I finally caught my trout today. Off and on I’d fished the Guadalupe since the Super Bowl was in Houston, a bit more than a year ago. I fished two days then and came up blanked. I started this year in December, and finally caught my fish today, March. It was nothing special, a 12-14″ rainbow that spit out the hook after it came into the net. I’d hooked another earlier, and had a hit later, and foul hooked and landed a carp, a big carp, much later. Because of their mouth carp always seem to foul hook.
I knew what I was doing though with the trout. I set up the rod with two droppers below an egg, with an indicator two feet up from the egg, no weight other than the weight of the brassies on the top dropper. The fish stayed on the hook. I didn’t take a picture. I wanted the fish back in the water, and I was worried about fumbling my phone.
Earlier, before the fish, I fell into the river, and tonight the muscle pull in my left calf hurts because of the fall. A half gallon or so of water came over the top of my waders, and when we left the river we stopped at Gruene Outfitters to buy dry clothes. I bought a pair of Patagonia Guidewater pants, grey because even though I wanted tan Kris told me to get the grey. They will be go-to’s for future travel, fishing and otherwise, but I’m sorry I had to buy. On future river trips I need to bring extra clothes.
On the way out of the store though I saw one of the great objects of men’s fashion, a Howler Brothers Gaucho Snapshirt, with embroidered alligators. I’d first seen Howler Brothers shirts in Belize, where the younger guys at the bar compared their Howler Brothers shirt embroidery. The embroidery then was great, the yellow rose and the shrimp and the blue crabs are works of art, but more important their shirts had pearl snap buttons, which for me is always the height of male fashion. I came back to Houston and bought one sans embroidery, and you know what? When you roll up the sleeves of a a fishing shirt with pearl snap buttons they stay up. They don’t need those sewn-in goofy straps that seem like good design but aren’t. Pearl snap buttons have purpose. There’s no sleeve creep when you roll up your sleeves.
So I caught my trout and got a great pair of pants and the work-of-art shirt I need to wear to Louisiana. I wish I had a photo of the trout.
It was windy today, and overcast, and the day on which daylight savings time started so we were already tired and late when we left Houston. I got water down my waders. On the way to the river we checked out donut shops in Seguin. Apparently like all donut shops in Central Texas they were Buddhist donut shops. The Donut Palace had a pretty good glazed, but no kolache, sausage rolls but no kolache. It was packed more or less. I wouldn’t recommend anything but the glazed, but I would recommend the glazed.
Top Donut had a good cat, but the donuts were only good efforts.
At three when we came off the river I wanted to go to Black’s in Lockhart for Barbecue, but it would have added two hours and Kris didn’t want to make the investment. We found a place in New Braunfels for German food, Uwe’s Bakery and Deli, that made its own bratwurst, and I suspect its own pickles and sauerkraut. It was outstanding. If I lived in New Braunfels, I’d go to Uwe’s every Tuesday for chicken and dumplings, and every Saturday for the goulash, and I’d be happy.
