07:00.005-05:00

For a while now I have been experimenting with various new patterns for carp, bass, etc. but I came to a realization that I should return to a pattern, a simple as it is, that worked. Therefore, on my recent trip to a new fly shop I picked up materials for tying up the woolly bugger.

In the past I have caught the following species on this fly:

Catfish
Largemouth Bass
Guadalupe Bass
Red breast sunfish
Bluegill
Rio Grande Cichlid
Common Carp
Spotted gar
Speckled Trout (yes, the saltwater kind)

There are probably a couple of other species that I have caught on the bugger (I don't remember if I caught a rainbow trout on one).

Olive green is my most successful color followed by black so I tied a dozen of these. On recommendation from the fly shop owner, I bought some variegated/grizzly olive (with black bars) Wapsi hackle and maribou. He also recommended black coneheads instead of the gold beads I usually use (even though the package says black, the conheads look like a lead gray to me). I did tie a few with gold coneheads though. I expect these flies will catch fish just fine.

Living Waters Fly Fishing Shop

2008-07-12T21:04:00.004-05:00

This morning I drove about 15 minutes from my house to a new fly shop in neighboring Round Rock to check out a new fly shop that opened up about three weeks ago. It is called Living Waters Fly Fishing and is located in a shopping center just past the intersection of Sam Bass Rd. and Hairy Man Rd. very close to Brushy Creek. I was eager to check it out since the next nearest fly shop is about an hour away and the next one (in Cabelas) even further than that.

It was fairly easy to find. There was a small sign outside that said the shop was now open. When I walked in, someone was just leaving and I was greeted by the owner, a young man by the name of Chris Johnson, and we began to talk.

I knew Chris had worked at a chain sports store that had a "fly shop" in it. While that store originally had an OK supply of fly stuff, they never seemed to restock it well enough or stock it with items pertinent to our Texas location which should have included more items for the target species such as bass and redfish rather than the more traditional cold water trout. I was glad looking around that I did see photos of different species of fish other than just trout.

I asked Chris about the best spots to wade in the nearby creek for bass and carp and he was quite helpful. Before he opened the shop, he used to guide on the nearby creek as well as other rivers in the area. I was mainly interested in carp from the last encounter I had a few weeks back with a fly fisher I met on the San Gabriel. It turns out that Chris new the gentleman that I was speaking of and that man had come by the shop just the day before! Small world!

I picked up some materials for tying some olive and some black woolly buggers since it been a long time since I had any of these successful flies in my fly box and I need to get back to some basics. Chris suggested some slight variations from what I normally tie and after getting home and tying a dozen flies, I think I like the results.

We continued with our conversation and another gentlemen entered the store and we had a conversation with him about carp, gar, Rio Grandes, and other topics as well. My wife was waiting for me at home for us to go to an outlet store so I couldn't stay too long.

I got a good impression of the shop, small as it currently is, that it will likely be around for a while. While he does't carry a lot of items at the moment, Chris said he can place special orders for the brands he carries if what I am looking for isn't there. He also plans to at some point carry Winston and Sage rods to supplement the TFO and Ross rods he is carrying now. I really don't need any rods myself but that should round out the selection.

Chris also plans to have fly tying stations in the back of the store for customers and for hopefully monthly tying seminars.

All I can say is that I hope that this store is around for a long time. We've needed another fly shop for a long while in this part of Austin and there are plenty of fly fishers around that should be supporting the store. I'll be one them for sure.

Fishing, four wheeling, UFOs and fireworks

2008-07-07T18:38:00.008-05:00

Last week, I spent Thursday and Friday fishing in Corpus Christi. I actually got there on Wednesday evening so we went out in the kayaks to do some fishing in the Laguna Madre underneath some lights.

Of course it was windy so it was a bit difficult to cast with my 6 weight and so I spent most of the time with my casting rod. We were catching trout on almost every cast though most of the fish were undersized "schoolie" trout. We did manage a limit but we also had to fight a strong current, sea foam, lots of grass and wind. Not to mention, I got two really nice birds nests on my casting reel and I dunked my fly rod in the water but recovered it before it sank. All in all, it was worth it.

The next afternoon we went to clean the fish at the boat launch and just as we finished up one of the area's best guides came in with four clients.

As it turns out, my cousin knows this guide fairly well and stayed to chat with him. The guide is named Captain Bill Sheka and he is truly a living legend among the guides on the Texas coast. He's been showcased on a few TV fishing shows and guided TV personalities and other celebrities. He's a real nice guy to boot.

Anyways, after a photo of the catch with his clients, he and my cousin were talking and one of the clients asked if the truck parked nearby belonged to my cousin. It was and he asked us to pop the hood open so he could show us how we could get three, four or more miles-per-gallon better mileage out it. Bill introduced his client as Steve Gehrlein. Apparently, Steve is a mechanic's mechanic and owns a very successful auto shop in San Antonio, hosts a radio show on identifying and solving car problems, and also wrote a book on tips to avoid getting ripped off by bad mechanics called Save $$$ on Auto Repairs. So, of course we listened and let him show us how!

Steve proceeded to tell and show us a few modifications to allow additional airflow into the engine via the air filter housing that would do the trick along with cleaning the throttle body. In the process of showing us, he cut his finger pretty badly on the sheet metal though it didn't stop him. He was pretty enthusiastic about showing us how to get that extra gas mileage out of the vehicle.

My cousin asked me to take a photo of him with the celebrities. Since I didn't have my digital camera with me I used my camera phone and the photo didn't come up too bad. Left to right in the photo are my cousin Captain George Garza, Captain Bill Sheka and Steve Gehrlein.

That night we went looking for a way to get to a remote location on North Padre Island that my cousin wanted to fish and we followed a trail that had been created by some four wheelers. It really required a four wheel drive vehicle to get back in there since it was mostly fine sand trails with deep ruts. We almost got stuck twice. It was worth it though as the area we fished was beautiful though we only caught one keeper 20 inch trout. We promised to come back the next night to do some gigging for flounder since there were several small areas in the back that looked promising.

