Tag: Trout

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Carp Diem

Note: For the last year I’ve looked at this blog post and debated whether I should correct it. The fish probably weren’t carp (notwithstanding what folk on the Guadalupe call them), but some form of cold water sucker. Basically, my sucker identification skills suck.

Fried carp and carp stew are a traditional Czech Christmas eve dinner. Carp eggs are eaten as caviar here in the states. Carp are popular sport fish in Europe. Carp are native to Asia and Europe, but have spread everywhere. I’ve fished for carp before, grass carp, in Buffalo Bayou.

I grew up thinking carp were trash fish and a nuisance. I’m not over it.

Yesterday we found carp in the cold tailwater of the Guadalupe River. Kris talked to a guy in a kayak who said he’d caught carp and striper coming down the river.  Kris saw them at the tail end of a large pool about a quarter mile upriver from Texas Highway 46. I was trying to fish below her, but she was yelling that there were fish and lots of fish and that the fish were nuts and just sitting there and get over there right now.  They were nuts, and they were just sitting there.  Move toward them they moved away but they didn’t leave, and they were in the shallow end of the pool where you could watch them easily in a foot or so of water. There must have been 20 of them, hanging in pods of four or five fish, all of them about two pounds. I came up and hooked two but they came off the hook and I said these trout surely are peculiar.  I’m quick that way.

I had hooked a trout earlier, but again my leader broke, above the tippet ring. I’ve got to figure out my leaders. That’s twice I’ve broken off trout in the Guadalupe.

Kris hooked a carp on a black streamer and kept it on the hook. I knew it wasn’t a trout once the dorsal fin flared. It wanted whatever was about to have it for lunch to regret those first few bites.

We could watch the carp roll on the surface and move to eat under the surface.  I fished up the river looking for trout but then hooked a carp on a pheasant tail nymph below a prince nymph below a bead egg.

We left mid-afternoon as it started to rain.  What Reims is to sparkling wine, Lockhart is to barbecue, so we headed to Lockhart. Lockhart is on the way to nowhere, but it was enough on our way home to make it worth the trip. There are four barbecue places of note in Lockhart: Smitty’s, Black’s, Kreuz Market, and Chisholm Trial. Kreuz Market and Smitty’s are connected in a family drama.

I’ve never been to Chisholm Trail, but of the other three the quality of the barbecue is inverse to the atmosphere. Smitty’s is my favorite, located in a charming storefront with a pressed tin roof and clean white walls. Black’s is still in an ancient meat market a couple of blocks from the courthouse. Kreuz is a barn of a place, decorated with randomly placed butcher tools. There’s nothing appealing about the place and there is a long line, but it is great barbecue.

I ordered three pork chops because I wanted to try them, and it was two too many. Other than that I’ve got my barbecue order for the two of us down to an art: one pound fatty brisket, one sausage, four ribs. My half of the sausage goes into a slice of white bread for a sandwich, with pickles and onion and sauce. The rest is finger food.

At Kreuz your get free Blue Bell ice cream at the end. At least theoretically you get free Blue Bell ice cream at the end. I don’t know how those people in the Blue Bell line had room.

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TroutFest!

Friday night we went to the Johnson Reagan Richards dinner for the Harris County Democratic Party.  I hadn’t been in a few years. I’ve also been to the Lincoln Reagan Dinner for the Harris County Republican Party.  At the Lincoln Reagan dinner the speakers stand on the stage and toss red meat to the ravenous.  At the Johnson Rayburn Richards dinner, the speakers mostly  talk about how the winds of change are a’comin’ to Texas. They’ve been saying the same thing for years. Nancy Pelosi was the keynote speaker.  I don’t know what kind of a Speaker she’ll make if she again gets the chance, but she’s a remarkably boring and rambling dinner speaker. Kris said she looked good though.

Saturday we drove to New Braunfels. Guadalupe River Trout Unlimited was holding its (our? I’m not a very good joiner, but I am a member) annual troutfest. There were casting instructors but I don’t know where they were instructing.   There were celebrity speakers, but I didn’t see any of them. Nancy Pelosi wasn’t one of them, which was just as well.  Mostly there were a lot of pick-ups parked in a field, some small tents, and a big tent.

We walked about for a bit.  I tried to buy a sweater from Bayou City Angler because it was cold and Kris had appropriated mine.  It might have  been too ironic to drive three hours  to the Guadalupe to buy something from Bayou City Angler,  because they lost their computer link and couldn’t sell anything. I realized later that I could have come by the shop in a day or two and paid, but none of us were thinking that way.

 

I have been to some other trade shows, not a lot but some.  They are all a bit alike I guess. I don’t want to randomly stop and pick stuff up. I did once.  I went through and collected a bunch of Koozies for the boat, but Kris thought it was a joke and threw them away. Yesterday Kris bought a line at the Tenkara USA booth.  I picked up fliers from guide services: Wisconsin, Alaska, New Mexico, Montana. We watched other people, men mostly, mill about.

There were lots of men with beards. Then we went fishing.  We were in a hurry because we had to be back for another dinner last night, but we fished for a couple of hours. I was using a bead egg with a dropper, and hooked a nice fish, but it came off the hook. This was not the fish:

It was only a fish in a tank at TroutFest. I still haven’t caught a Guadalupe trout.

