Fishing adventures

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

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

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

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

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!