One thing that did occur that night while we there looking up at the starry night was my cousin caught a glimpse of a small white flash high up in the sky and then I saw it too. It blinked a couple of times and then showed up east of where it was again. It flashed a couple of times then showed up farther east almost above us. It flashed a couple of times again then showed up east behind us. Amazing! We knew it was not a jet since nothing travels that fast! It also made no sound. It wasn't a satellite either since you can typically see the object constantly as it travels. It also wasn't a meteor since they stream across the sky and disappear in a flash. It had to be a UFO. I've seen some odd things out there before but that was a first for something like that. I am totally serious when I say that was really freaky seeing that.

The next day, July 4, we came back to do some flounder gigging. After watching a beautiful sunset and it got pretty dark, we walked maybe three miles through the water and only came across two small flounder. All the time there were fireworks exploding all along the beach and across the bay. It was really cool! We packed it up around midnight and headed out. A friend of my cousin's had come along in his four wheel truck and got stuck in the sand just as we were exiting the area. My cousin towed him out and we had a lot of laughs at his friend's expense since that was the second time my cousin has towed him after getting stuck.

This was a most memorable trip and I did bring back some trout as well. I'm going to do some freshwater fishing for a while but will try to get back out for a salt fix in the fall.

Here kitty kitty!

2008-07-06T16:28:00.004-05:00

Today I took my 10 year old son on a guided fishing trip on the San Gabriel river. I was the guide of course. This meant I brought no tackle along for myself. My son brought along his spinning combo, worm hooks, bobbers and, of course, some big fat nightcrawlers.

We paddled to a pool where I was sure we could catch some bass as that is what he wanted to catch. The first fish to strike was indeed a bass but came off. We then went to the end of point of a gravel bar that was adjacent to deep water and tried our luck there. He caught a catfish! A good one to. He then caught another one. And then another. On the third one, I got jabbed by the spine in the pectoral fin as I was taking out the hook and the kitty twisted about. It wasn't a bad jab but enough to hurt and draw blood. This was a good time to teach my son about being careful of those catfish spines and to always carry a small first aid kit which I had in my bag. A little alcohol swab and a bandage and I was fine.

Now, at this point, I was sort of stunned as I have never caught a catfish from this pool. I have caught some nice cats upstream from here. He continued trying to catch a bass (or a carp which he saw splashing about) but kept catching catfish or got hits but no hookups with whatever it was. In less than 2 hours he caught 7 catfish with the largest going over 4 pounds. The largest one gave him a good fight and we took a photo of it and released it. Actually, in the photo it looks as if he is holding the catfish up but just out of camera range above his hand I am holding the line since the catfish was a little heavy for him to hold up that high.

We had a good time on the river and while he didn't land any bass, he did enjoy catching those catfish. We also saw several herons and a large hawk fly over the pool. I am thinking I need to get him his own kayak because the both of just barely fit in my kayak. He knows how to paddle but I may need to tether his kayak to mine when paddling upriver as it hard work sometimes. We'll be back for those bass some other day.

Back from Walt Disney World

2008-06-29T18:04:00.003-05:00

I didn't get any fishing in last weekend or this one since I spent a wonderful week with the family in Buena Vista, Florida visiting each of the Walt Disney World parks. It was a memorable time and I probably took at least a couple of hundred photos that I won't post here except for this one of the iconic Cinderella's castle.

It rained just about every day and the humidity made it feel somewhat uncomfortable at times. Of all the parks, I think my youngest kids like Magic Kingdom the best while my wife and I really liked Hollywood Studios. The world showcase section of Epcot is pretty cool and Animal Kingdom is a very neat park but you are outdoors far more than in the other parks.

This was our second trip to Disneyworld Florida in four years. Next time, we may stay at the Port Orleans Disney resort since it has a fishing pier with a lake stocked with brim and catfish for catch and release fishing. They actually have guided bass fishing trips and bass fishing tournaments at the lake at Magic Kingdom. So, I may take my 5 weight with me next time and maybe I will be able to post a fishing related report then.

Rivers of Texas Rally

2008-06-14T15:21:00.003-05:00

This weekend brings probably over 50,000 motorcycle enthusiasts to the Republic of Texas (ROT) Rally here in Austin. While all those bikers were heading into town, I headed to the San Gabriel river instead with my kayak and 6wt and it turned into a rally of sorts there as well.

I got to the low water crossing at Highway 29 and CR100 around 8am and found three fisherman there. Two were loading up kayaks and the third was wading and casting with a fly rod. I went up to the first two to say good morning and then put together my stuff and started paddling towards the third angler.

I greeted him and started talking with him for a bit. As it turned out he belonged to the Austin Fly Fishers club. It turns out we both knew some of the same folks. One name I mentioned was a fishing pal of one of the guys that had launched their kayak before me. It also turned out that they all worked for IBM. Wow, small world since so do I. I wished him well and paddled upriver.

I came upon the second fly fisher in the kayak and told him I knew, actually worked in the same department with, his best pal. Apparently the guy we mutually knew moved to Boston not long ago but he still keeps in touch. After chatting for a while I headed upstream passing a couple of guys fishing from shore.

At the pool above the rapids I encountered a man and his son bowfishing for carp. For those not familiar with this sport, one uses a regular bow but with an arrow with a special tip that folds back when it penetrates the fish and opens back up after it goes through. The arrow has a line attached that is wound on a spool with a reel that is attached to the bow. The carp is reeled in sort of like when using a rod and reel. The only obvious difference is there is never such a thing as "catch and release" with this method. Although you can eat carp, typically they are ground up for fertilizer.

I continued paddling upstream avoiding to get near the bow fishing duo. After reaching my destination a half mile upstream, I cast a sort of wooly bugger looking fly that is really meant for redfish and caught the bass pictured above on that first cast. I caught several more small bass and lost one that was really nice and was putting a nice bend in my 6wt. After a while I noticed a couple of kayaks downstream so I put my gear up and started paddling back downstream.

