Winding Down my Trout Season on the Guadalupe

[Jimbo Roberts]

Sometimes I feel a bit guilty posting stories about Trout Fishing on the Guadalupe this time of year when the flows are relatively low.
I feel that by showing stories about my Trout fishing this time of year may encourage others to fish reguardless of water temperatures resulting in increased delayed mortality amoung the Guadalupe Trout population. So let me start by saying that I study temperature monitors and decide where and where not to fish. I take along a thermometer and take water temperatures throughout the day. Anything 70 or above and I quit and or move upstream into colder waters.

Now with that said I have still been fishing almost every week till now. But this week we will see air temps in the high 90s if not 100s. With those kind of air temps, water temps rise quickly, and I will not fish in an area that sees any water temps over 74 anytime during the day. And I will probably be fishing very little, if at all, for Trout in the Guadalupe from now till the coming fall.

Here is what I have been doing these past few weeks.
Shooting some more videos in the Self Portrait Series, all alone, by myself.

Some came out great, some good, some that are best titled "What was I Thinking?"


I have been mainly fishing from Rio to S Turn rapids in the early morning and from Rio to Maricopa in the afternoon and evenings. Catching has been remarkably good. The Trout are still fat and have happily taken my flys.


This first one is an example of when things go right. I walk into the frame, make one cast. Watch as the strike indicator comes into the frame at about 52 seconds. There is a deep rock which the flys crawl over pulling the strike indicator under at 57 seconds, then as I free them and the flys slide into the pocket behind the rock at 1:02..... Bingo !!!
(Click on the Pic for the Video)




And just to show it's not all shooting fish in a barrel this one takes a bit longer. It takes 7 casts and drifts to get the bite.....




And since this is summer and we are not the only ones enjoying the river here is what commonly happens without the tubers knowing what they are doing.
They wade right through the run I am fishing putting down the fish for awhile.

There is one thing I will not do and that's reprimand the tubers for what they do not know, especially when one of them is pregnant !!!

Here's one shot down at the half-way riffle.....

And here is the Trout I just landed using my knee as a current break.....




Below the lower weir on the Old Kanz property.....


Of course Trout aren't the only species landed. Guess what's in the Net?.....

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This was a real nice Smallmouth and my biggest this year about 3lbs I think.


And then on to the category of "What's going on there?".....
This video will take some cooperation. I want you to start the video, be patient, I bounce my nymphs off many rocks during the video so keep watching. Then I want you to watch for the strike at 1:57 and then stop it at 2:00. Did you see the strike? Did you see the striker indicator zip down and across the river? What do you think this is? You will never get it right.....

What was your guess? Now start the video again and watch it play out.
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A beer can? You've got to be kidding me! I thought I had a good Trout on, boy was I wrong! A combination of hooking a flat plane in the right spot, that catches the current, and pulls everything downstream and planes away from me. I really thought whatever was on the line was alive for the first few seconds. But's that's part of the reason we go fishing.... the surprise of what happens while waving a stick in the air in the middle of a river.

Jimbo

[Jimbo Roberts]

Oops the old double quoted while trying to edit!

Jimbo

[Wildman]

What a magnificent fishery! Do you float it as well?

[Bernard]

The smallmouth is beautiful!
he new species isn't
Really enjoy the self-documentation stuff.
B.

[Jimbo Roberts]

Many anglers float the river. They fish as they go and then get out at the better spots and wade fish. I would say we have about 15 guides working the river during the Trout Season of November to May. On the year's we have good summer flows we will have some still guiding through till the fall, but most will go on to guide on other fisheries.
Yeap that Smallmouth was especially well colored and marked. I can still not get over hooking the flattened beer can and thinking for about 3 seconds I had a fish on. I mean that thing went downstream and to the opposite side of the river. You could have knocked me over with a feather.

Jimbo

[Artin]

You have an amazing fishery there. I would love a small mouth stream like that around here. Very nice.

Artin

[briansII]

At least you fair hooked that can.

briansII

[Jimbo Roberts]

Originally, before Canyon Dam was built, the Guadalupe was a warm water fishery. We had the usual: perch, catfish, gar, Native Largemouth and Guadalupe Bass. When they built the lake we also saw Stripers and Smallmouth that were stocked in the lake, come through the dam, and into the river below. Smallmouths are fun, but they interbreed with the Guadalupe Bass and eventual dilute their gene pool. There is an ongoing program to restore the Guadalupe Bass to it's native range in the Hill Country of Texas (the only place they are found in the world) as they have been pushed into the uppermost headwaters much like Cutthroats being pushed out of their native range by Rainbows and into their headwaters in the Rockies. The Stripers that come through the dam fear nothing and eat everything that swims including: Trout, Bass, Perch, catfish and anything else they can swallow.

Jimbo

[WanderingBlues]

Very cool fishery. Are the trout a part of a stocking program in the winter, or have they become self sustaining? The beer can reminds me of an old off shore trick. If another boat is to close and an angler fouls his line with yours, we used to reel in their lure, untangle it, and tie it onto a coffee can and submerge it. Once they started reeling it and the rod started bending, we'd yell "hook up," they would think a tuna was on and work like heck to bring it in... Lots of laughs (on our boat...)

[Jimbo Roberts]

The Trout fishery was started as a replacement of the natural warm water fishery that existed before the dam was built. Canyon Dam, was at the time of it's completion, the largest earthen dam in the world. The lake was built by the Army Corps of Engineers as a flood control project. The Texas Hill Country is one of the most flood prone areas in the world. The dam created a lake that is over 120' deep. The resulting discharge from the lake is typically high 40's to high 50's year round.
Our Trout fishery is not self-sustaining. Many studies have been unable to identify the problem. Most biologists simply think that the existing, Perch, Bass, Stripers, and Red Horse Suckers attack and consume virtually everything from the eggs to catchable sized Trout. So ours is believed to be an incurable problem of recruitment.

Jimbo

[beachbum]

Nice post, Jimbo! I never knew there was fishing like that there until you showed us.