Month: January 2018

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Bleak Midwinter

 

Yesterday afternoon we took the boat out on Galveston Bay.  When we left the Galveston channel around 2 the bay was smooth enough to open the throttle.  It must have been somewhere close to 60˚.  We polled around Greens Lake for a bit, but saw no fish.  Low tide was hours before, but it was still low midwinter water, about 8″ where it would normally be at least a foot.  By three the wind had picked up to about 15 and shifted to the northeast. The temperature was dropping and the ride home was a tooth-rattler.  Today in Houston there’s snow, and it’s 27˚.

Sun is shining, and we’re in the Intercoastal.

These were the only other flats skiffs we saw.

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Helios 3

We took two rods to the Guadalupe, the 5 weight Orvis Helios 3 I gave Kris for Christmas and my Winston 6 weight.  This was my year for buying rods, and I bought the 6 weight Winston in June before a trip to Arkansas, and put a Hardy Duchess reel on it.  You want aesthetics?  Match a Winston with a Hardy reel and it’s a thing of beauty.  I’ve fished with an older Winston 5 weight for a while now, and I like Winstons.  I like that green.  I like the nickel hardware and the burled wood reel seats.  They’re just pretty, and they feel right to me: they have substance.

Kris though has this thing for Orvis rods, and the lighter the better.  She wanted the 8 weight, but we have a lot of 8 weights ’round here, ranging from an old Orvis Rocky Mountain on which the 25-year warranty has expired through a Helios 2.  Eight weights are really the rod of choice on the Coastal Plain, and we’ve got Sages and a Thomas & Thomas and some Orvis.  They’ll catch most things we see in saltwater, and they’ll throw big bass flies.  They’re good in wind, and there’s always wind.  Anyone needs an 8 weight, I’ve got a store full.  Plus I’d just bought a new Loomis 7.

But at the Orvis store the 8 weight Helios 3 did cast great, and I was tempted.  After all, I’d get to fish it.  But I got her the 5 weight, even though when I cast it at the store I thought it felt whispy and rattly.  She doesn’t have a 5 weight, she would only be happy with the Helios 3D, and I thought it would be a great deal because I have lots of old 5 weight reels sitting around.  I went to Bayou Cithy Angler and got her the Amplitude 5 weight mpx line.  Christmas morning she was thrilled.  I also gave her a new Astros jersey.  She was thrilled with that too.

I put the line on a Ross Cimarron reel, circa 1995, and the day after Christmas we went to the Guadalupe.  The reel was unacceptable.  Too large.  Too bulky.  Not sufficiently . . . matched. Not that aesthetics matter to me.

The day after the day after Christmas we were back at Bayou City Anglers, and she picked the Ross Colorado Light reel, the one with nothing to it but a bit of click and pawl.  I told her that she could get a much friendlier drag system–of course I didn’t tell her that every trout reel I own is click and pawl.  But why would my opinion matter? I never catch fish anyway.  And it did make a beautiful combination with that rod.  Did you know that reel has heart cut-outs, just like a circa-1973 DeRosa?

So yesterday on the Guadalupe I tried out her rod for the second time.  I’m not a bad caster, but I’ve got a tendency to get tailing loops by overpowering my forward cast, and unless I think about it I get a bit of a wrist twirl that leaves my fly five feet to the left of the fly line.  But at a reasonable distance with enough concentration I can get within a yard or so of my target. All I can say is that the Orvis casts true.  You send the fly somewhere, and it goes there.  At the store I thought it whispy.  On the water I thought it telegraphic.  Or digital. Or something.

As for the aesthetics, it’s not as pretty as my Winston, but it’s a handsome rod, especially with that Ross reel.  And when you go to pick it out of a pile of rods, it’s the easiest thing in the world to spot.

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Guadalupe River Divertimento

We took a side trip today, not on my official 50-fish plan, but it was cold so we drove from Houston to fish the Guadalupe River near New Braunfels, below Canyon Lake Dam.  Set your GPS for Sattler.  The Guadalupe is a tailwater, but not enough of a tailwater to keep a sizable resident population of fish through the Texas summer.  Texas Parks & Wildlife and Guadalupe River Trout Unlimited stock the river through the winter months, and everyone wants the fish to thrive, so it’s a put and put-back fishery.  Nobody remembers that Trout Fishing in America said that not even he could turn a staircase into a trout stream.