It turns out that in one of those kayaks was an angler that frequents the forums at texaskayakfisherman.com so I stopped by and said hello and chatted with him and his wife for a short while. We talked about how nice and peaceful it was fishing in that section of the river. I mentioned to his wife that I had seen a large raccoon on the paddle upstream before it retreated into the woods. After a while I bid them good luck and kept going back downstream.

I fished the next pool for a while catching yet more bass and other sunfish and then I saw one of the fly fishers approaching. I went over and he was stalking carp. He had caught one below the rapids and was looking for another in the pool. We tied on a damselfly nymph and while I was making my way through the rapids he caught another carp! I need to tie up some of those flies!

On the way out at the low water crossing, I found the first fly fisher that had been wading earlier in the morning and he was waiting for his buddies. They weren't all that far behind me and while I was loading up my gear in the truck we talked for a bit and he invited me for a cold beer after they loaded up. I told him I had to pass. Can you imagine if I get home and my wife smells beer on my breath? Oh no boy!

I haven't had so much social interaction on the river like this in a long while. It was kind of nice. However, I am glad that I didn't find 50,000 anglers in the river this morning. I would still be there saying hello to everyone.

Another Bass Sunday

2008-06-01T14:25:00.003-05:00

I set off once again this morning to my favorite hole on the San Gabriel river. The target species would be bass so I took along my trusty 6wt and some bass flies I have tied.

I got there around 8 a.m. and started paddling upstream to find a fly fisherman wading in the river. We talked a bit and he said he had caught a couple of bass on poppers earlier. I told him I was heading upstream and wished him luck.

About 400 yards upstream, I ran into a kayak angler and he hadn't had much luck yet. I told him a few spots to try and wished him luck as I continued paddling upstream.

I finally reached the rapids and proceeded to catch small largemouth and Guadalupe bass. I saw plenty of carp and tried several times for some of those but was rejected. Besides bass, I did manage several red breasted sunfish.

I also lost a lot of flies today; mostly to overhanging trees. I may have to start tying some of the last of the ones I lost, such as the black Zonker Bonker I broke off.

On my way back out, I met up with the other kayak angler who had done well catching bass on one particular timber laydown.

It was another good dayto be out on the river. One good thing about fishing in a river like this when the sun is hot is you can fish in the shade of the large trees growing along the shore. Getting in the water to wade is also refreshing. It's much nicer than fishing on a large lake and I'll be back again though I will likely try one of my other spots along the river next time.

Cool river bass on a hot day

2008-05-26T14:16:00.003-05:00

In the last few days the temperatures have been getting up into the high 90s. Today seemed like a good morning to wet wade the San Gabriel for bass and so I headed to one of my favorite spots along the river and paddled upstream.

I noticed that the algae has started to build up in some spots along the river making it tough using some flies. However, I had success with most of the flies I tried today picking up almost a dozen largemouth and Guadalupe bass. Most of the bass preferred any fly with zonker strips and black seemed popular as well.

I didn't go too far upriver given there were bass everywhere. Most all of them fought great for their size. There is something about river bass. Maybe it's the current that makes them hit hard and fight hard compared to their lake and pond brethren.

I enjoyed being out in the kayak and getting to wet wade in the cool river on a hot day for the first time this year. Hopefully, I will be able to get back there next time and try for some carp.

When size counts

2008-05-10T21:35:00.005-05:00

I spent a few days in Corpus Christi fishing with my cousin, Captain Garza. We went all over the place from Port Aransas to Yarborough Pass and we barely caught a limit of redfish and half a limit of trout in those two days. However, though we fell short in quantity we made up in spades with quality.

On Wednesday evening we made our way to Yarborough Pass which is located about 15 miles south of the entrance to Padre Island National Seashore. Once through the pass to the Laguna Madre side located just south of Baffin Bay, we set camp and fished until 1:30am. During that time we caught only a handful of fish though they were quite good fish.

The first one I caught was a 28 3/4" speckled trout! This was followed by a slot sized redfish and then an 18" trout. My cousin picked up another large trout at 26 1/2" and then a 20" trout followed to our surprise by an 18" flounder. The last fish to be caught was a 28 1/2" redfish that I tagged since it was just over the slot size.

At about 4am, I woke up to the sound of a dog barking. Now, we were pretty much in the middle of nowhere. Apparently someone had driven up during the night to fish but nobody approached the camp. I went back to sleep and my cousin didn't.

The next day was really hot and my cousin caught a nice redfish and trout while I caught nothing.

To make a long story short, the rest of the time we simply shot the breeze and reminisced about our youth, music, and the pursuit of more fish in the future. I am very glad I got the opportunity to bring some fish home to cook for Mother's Day tomorrow. While there weren't that many fish caught, they were some big fish supplying plenty of bags of fillets to enjoy. Yep, sometimes size does matter.

Alligator gar washes up on beach

2008-04-29T21:37:00.010-05:00

My cousin and his better half went driving down to Padre Island National Seashore near Corpus Christi to do some beach combing and they spotted a four foot alligator on the shore. Interesting since alligator gar normally reside in freshwater lakes, bayous, canals and rivers.

I have heard of folks running into some in brackish or salt water. It is possible that when there is a good amount of rain (as was had recently in the area) that they may move out into the ocean and bays when the salinity levels drop. However, they can't survive there very long.

My cousin indicated the gar was freshly dead. On a side note, for those that haven't eaten gar before, the flesh is white and firm and when fried tastes a lot like chicken breast. The hard part is cutting through the armor plating hide. By the way, my cousin left the fish on the beach.

I think I need to get my son a fly rod

2008-04-20T21:27:00.004-05:00

This afternoon I took my son to the pond for an hour of fishing before dinner. I took my 4wt and he took his spinning rod and worms.

