Yesterday we drove our skiff from Galveston, on the Texas Gulf Coast, 250 miles west on I-10, the highway that in my world stretches from El Paso to New Orleans (but in reality goes a bit further), to a tiny community outside San Antonio, Elmendorf, where we dropped the skiff off at the builder for some work and its motor’s 100-hour service.
We keep the boat in a dry stack, and don’t trailer often. Everything from loading the boat on the trailer to towing it through Houston down the interstate to San Antonio is terrifying. We’re still married I think, at least no papers have been served on me yet. Kris did an excellent job on that last 100 miles into the New Water Boatworks. Let me say that again. Kris did an excellent job, and I’m sorry I yelled at her. I’m even sorry I offered advice from time to time while she was driving.
We’d planned to fish the Guadalupe late in the day, but it was after 4:00 when we dropped off the boat. We drove to New Braunfels, found our motel, and ate German food and drank German beer at Alpine Haus. After dinner we went to Gruene Hall to listen to music. Chronologically we might have been the elders at Gruene Hall, but as Kris noted a lot of younger folk looked like they’d been ridden hard more miles than us. Listening to the main attraction, Uncle Lucius, was like reading a pretty good mystery novel the plot of which you’d read a half-dozen times before. The opening act, Folk Family Revival, was terrific.
A couple of months ago, three guides from Go Outside Expeditions had done a presentation at Bayou City Anglers on trout fishing on the Guadalupe. They did such a nice job that last week I emailed them about fishing the Guadalupe. The owner, Chris Adams, said that with the warmer weather the fishing on the Guadalupe was slowing (which was a surprise to me–I never knew it was fast). He recommended fishing the San Marcos.
I was happy as could be. I like the San Marcos, and many years ago had canoed it a good 20 times and had fished it once, but that was old history. It’s a Texas Hill Country river (though not really in the Hill Country), 75 miles long from its start at San Marcos Springs to its confluence with the Guadalupe. It’s lovely, with greenish clear water and good flow and lots of descents through class I rapids. Clovis Culture artifacts have been found at its headwaters, so it’s one of the oldest continuously settled sites in North America. Bank to bank it’s small, just right for goofing around for a day, which means it’s just right for fly fishing.
Prairie Lea between Luling and the town of San Marcos used to have the best kolaches in Texas, but it’s a long way out of the way from nowhere and the shop didn’t last. My high school classmate Mark Morgan’s aunt is the last house on the right on the way from Prairie Lea to the river, and Mark met us at the river because that’s where we met Chris-the-Guide and Mark happened to be in Prairie Lea. Confused? Kris was. What’s to wonder? Mark was there to add local color, mostly orange.
I only ever remember one lazy fishing guide. A redfish guide once dropped me off the boat and told me to stand there and watch for the fish to swim by. None came. I think the guide motored off and took a nap. Chris-the-Guide on the other hand was great. He knew his river and kept us fishing, working his way through downed trees, rowing us into position to cast, ducking when I cast, and recovering hung flies. It was hard work, dragging the raft over trees and shallow gravel and staying calm while we dropped stuff into the water, including me. The spa treatment was free.
Kris-Not-the-Guide fished most of the day with a popper, I fished most of the day with a weighted streamer, typical bass stuff. Kris fished her Orvis 5 weight, I fished my Winston 6 weight. It all worked fine, just like Chris had said. Chris-the-Guide was a Winston pro-staff guide, and we talked about how nice the Winston rods felt casting but more important how pretty they are. Chris said there were people who didn’t like their looks. I would never have imagined someone could find those pretty rods boring. You learn all sorts of stuff from guides.
We talked a lot on the way down the river. Chris suggested places to fish in North Carolina and Georgia and Virginia. He grew up a Southern kid, in Georgia, and while his accent passed for Texan he was more polite than us, and he unfailingly addressed me as sir. With age lots of people do, but I suspect that’s how Chris always talks to clients, and that it was something drilled into him by a correct Georgia upbringing.
Nothing we caught was big, the biggest was maybe a pound, but it was lively and fun casting. We pounded the bank, putting the fly as close as we could then taking a few strips then doing it again, just like Chris-the-Guide told us. There were black bass, Guadalupe bass, sunfish (which I found myself calling perch–I haven’t called them perch in a good 50 years), and warmouth. We caught several black bass/Guadalupe hybrids, and a few purer Guadalupe bass, and Guadalupes being the state fish of Texas, that was particularly satisfying. I like to think that Guadalupes were what Cabeza de Vaca labeled trout when he came through in the 1500s. The Guadalupe bass behave more like trout than black bass, feeding in faster water off seams and runs in the river. Or maybe Cabeza de Vaca called all fish trout. Or maybe my memory’s faulty and Cabeza de Vaca didn’t talk about trout at all.
We probably caught 15 fish in the five hours we were on the river, which for us is something of a record.
Morgan, the local color at the top of the post and perfectly good fly fisher, had stayed put to catfish bankside where we put in. chicken liver. Doughbait. Eight pound channel cat.
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