Houston Fly Fishing School

Dropped in on the Frederiksberg Fly Fishers' annual fall event, Oktoberfisch, on Friday and Saturday the 14th and 15th of October. This ever popular and growing event had a great turnout. Chris Johnson - Living Waters Fly Fishing from Round Rock, martin Pursch - Country FlyFisher Shop from Fredericksburg, and Rick Wilson - Fbg Outfitters had set up shop to provide materials, flies, and gear for attendees. There were casting classes for beginners and intermediate casters, fly tying classes, Gene Smith's presentation on Aquatic Invertebrates, and, most importantly, shuttles to the river.

Dr. Gary Garrett, Texas Parks and Wildlife Inland Fisheries Division, spoke on Friday night about the Guadalupe Bass Restoration Initiative. The Guadalupe bass is a Central Texas endemic, naturally occurring only in streams draining the Edwards Plateau region (San Antonio, Guadalupe, Colorado and Brazos river systems). In 1989, it was designated the State Fish of Texas by the Texas Legislature, in recognition of the unique character of both the Guadalupe bass and its habitat. Guadalupe bass has long provided a popular sport fishery in the Edwards Plateau region of Texas. Texas Parks and Wildlife are trying to ensure that our state game fish survives and are trying to undo the unforeseen consequences of stocking smallmouth bass in the Hill Country streams starting in the mid seventies. The smallmouth crossbred with the Guads threatening the genetic stock. The program has been very successful in the Guadalupe River where hybridization had reached 30 percent and just recently Texas Parks and Wildlife stocked the South Llano. Although the hybridization was thought to be very low coma red to the Gaualupe at just three percent the stocking was done to ensure that the problem doesn't grow.

My last three trips to the Llano had resulted in zero Rio Grandes. The upper reaches of the South Llano were more productive and a couple of these fine fighting fish were landed. The Rio Grande is distinctive in that they exhibit cream and turquoise colored spots, giving them a speckled look. The Texas record was from the South Llano and weighed in at about 1.6 pounds. The one on the right fell for a Miss Prissy. Although a good size it wasn't close to the state record. One can always hope.

On Friday the 14th I drove to the second highway 377 road crossing south of Junction with the goal of paddling upstream past Telegraph to get a look at the springs that underpin the Llano's flow even in this period of drought. The fact that I forgot my GPS didn't help as it took a significant amount of time to get up to Big Paint Creek. Those of you that have made the effort could have warned me that Big Paint Creek is not a 'navigable waterway' and is private; clearly and threateningly marked as such. The South Llano is open and I paddled and dragged another forty minutes and got to the Seven Hundred Springs. Pretty spectacular. On the way you pass a smaller spring and a three to four foot waterfall pictured here.

The farther upstream you go and the closer to the main springs the water clarity improves dramatically and the limestone stream bed starts to look a lot like the Devils River. The clear water provides great top water fishing action - you can watch the fish come out from the undercuts and smash or gently inhale your fly. The bigger bass - sixteen to eighteen inches - were in the inhale the Miss Prissy mode.

The drought in Texas is still going strong, but just in time for my fall trip to fish the Llano some rain fell in the drainage and water levels in the river went up to just about the median. Two inches of rain in and around Mason and four inches near Llano helped pull the river up from flows the lowest I have seen in the eight years I have been fishing the Llano. No dragging the yak.

The graphic to the left is a copy of information available from the USGS. (click on it for a clearer version) If they have stream flow measurement equipment you can get just about real-time information on stream flow, gauge height, and possibly rainfall. The pattern for the Llano is pretty consistent. A reasonable amount of rain will raise the river flows significantly, but you only have to wait a day or two for the peak to drop back down to safe fishing levels. My experience on the Llano east of Mason is that it clears up just about as fast. In this case the river had been running at about 10 and 40 cfs for most of June, July, August, and September. The rains pulled it up to near the median flow which minimizes the 'yak dragging'.

The USGS started a new service called Water Alert about a year ago that can send sms or e-mail alerts if the flow rate for your favorite stream is outside a range that you pick. This lets me follow the river before a trip. Check out the USGS Water Alert website for more details on how to sign up.

The fishing was slower than my past experience but still pretty spectacular. The weather was just about perfect with nights in the 50s and sunny days in the 90s. As always, thanks to David and Lucy for providing one of the best camping spots on the river.