We both started catching brim soon after getting there though I caught a few more while he re-baited his hooks with worms. After a while, he asked me for a fly. At first, I told him to stick to the worms. He asked me again so I took out my fly box and let him choose a fly. He chose a white #8 Cypert's mylar minnow. I tied it on and adjusted his float a bit higher. I figured in a few minutes we would be back to the worm hook and worms.

To my surprise, a short time later he hooked a sunfish! This went on several times and some of the brim he caught were pretty good sized! I kept wondering just how he did this. It seemed that his casts were near the fountain in the center of the pond that circulates the water. Near it you get some wave action so apparently the minnow under the float would jig up and down and possibly looked like an injured or dying fish and the big brim couldn't stand it!

Well, after a while we had to leave but I am now seriously considering a fly rod for this boy. If he's willing to try a fly on a spinning rod, I might as well replace the spinning rod with a fly rod and complete the package. I may have to research some fly rods for him and possibly take a trip to Cabela's and see what fly rod combo kits they have in a 5wt.

Passed my CHL test

2008-04-19T21:08:00.003-05:00

No fishing today on such as beautiful day because I spent the entire day in a concealed carry handgun course. It was quite interesting. Most of the information came right out of the law book as well as additional information from very well known authors on the subject. Our instructor was a lady and the 14 people were all men but I'm pretty sure this lady could outshoot most of the men. She did a good job with the instruction.

I was a bit nervous about the shooting part of the exam but it went pretty well. A perfect score is 250 and I scored 243 which was about average. There were some 245 and 248 scores but no perfect scores. Everyone shot autos. One guy did have to leave in the middle of his test since he didn't bring sufficient ammo (you needed 50 rounds for the test). I, as well as the teacher and the other students, were dumbfounded. The instructions clearly say what you need to bring and this guy was renewing his license! Other than this, it was somewhat uneventful. They brought in some BBQ from a local restaurant and it was OK though I think I offended my instructor since she thought it was great.

Now I just have to go to the Texas DPS office to get my fingerprints and turn in all the paperwork, pay the application fee and then wait. I hope to get that done before the end of the month.

My cousin the fishing guide

2008-04-19T20:48:00.005-05:00

I talked to my cousin that lives in Corpus Christi this evening. He recently earned his captain's license and started his own shallow water guide service called Double - G Charters & Fishing Guide Service as a full time guide.

He was telling me about his day wadefishing the shallow lakes near Shamrock Bay. He basically indicated that it was a pretty good day with a lot of trout and flounder caught. He did find a school of reds that were tailing but a group of rude or possibly novice kayak fisherman moved in front of him and scared them off.

He did end the day though with a high note as he caught and landed a very nice 27 3/4" speckled trout that weighed in at 8lbs. That is the one in the photo though you have to realize my cousin is a fairly large man so the trout is much bigger than it looks.

I have to find some time in my schedule to go out there one weekend and he indicated that there are a lot of fish to be caught. I just hope that now that he is a full time guide, it will be on a weekend he doesn't have a client to take out.

My son caught a bass!

2008-04-13T20:41:00.004-05:00

This weekend I took my kids to the pond a couple of afternoons. My son continues to outfish me with his spinning tackle.

I did manage to catch a few bass on Friday afternoon that were all pretty small along with some nice brim. However, my son definitely caught more brim.

On Sunday afternoon we went back and continued to catch more brim and a few small bass.

I decided to move across the pond and leave my son in his favorite spot. Then I heard him call me and I noticed his rod was bent over deeply. He caught a bass! It made one splash and then made a run for some heavy vegetation and snapped the 6lb line on my son's reel. Even though he didn't land it, he was really excited and so was I. I instructed him what to do if this happened again which was to try and steer the fish to shallow water without vegetation if he could without pulling too hard on the line. We estimate the bass was around 2 1/2 pounds. It was his first sizable largemouth.

It wasn't much later than I also hooked a largemouth bass on my 4wt that I had to work out of the vegetation a couple of times but was able to land safely. I estimate it was a healthy 1 1/2 to 2lb fish. Snapped this photo and released it.

Again, my son outfished me both in numbers and with a larger bass. He asked me if there was a place we could go to catch big bass now that he had a taste of what it feels like catching one. I'll have to consider this question carefully.

A versatile tackle bag from Maxpedition

2008-04-07T21:11:00.004-05:00

I've been fishing for years and had all sorts of ways of carrying my fishing lures and accessories. I've bought chest and shoulder packs from Orvis and waistpacks for wading from William Joseph. They either didn't carry enough stuff or they were uncomfortable or inconvenient to wear. Then after being on the Every Day Carry forums web site for a while and purchasing several of Maxpedition's excellent pouches, backpacks and other gear, I ran across a new Maxpedition Fatboy for very cheap on the *-bay and figured "why not?".

Well, the pack arrived and after adjusting the strap to my 6'1" frame, the location for the pack felt very convenient. Unlike my waistpack (a fishing version of a fanny pack), I didn't have to swing it around to take things in and out of it and the Fatboy was easy to access. The strap was also very comfortable.

I started loading up the pack with "stuff".

On the right side, I was able to put a Surefire 6p in the supplied holster without a problem.

On the left side, the pocket was perfect for my handheld GPS that contains waypoints to some favorite spots on some rivers, lakes and bays I go to. The outside MOLLE straps also were useful as a place to holster my clamps that I use to remove fly hooks. This pocket could also be useful to hold your polarized sunglasses.

The cellphone holster held my small slider style phone but I can see where some larger phones may have some issues.

The front flap has a small zippered pocket on the outside that would be useful to store hooks, swivels or anything small that can be kept relatively flat and would be useful to access without opening up the flap.

Under the front flap and front most pocket I placed some fly leaders, tippet, line clipper and in the front zippered compartment a medium size fly box along with a small LED headlamp (such as the Princeton Tec Aurora) for night fishing.

