Last week, my friend Winston, myself and local fisherman and blogger Eric (die Fische.org) headed out to fish the Guadalupe below Canyon Dam. This is the “trophy trout” aquarium stretch of the river, in which the state and the local chapter of Trout Unlimited stock trout every year. Never will you see a group of people more defensive about a totally artificial environment than trout fishermen on the Guadalupe River in Texas.
Anyway, with the first stockings just a couple of days away and a cold front passing through the night before none of us had high expectations. There was always the chance of holdover trout, but the bass fishing would suck. This was just a scouting trip we told ourselves. It didn’t matter if we didn’t catch anything. *cough* bullshit *cough*
Flows are incredibly low for this time of year. Due to the severe drought Texas is experiencing there just isn’t a lot of surplus water to pump out of the dam. Supposedly the GRTU hammered out an agreement with the dam authority to bump flows up during the winter and keep them at a constant level to better support the fish. Whether or not that will be the case this year is still up in the air.
Winston had been down here before a couple times, and Eric knew the area well, but I didn’t have a damn clue where to go. Eric took us to a couple of places, eventually ending up directly downstream of the dam. The scenery is better than any other part of Texas I have yet seen.
The fishing… Well, the fishing sucked. For six hours we plied the waters with everything we had. Bass bugs, poppers, streamers, nymphs, the works. We threw the box at it. In fact, if we had even SEEN a fish in the river, literally throwing the box at it would probably have worked better.
While a lack of fish is certainly depressing, standing in moving water (even here in Texas) and casting a fly line just makes you feel better about things. This trip was the first time I had fished with either Winston or Eric, and a skunk day will show you more about the character of your fishing buddies than anything else. Suffice it to say, I’ll be fishing with both of them again.
Winston summed it up best while on the phone with his wife: “We didn’t catch shit.”
‘Nuff said.
Tags: Texas
{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
I lived in Austin for almost 10 years and fished with these guys as a lease paying member for all but one year. They are maniacally defensive about the water even to the point of keeping a bad boy list on their forum (at least that’s where it used to be) where the rule breakers and non-compliant were subject to ridicule and verbal lashings.
In their defense, they’ve taken a waterway that’s been decimated by privitization and stock it with fish that provide some exposure to the sport of fly fishing that most of these good people would never otherwise have. True, they’re not native to the area, could never over-summer there and never truly seemed to look healthy or energetic to my eye. (No doubt someone will post a vehement argument to that; I’m just a wildlife biology prof who guides in the summer in Colorado and has fished for salmonidae now for almost 50 years.)
The GRTU also does some worthy educational work in the schools and has in the past brought in some of the tried and true giants of the sport to speak at their meetings and what not, though the schedule has been weaker of late from what I can recall (I know they’ve been trying to get some of the TU leadership out, which would be a good thing).
That said, expect some vituperative commentary from your good neighbors. Your most apt descriptor of the aquarium, perhaps the best I’ve heard about the river there, might just excite your good neighbors. I believe you’d say ‘piss ‘em off’ back in your Montana country.
Finally, I appreciate the great conservation work your team has been posting over the past several months. Your blog is a must read for me as I finish some work in Germany and it’s been nice to plow through the interviews as well. I’m headed home (Colorado) this summer and have an idea I’d like to run by you and Mark regarding a project that you might find interesting.
Love it! It’s absolutely true about what you wrote about getting skunked! That was a fun day.
@guide Jim, they still have the bad boy club, and I’m proud to say that in less than month of membership I’m in it.
Forgot a thought from my comment yesterday; Jake, you should try and interview the GRTU guys about their stocking program on the Guadalupe. Then chat with a cold-water fisheries biologist about it.
@Guide Jim: Thanks for your comments and we appreciate your readership. Its good to get the feedback of someone who has been involved with the organization for so long. Sounds like the bad boy list is still going strong: I talked to a young lady yesterday who had just joined the group and was terrified of making a mistake and ending up on it.
I do believe our good neighbors will get rather excited should any of them read this, so if my car mysteriously blows up one day I’ll know who to blame. After my comments here and previously, I doubt the GRTU would grant me an interview but if they ever should I’ll let you know.
Mark and I would love to talk to you about your project, safe travels on your way back home next summer.
@Winston: That was a fun day. We’ll definitely have to do it again. Cheers on getting into the bad boys club.. I bet if I’m not already on it, I will be soon.
Seriously need to find time to go fish with you guys!
We would love to go fishing with you Amanda! Name the time and place and we’ll make it work!
Sounds like you guys need to learn how to fly-fish. Also, due to the drought, the fishing did not pick up till after the first stocking.
Yep, it is like an aquarium, but it is still fishing. As a member of GRTU, we realize that the minute we put those fish into the river that they are public property. Hope you catch a nice one!
Tocelp, really? These guys need to learn how to fish?
And unwittingly you’ve just confirmed the most damning criticism of your stocking program – the reason the ‘fishing didn’t pick up till after the first stocking’ is that the overwhelming majority of the stocked fish can’t survive the summer heat, low flows or not.
Well again I’m speechless by a comment made by a fellow GRTU member…
We need to learn to fly fish? Seriously now, we need to learn to fly fish???
I’ve fished the might Guad twice now and each time it left me feeling so dirty I don’t think I could do it again. You and the GRTU can have those pasty stockers.
And if I see one more person bragging about the size of the “huge trout” he caught on the Guad, only to take a look at the picture and see all the fins rubbed off the damned thing from the hatchery, I’ll probably vomit.