Cheap Trick at SXSW

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

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

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

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

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.