The main compartment can hold a large fly box or several bags of plastic lures or a small Plano box with crankbaits, etc. tucked into the mesh panels on the inside. I was also able to stow a set of compact binoculars in there as well.

Of course, if you are fishing in a really remote area filled with wild pigs, gators, or other predators or bandits and you are able to carry a small pistol, that of course will fit in the CCW pocket located at the rear of the pack accessible by the zipper on the top of the pack. If not for a CCW then this would be a good spot for a small first aid kit in a waterproof plastic baggie.

I also purchased a Maxpedition Three-by-Five pouch to attach to the pack to hold a small digital camera because of course nobody will believe how big that fish you caught and released was without photos, right?

It turned out that the velcro patch area located on the top of the pack had a useful purpose for me in that it was an ideal place for a foam fly patch to put flies to dry after use. It turns out that I have more than a couple of foam fly patches that have the velcro already attached from other packs from Orvis and William Joseph that worked perfectly but they can be obtained from just about any fly shop or you can obviously make your own.

If you use conventional tackle, you can also take a look at the TALS tackle tubes which have a very innovative set of products of which the tubes are the main one that attach to velcro surfaces. The tubes rotate open so that you can remove and safely store something like a crankbait and have it easily accessible on any surface with velcro. To the right is a closeup photo of a TALS tube that I could attach to the velcro patch of the Fatboy if I were so inclined.

Some folks may not like the color scheme I picked but I did say I got it cheap off the *-bay, didn't I?

I think I'm going to like this pack more than the ones I have had in the past that were specifically designed as fishing gear. It certainly seems more versatile.

Range practice

2008-04-07T10:12:00.006-05:00

I went to the outdoor shooting range late Sunday afternoon to get some more practice with my XD-40. I signed up for a concealed carry class that takes place two weeks from now.

Really, the only reason I am attempting to get a CC permit was that on occasion when I take fishing trips to remote and secluded locations, I can legally carry a pistol on my person for protection. I don't plan to carry one very often though.

I still need more practice. I can hit a 8" diameter target most of the time but still tend to shoot low and to the left which means I am still jerking the trigger. I bought some targets that provide very good contrast with bright colors when you score a hit in the black.

Once I hopefully get through the class and eventually get my permit, I may trade in my Springfield Armory XD-40 service pistol for a sub-compact model that will be easier to conceal and take with me.

My brother-in-law recently renewed his CCL and he tells me that the shooting part of the test is fairly easy to pass and that I shouldn't worry since he's seen me shoot. He says that most people are able to rack sufficient points at the close up distances to pass. He also adds that the initial distance is so close that you can throw the bullets at the target and still hit it. We'll see. In the meantime, I'll keep on practicing.

Windy day fishing

2008-03-16T18:18:00.004-05:00

I had promised my son to take him back to the pond one last time before he goes back to school tomorrow. I picked up some night crawlers from Wally world and we headed to the pond for an hour as we had to be back early.

The conditions today were cloudy skies and windy. I decided to still take along my 2wt as I would try to keep the wind behind me.

The night crawlers I bought were huge and so we had to cut them up into chunks that would fit on the size 10 hook my son was using. It was a dirty job but once we did that, my son started catching fish.

We found a corner of the pond where the wind was to our back and was a bit more sheltered that I could cast well enough. It also happened to contain plenty of bluegill so we stayed in that area for the entire time.

As I was bringing in a rather large bluegill, I saw what looked like a 2lb bass cruising like a shark near the struggling bluegill. I called my son over and we saw the bass take the entire bluegill in its mouth and start heading to deeper water! My 2wt started bending deeply and then the bass released the bluegill though it kept close to it until I pulled it from the water and released it.

Even though today was a short outing, it was still a fun and memorable time with the kids.

Pond fishfest

2008-03-16T10:29:00.008-05:00

On Friday I took my son and youngest daughter to the same pond we went to last weekend. The day turned out to be a very warm day with temperatures reaching into the 90s. We waited until about an hour before sunset to start fishing as by then there was some shade available and the fish should be eager to bite.

Earlier in the day, we had stopped at a trading store in town and picked up some red worms and so this was the primary bait for today. It took my son a while to figure out how to keep the worms from falling off the hook. Eventually, once he did, he caught his first fish of the day; a small bluegill.

My son continued catching bluegills pretty steadily. They were small at first and progressively got bigger. There are some really big 'gills in that pond! We also saw a huge crawfish walking along the shoreline.

My daughter found a friend to play with at the pond. Another gentleman had showed up at the pond to fish and brought his daughter that looked to be 4 or 5. My daughter, being a socialite, went over to make a new friend and they basically ran around the pond searching for plastic lures and playing with the worms.

Since my son was doing really well on his own, I decided to take my 4wt to fish along with him. I was using a size 8 Cypert minnow fly and caught so many bluegills in the 7" to 9" size that I lost count. We did catch one small green sunfish but primarily the pond was filled with healthy bluegill. I did also catch one small bass and I figure there are much larger bass in there but I didn't managed any.

Sunset came around and it started getting dark. My son didn't want to leave. As the frogs started to sing, I switched over to a small Gurgler top water fly and as soon as it hit the water, I caught another big bluegill. Eventually I couldn't see my cast around 8:20pm and I told the kids it was time to leave. My son asked me if I had any of my headlamps in the truck so we could keep fishing. I told him we would come back some other day.

While I was packing up the rods and the worms, the kids rolled each other down the steep grass embankment.

I intend to take the kids one more time this weekend before their spring break vacation comes to an end. It is supposed to be pretty windy today with gusts in the 20 to 30mph category. I hope not since that pond would be great to try my 2wt on. I'll post up later as to how today's trip went. Hopefully, it will be as good or better than Friday's.

At the pond with my son

2008-03-08T18:38:00.003-06:00

Last weekend I took my son to Cabelas so he could pick out a new fishing rod/reel combo. We ended up selecting a new 6' spinning rod and reel combo made by Quantum. Today we took it out to a new pond to give it a test drive.

