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.
5 comments:
Up here in north Texas, using a beadhead woolly bugger (#6 or #8) in olive or black is a good fly to use. Several fly fisherman I know through nothing else, and catch bass, perch and a small catfish or two.
I use to fish the San Gabriel near Georgetown when I was at Southwestern U. That was before the lake was impounded. What a beautiful clear river. Bass and catfish. Hard to catch because of the clear water . . . and because of all the noise we made.
Oh, to be young again!
I appreciate your blog.
Pastor Rick ><>
Howdy Pastor Rick,
I have used exactly those two colors and size of BH woolly buggers and have caught carp, bass, catfish, gar, bluegill and rio grande cichlid and can attest to their fish catching ability.
I do however like to experiment but it is high time I tie up some olive and black BH woolly buggers on #6 hooks!
I'm sure the river has changed quite a bit since you remember it. Even in the past couple of years, the river has changed for me. I remember it far more cleaner with less algae and silt than recently. Same thing with Lake Travis that I used to fish a lot. I remember being able to clearly see down to 10 or more feet below me. It was said that you could see a yellow colored anchor in 20 feet of water in Lake Travis. Lately, it too has gotten more silt and though it is still pretty clear it isn't like it used to be.
Thanks!
Some anglers tell me that fishing on the North San Gabriel has declined in recent years because more water is being taken out of the lake and sent to Roundrock, so there is less released from the lake and therefore less flow below the dam. Do you think this is correct?
I'm teaching a course at Southwestern next fall on the history and ecology of the San Gabriel. To share information with my students, I've started a blog providing information about the San Gabriel at: http://sgrivertexas.blogspot.com/ Take a look.
Hi Ben,
I haven't fished below the Georgetown dam in over year but the flows there did seem low.
I may have to contact a fishing buddy that uses to keep annual flow rate information about the San Gabriel. He may be able to provide some actual useful data on historical flows.
I was a student at Southwestern in the middle 70's, and haven't fished the north or south San Gabriel since probably 1979. I have forgotten which branch of the San Gabriel became the new lake, but I used to fish about 100 yards from where we dug in an old indian burnt midden (cook mound) as part of an "Archaeology of Palenstine" class taught by Dr. Edmund Steelman. I met my wife in that class. Dr. Steelman would yell at me to either stop fishing and come start digging, or he would fail me. Or was that "flail" me. The river then had the pristine river bed, with lots of exposed rock which is now all underwater. Except at high water because of a storm, it was always clear . . . or at least that is what I remember.
All we could afford to use, fly wise, were little white sponge spiders we bought at the old hardware store on the west side of the Courthouse square, around the corner fom the old Gold's Department store. We used little 7 foot South Bend fiberglass fly rods. We had no idea what we were doing . . .
The way I fly cast . . . I probably still don't know what I am doing. Wish I had a kayak back then. I'm still an old fashioned canoe user.
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