The Guadalupe is a pretty Texas Hill Country River, with clear green water lined by bald cypress.  It’s a three hour drive from Houston, more or less, and Naegelin’s Bakery, the oldest bakery in Texas,  is only a bit out of the way (though it was closed on Sunday).  Plus if you get off the river in time there’s great barbecue in Luling and Lockhart.

It was cold, 31°, when we got there. But it was sunny and a long weekend so there was a sizable hatch of anglers.

Other than basic courtesy, there are some things worth knowing about the river:

  • It’s all nymphing, all the time.  Every now and then you hear about somebody who catches fish with a dry, but don’t believe it.  I rigged with a 7.5′ 3X leader with 20 inches of 4X tippet tied to a black bunny leach, with something brown on the dropper.  More on the dropper later.
  • Use weight.  It’s deep nymphing.  Because of the slow current, I rigged with a size 4 shot, but most years it’s the biggest you’ve got and then some.  Everyone says  that if you’re not hanging on the rocks, you’re not fishing deep enough.  Maybe that’s just lazy, but mostly I believe what I’m told. To get deep, that means your indicator needs to be high on the leader, about a foot from the loop connection.
  • Use a wading staff.  There wasn’t much current today–at Sattler the flow was less than 100 CFS–but the bottom is a weird series of limestone wagon tracks and ledges, and where it’s mossy you need felt boots or studs or both.  I used to wade it without a wading staff, but I used to be stupid.  Stupider.  The picture below is usually underwater, and it’s what much of the rest of the riverbed looks like. Without a staff and a lot of care, at some point during the day you will slip, and fall, and get your phone and your keys and your billfold wet, and curse.  I know this from experience.

  • The fish are stupid.  The stockers buy fish by the pound, and the bigger the fish the more of its life it’s spent in a hatchery.  They hang in water that’s like what they came from, and the riffles aren’t it.  The best fly might be a Purina Trout Chow imitation.
  • Parking can be a pain.  In the summer, the river is taken over by the college-aged in inner tubes, so most landowners have spent a lot of time protecting access to the river and their property.  The GRTU lease program is great, but expensive for one-time use.  If you just want to try out the river, Action Angler currently charges $5 per angler for parking and access, and it’s a nice fly shop.  I’d guess Rio Raft would also let you park for a fee.  There’s a list of free Parks and Wildlife access points, but don’t go to Guadalupe Park.  It’s the meat market.

Of course I’m talking like an expert.  I’ve fished the Guadalupe off and on for 20-odd years, but I’ve never caught many fish.  Someday I should hire a guide and fish the river seriously, but it’s just hard for me to take it seriously.  I like it in the winter if the weather is cold.

Today I hooked one nice rainbow, maybe 20 inches or so, on the dropper.  I saw it follow my fly and take it, and then stocker or no it didn’t want to be caught.  I had it to the net when it broke the tippet.  Thing is, I have no idea what it took.  It was something brown that had been rattling around my nymph box.  I don’t know where it came from or when, and that’s what I tied on when I rigged.  I didn’t have another, and never will again.  I should give it a posthumous identity: a copper bead-head breakaway?

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Happy New Year!

I make New Year’s resolutions, and sometimes I even keep them.  I don’t always make them on January 1.  Sometimes I make them in July or any other old time.  When I think about what I’m doing they’re useful things.  Mostly mine involve exercise, or wine, or both.  One year it was eat more hominy.

This year I made a number of resolutions: don’t drink in January, but starting only after we get back from Portugal (which has some great wine); read better books, particularly on Audible where I tend to listen to trash; catch a fish on the fly in each state.  It’s that latter that this is about.  I want a record of my fish.  Fifty fish.

I’ve caught fish in lots of states, and some other countries, but this will be a fresh start.  No prior glories here.