As is a policy of mine, when taking the kids fishing I myself don't fish so that I can devote my time to coaching them.

We picked up some small meal worms and proceeded to fish the pond. It is essentially a retention pond about a 1/4 acre in size at the entrance of a subdivision. I was told it held sizable bluegill so I thought we should take a look.

In the middle of the pond is a large fountain that I expect circulates the water to reduce algae growth. The center of the pond seems at least to be three feet deep. My son started fishing on one end where we had seen some fish as we came close to the pond. However, after about 10 minutes or so we moved on to the opposite end.

While I was checking the count of meal worms we had, my son caught the first bluegill which was fairly nice sized. We photographed and released it.

We moved around the pond and had one other bite in the hour and a half we were there. Even though the fishing was slow, we observed the shoreline of the pond had hundreds of snail shells along it as well as baby frogs jumping into the water as we walked by.

It was a good time and I was very happy taking my son out. It's spring break for his school this week so I plan to have a couple more outings. We might even try fishing for white bass in one of the rivers in which they come in about this time of the year to spawn. I'll have to check the reports though before heading out there.

Operation Nighthawk

2008-02-24T20:33:00.010-06:00

I spent Friday and Saturday in Corpus Christi on a mission to harvest a few fish from the bays that my family and I could enjoy for Fridays during the Lenten season.

My cousin and I loaded up the boat with supplies, launched and arrived at our destination around 10:30am on Friday. Our destination was Nighthawk Bay. We moored the boat next to a duck blind just 10 feet from the drop off. It took almost two hours to unload the boat and set up camp.

We had a small strip of shoreline to set up the tent and the sand was a bit soggy. We picked up dry sea grass and created a mat of it to place the tent over which worked out very well.

Since the sand was so wet, the stakes we originally had were getting pulled out by the wind so I went down the shoreline scavenging for something that would work and found the remains of a folding chair and used the lengthy rusted metal legs to drive into the sand and that was perfect.

While scavenging the shoreline I noticed a gun case. Out of curiosity we opened it up and it contained a really rusted shotgun inside! It could have been left behind accidentally by some duck hunters or possibly fallen off the boat and floated to shore. Regardless, the shotgun was too far gone with rust and salt to be reconditioned so we left it.

Once camp was set up, we went wade fishing for a while and found no fish so we rested for a while.

Just about an hour and a half before sunset, I went back out to the edge of the drop off and started casting a minnow lure with my baitcaster. I didn't bring a fly rod for this trip as the water past the drop off was about 4 feet deep and not conducive to sight casting and I needed something that could cover a lot of water. Within minutes, I got a hit but lost the first fish.

After a cast I would use a quick enough retrieve to keep the minnow lure moving just below the water surface. All of a sudden there appeared a large wake behind my lure and then I felt pressure and had what felt like a redfish on the end of my line! Unfortunately, after several seconds, it came off. I repeated my cast and retrieve and was again rewarded with a strike and hookup and this time it was on!

I could tell this was a decent redfish as it took line and my drag zinged every once in a while. By this time, my cousin took notice of my rod bent over and headed towards me. I landed the first fish which was a beautiful 25" redfish. For the next two hours we had pretty consistent action though after the redfish action died down the trout action heated up. At least once we had a double hookup on trout.

Almost as soon as it appeared, the bite stopped after it got dark. By 11pm we had the last bite and then ate dinner and turned in for the night. At that point we had five redfish ranging from 24" to 27" and ten trout ranging from 16" to 22" in the cooler.

The night was a very humid and everything we left outside was wet and within the tent we had condensation and the outside of our sleeping bags were damp. During the night we could hear coyotes, raccoons, and hogs coming around the camp and in the distance you could someone shooting a semi-auto rifle at 2:30am. Well, my cousin recounted what he heard to me since I was out like a light until 5:30am.

In the morning we had some coffee and a light breakfast and packed everything up and left by 8am. We took the boat back out of the water at 9:30am and by the time we unloaded everything at the house, cleaned everything and the fish it was past 1pm. It was easy to tell at the boat ramp cleaning table that we did much better than most and it took about an hour to clean all the fish.

After this we had a late lunch, cleaned up and napped for a couple hours. After that we headed to Bird Island Basin in the evening to try our luck again. To make a long story short, we stayed there a couple of hours and only caught one hardhead catfish so we went back home to turn in.

This trip exceeded my expectations for this time of the year. It was also a fun adventure. I hope that when I run out of fish from the freezer I can get a chance to get out there again in late March or April. Tonight, I am still reminded how tasty the grilled redfish on the half-shell was. Real tasty.

The next generation fisherman

2008-02-17T20:05:00.004-06:00

This afternoon, I asked my kids if they wanted to go fishing. The youngest two said "Yes!". Last weekend I took them briefly to the YMCA lake without any luck but this time we were going to a neighborhood park and we were going to give meal worms under a float a try.

Before we left, I had stopped by the local pet shop for a cup of meal worms but all they had were the "super" worms. They were a bit big but since that is all they had and sunset was going to be approaching soon, I got them anyways.

I rigged up a small spinning rod for my son and the pink Barbie pole for my daughter and we headed to the park.

The day had turned out to be a pleasant day with temperatures in the 60s. We walked around the pond looking for fish. I decided to every once in a while throw a meal worm in the water and see what happened. In one spot, soon after the meal worm would hit the water, you would see a swirl appear and the meal worm would get sucked into the vortex. I told my son to cast into the vortex and we waited.

Not long afterwards, the float went below the water surface and start taking off. It was a nice sunfish! I had my son bring in the fish and we snapped a photo of this nice 8 1/2" to 9" Green Sunfish and then released it.

My daughter, however, seemed to be more interested in exploring the park and had abandoned her Barbie pole. My son was intent on catching more fish though the "super" meal worms were fascinating him.

We moved to a different spot and found fish but given the size of the worms, the smaller sunfish would grab the tail but not the hook and so we had a lot of false strikes.

As the sun started setting and we were out of worms, I told the kids we were heading home. My son was disappointed as he wanted to continue fishing. While in the truck he asked me about building his own spinning rod which is something we discussed last weekend. He was still interested in doing that. I am still looking for an inexpensive kit for an ultralight spinning rod.

Just before bedtime tonight, my son asked me if we could go fishing tomorrow. I told him that tomorrow is a school day and he answered, "What about after school?". I responded, "We'll see".

I am getting the impression that my son is now coming into his own passion as I did about fishing. So it looks like this year I will be devoting much more time to fueling this passion by taking him with me more often. It also seems like I have some work to do with my daughter. ;-)

Warm bed or fish at night?

2008-02-03T14:23:00.000-06:00

I got up at 2am this morning to go fishing on nearby Lake Travis. Of particular interest for this trip was to look to see if the white bass are staging before the spawn later this month or next month.

I was in the water by 3am. The wind was blowing about 10mph from the south and so the air temperature was comfortable in the high 60s. I paddled to a boat slip that I have fished for white bass before that is in about 10 feet of water on the edge of a much deeper channel.

Unfortunately, the main lamp that lights up the water was malfunctioning and would turn on then turn off a few seconds later then after a long period of time would randomly do it again. I did fish it for a few minutes but didn't get a single bite.

I found an underwater green light near a floating houseboat. I saw one fish hanging around the lights but had trouble anchoring in 40 feet of water as that is about the length of my anchor rope and the wind would push me towards the lights.

After a while I decided the fish just weren't here in numbers yet and left the water by 4am at which time the wind settled down to about 5mph.

When I got home to get back into bed my wife asked, "Huh, you still here?".

Fishing in a swimming pool

2008-01-27T18:16:00.000-06:00

This morning I went down to Lady Bird Lake in downtown Austin to look for some largemouth bass. I decided since the water would be warmest coming out of Barton Springs I paddled into Barton Creek.

First thing I noticed was that even though the water was crystal clear it was also lower than I remembered. This might be due to less water being released upstream since the drawndown of Lake Austin upstream is probably complete.

I ran into another kayak angler that indicated there were fish in the creek yet with the water clarity he was having difficulty enticing them. I paddled past him and sure enough found lots of bass. Some of them looked to be in the four pound range if not slightly larger but they seemed to not be interested in anything I threw. Actually, that isn't entirely true, I threw a Gurgler topwater fly and had one small bass try to take it but I was to quick on the hookset this time.

I stayed there for about two hours then decided to throw in the towel. So many bass but all of them were wise to me in such clear, shallow water. I also saw one huge carp and what looked like shad but they were about 10 inches long.

I hope next weekend I can fish Lake Travis at night and see if any white bass show up.

I gotta work on my hookset

2008-01-26T20:41:00.000-06:00

I left mid-morning today to fish the San Gabriel river. Most of this week had been cold and drizzly and today was turning out to be a nice day with highs expected in the 60s.

The intention of this outing was to catch some carp on the fly. The water was cold but I did find lots of carp along the shoreline of a large pool that looked to be feeding. I had three takes and couldn't get a good hookset. Maybe the month away from the fly rod was to blame. My casts were also horrible. Still, I was finally able to get a good hookset on a carp, fought him for a bit and my leader broke at the knot to the fly. Sheesh!

I traveled up to the shallow flats and stood there for a bit until the carp got comfortable and did a few drifts with one pick up and again I screwed up the hookset!

Eventually, I headed back out and paddled the pool with the kayak to sneak up on a whole school of carp feeding and dropped my fly in front of them and got a solid hookup! Once I got the carp on the reel and tightened up drag it took me for a sleigh ride around the pool. After he gave up and I released him, I paddled back and left.

I didn't take my camera today due to the fact that the battery was dead. I wanted to do some night fishing tonight but am too tired. Instead, I'm going to rest up and fish for bass tomorrow on Lady Bird Lake in downtown Austin.

A new blade by my side

2008-01-14T21:42:00.000-06:00

About two months ago, I purchased a new knife from Aeromedix.com. It is model based on design improvements done by survival expert Doug Ritter to the standard Benchmade Griptilian which I have a couple of. I am a big fan of the mini griptilian and found Doug's blade geometry, high flat ground blade and S30V steel choice to be worth the try. So far I have been very, very pleased with the choice I made and have carried the knife almost daily. The model is the Mini RSK Mk1 and is sold exclusively through Aeromedix.com which donates some of the proceeds to support the non-profit Equipped To Survive Foundation which seems like a good thing.

Lately, I have been considering a new choice for a fixed blade knife to take along with me while fishing and camping. I've considered the Benchmade Nimravus (too tactical), Ontario RAT-5 (too tactical), Striders (way too expensive and again too tactical) and a few other production choices. I then realized that Doug Ritter created a great medium sized fixed blade based on the same blade geometry of the Mk1 that would be an ideal choice. It has a blade length of 4.5" which is just enough for my needs. So as soon as I gather the funds, I will be back to Aeromedix.com to order one. I just wish the Mk3 came with yellow or orange G-10 handles but alas it doesn't yet.

Year of the Fish

2008-01-06T19:22:00.000-06:00

This February is supposed start the "Year of the Rat" according to the Chinese Zodiac. After returning from a successful two day trip to Corpus Christi, I think this should be the "Year of the Fish". Of course, there is no fish in the Chinese Zodiac (but there should be).

The first day I arrived we set out in the afternoon to fish a spot in the Laguna Madre near the JFK causeway but did not end up with anything so we got ready to fish the evening at Bird Island Basin with the sail line. That night was cold and having only caught two slot redfish and having lost the wind we turned in at 10pm to rest and set out the next morning in the boat.

The next morning we loaded the boat and went to several spots trying to catch trout or reds with live shrimp but we couldn't even lose the bait. We didn't see any fish in the clear water on that clear bluebird day. The water also felt cold. Things were supposed to change along with the wind direction that night so we went back to Bird Island Basin later that afternoon.

This time we got there early around 4pm and set the sail line out with a decent south easterly wind and the water seemed to have warmed up as well. We could see plenty of bait fish in the shallows and as the sail line went out just past the drop off and within minutes had fish on. We made four runs that evening until midnight and each one contained fish. All in all we ended up with eight trout of which two were a very healthy 25 inches and several in the 17 and 19 inch length. We also ended the night with 8 very nice black drum. The 100 quart ice chest was stacked with fish.

That night there were also two older gentlemen that had set out a sail line and caught a whopping 32 inch trout! They released it but very likely the odds are it won't survive. It would have been best to have kept it.

After arriving home to Austin I prepared the grill and broiled the fresh redfish on the half shell (fillets with the skin on) prepared with lime juice, salt, pepper, garlic and some chili pepper. It was very good!

Sardine sized trout? Not for me thanks!

2007-12-09T13:55:00.000-06:00

This past Wednesday, Texas Parks & Wildlife stocked San Gabriel City Park with approximately 2,500 rainbow trout. I decided to go yesterday afternoon to check out the scene.

While there were several folks there fishing from shore, there were a couple in canoes. I decide to just paddle around and investigate. The water was clear yet I didn't spot any schooling rainbows or see anyone pulling any fish out. So I just paddled back and decided I would fish a spot downstream from the park past the retention dam/falls and a low water bridge. On my way out someone cast an in-line spinner across my bow and I barely avoid getting hooked. This was confirmation that it would not only be nicer fishing somewhere more secluded but safer.

Below the bridge, you can wade and paddle downstream and it becomes really scenic and sometimes feels quite secluded. On my way down, I spotted what looked like a rainbow trout no longer than 7 inches long. It looks as if some had made it over the falls. However, having caught some that size last year, they were all not that impressive fighters so I decided to pass. I headed further downstream to fish below riffles and rapids for bass and brim instead.

The water was so nice and clear and the temperature seemed to be in mid 60s. It was cool but not really cold. A lot of the algae was gone and the rocks below the clear water looked like granite to me. Before, with silt and algae clinging to it, I wasn't sure if they were just limestone or not.

Long story short, I caught several feisty Guadalupe bass, Largemouth bass, and some nice brim. I caught one beauty that was 9 inches long and it fought hard in the rapids and put a nice bend in my 4wt.

On my way back out, I found a young fly fisher wading near where I saw the small rainbow and he was apparently catching and keeping them. I circled wide behind him to the opposite side of the river to avoid disturbing him and the the rainbows. I wanted to tell him that when he got tired of catching hatchery fish that he could wade downstream and tangle with some wild bass and brim and have more fun but I was in hurry to get home to get ready for a Christmas party so I let him be. Maybe I'll see him out there again.

Twenty four hours to fish

2007-11-21T19:36:00.001-06:00

On Monday afternoon I left the Rio Grande Valley and traveled north to Corpus Christi to once again fish with my cousin. I basically had about 24 hours or so to fish as I had to get back on my way in order to be home to make preparations for Thanksgiving day.

On Monday evening we set out in the kayaks to fish around Nueces Bay and the causeway there. Normally, the fishing is excellent when there is a strong outgoing on incoming tide. However, the tide that night was not quite that strong and might be considered somewhat slack and so the fish weren't there in large numbers. I caught three trout no larger than 14 inches and so after a few hours we decided to leave to rest for a trip out in the motorboat the next day.

On Tuesday morning we cleaned up our gear from the night before and loaded up the boat and set out to fish Nighthawk Bay. We took along live shrimp to fish under a popping cork. We spent about 3 or 4 hours out in the bay and I caught only one keeper trout at about 17 inches.

After cleaning the boat and gear we rested a little and decided to go out in the evening and try our luck with the sail line. Once we got to Bird Island Basin and set out the sail line, the first time we brought it in it had seven keeper trout on it! It looked as if this night might make up for the tough day but alas it was not to be. We made three additional runs up until midnight and only caught one undersized trout.

Despite the lack of a lot of fish, I am thankful for the 16 fillets of trout that I was able to bring back which will be on the menu this weekend after everyone is tired of Thanksgiving leftovers.

Pier fishing in Port Isabel

2007-11-21T18:56:00.001-06:00

I traveled down to the Rio Grande Valley to visit family and while I was there I promised my younger two children that I would take them fishing. We were staying with in-laws in Los Fresnos which is about 20 minutes from Port Isabel and South Padre Island.

On Monday I got up early but it was raining so we had to wait until 9:30am to get going. I went to pick up my niece to take her along and then we all headed to Pirate's Landing fishing pier near the lighthouse in Port Isabel. I bought some shrimp and walked out to a section of the pier the kids and I have been to before. We noted the color of the water was a gorgeous light green.

I had rigged each rod with a carolina rig and a circle hook on which I put one shrimp and set it out. My son was casting my baitcaster rod and reel setup which he really enjoyed and the girls had spinning rigs.

Gabi was the first to catch a fish and it ended up being an 18" or 19" ladyfish (skipjack) which is sometimes referred to as "the poor man's tarpon". We photographed the catch and released it.

Next to catch something was my niece who caught a small stingray which I didn't photograph and released quickly.

My son by this time was getting frustrated as he had not caught anything yet and the girls had. The girls decided to leave their rods on the railing and play on a bench together.

While I was checking on the other rods my son noticed that my daughter's rod was bending over and grabbed it before it got pulled over the railings and I had him reel it in and it had a fairly sizable croaker on it which is related to redfish. We photographed and released it.

By this time, all three kids had caught something and we were running out of time as we only had an hour to fish. They insisted I take one of their rods and catch something before we left and I ended up catching a puffer fish which was interesting as we all ended up catching a different species.

At this point we left but I promised to bring them back the next time we came to visit to see what else we could catch.