Today we went late to Galveston to take out the boat.  Galveston looked like this:

The photo is a bit hazy, but that’s because everything was a bit hazy.  That’s looking across the street at fog obscuring the Gulf of Mexico. The. Gulf. Is. Gone. We only fish on the bay side of the Island, not the Gulf side, so we hung out at Benno’s eating shrimp po’boys until it cleared enough for us to take out the boat.  I wade fished behind Pelican Island, then we ran down into West Galveston Bay and I poled Kris through what might or might not have been Starvation Cove. The wind was at least 15 knots, and there wasn’t enough water in the bay to get into places, but the water was reasonably clear and it was the first time in a month we’d been able to run the boat.  This winter has been nothing but rain and wind and cold.

 

 

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More Guadalupe River

There was a point on the Guadalupe yesterday when for a moment the sun shone and I thought we’d be able to see fish. We hadn’t caught anything, and I’d fished hard.  I’d fished up from Gypsy Camp about a quarter mile. When the sun shone we’d already moved further north to Rocky Beach, where I’d hooked the nice trout a few weeks before.

But the sun didn’t stay out.  The wind shifted to the north, and 15 minutes later the sky clouded again, and the temperature dropped 10 degrees into the low 50s. We weren’t dressed for it, but that sort of summed up the day.  I’d fished two nymphs, a pheasant tail and a copper john, and I’d added and then deleted both a  girdle bug and a wiggly worm as an attractor.  I’d added weight, I’d taken off weight.  I’d tangled. When the guide in the boat passed me I was fishing an Air-Lock strike indicator over a Feather-Craft Czech Nymphing indicator that I’d several times greased with gink over a tippet ring over the nymphs. I hadn’t fished that much hardware since 40-odd years before when I’d stopped fishing bait. The guide said they’d had their luck with eggs, so  I dug through my vest and found a single bright orange egg, my one and only egg, and threw it into the mix.  I still didn’t catch anything.

Earlier, driving down River Road to Gypsy Camp, we had passed a younger group of anglers–which for us includes anyone younger than 50. There was a tall young woman, maybe 5’8″, very trim, who looked like a Vogue wader model. She really could have worn waders on a runway. It was the most remarkable thing, so we remarked on it, and laughed at her good fortune and our more human fortune. When Kris took off her waders late in the day they had sprung a leak, which is probably a death knell for the waders. I hope that girl not only looks good in waders, but that her waders never spring a leak.

A tall and trim Kris bird fishing.

We stopped at Reel Fly Fishing Adventures in Sattler and there was a pair of Reddington women’s waders on sale. I asked Kris if that was what the young woman was wearing, and Kris said they would almost certainly make her, Kris,  taller and thinner.  They sold us some Trout Beads and some Trout Bead Peggz and some Trout Bead hooks–like I need hooks–and a box to put them in.  Next time I will catch fish on Trout Beads, but unless we go back for those waders Kris will be no taller. The store clerk did make me feel better.  He said no one was catching anything.  I didn’t tell him we never catch anything.

I’ve heard that eggs work well in the Guadalupe because the fish are brought from Missouri to Texas in the Winter, and when they get to Texas the rainbows think it must be spring and start to spawn.  It doesn’t work, but I’ve seen a pair of rainbows wrestling down the river, and I guess that’s what I’m seeing. They drop a lot of unsuccessful eggs. That may not be why the eggs work, but it’s a good story.

Good news? We stopped at Luling City Market on the way in and got early barbecue.

Along with the Capitol rotunda and the inside of the Astrodome, the pit room at Luling City Market is one of the best-known rooms in Texas.  I had a rib for second breakfast, and then later on the river had fatty brisket and banana pudding for lunch. Healthy choices.

Being Saturday morning, Naegelin’s Bakery in New Braunfels was also open. The young man touching up the mural told me that Ferdinand Lindheimer had gotten in trouble with the locals for accusing them of being too interested in bars and too indifferent to hard work. I guess others have accused a group of German farmers of being insufficiently industrious, but I wouldn’t guess it was common.

Naegelin’s has been around since 1868, and I thought the woman at the counter needed to hear my story about how my parents had brought me there from West Texas when I was 10 or thereabouts and how it was the first time I remembered seeing bread that wasn’t white.  She said they heard stories like that all the time, which was either deflating or validating.

We also had a discussion about Naegelin’s kolaches, which I didn’t remember and which were more like a biscuit with a topping.  It was good to see a kolache which was different, but I guess I wasn’t surprised that a great German bakery would make a peculiar Czech pastry.

Third breakfast.

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Guadalupe River Fever

Yesterday we drove to the Guadalupe and I lay in cypress roots by the side of the river and thought I was going to die.  I’d been nauseous driving, and then at some point over the three hour drive it struck me:  “hey! I’m sick!” I’m quick that way.

I was going to sleep in the car while Kris fished but no, I’m a manly man and thought I needed to at least try the river.  Last week I’d rigged nymph rigs, but being sick and stupid I’d left them at home. I rigged from scratch which took forever, and then  my line was threaded wrong through my reel.  How did that happen?  How did I do that?  I always thought the feminine name was the worst part of a Hardy Duchess. Can reels be girly?  But the worst part of the Duchess reel is that the line is supposed to thread through a closed window.  Unlike every other reel I’ve ever owned, you can’t fix line problem by removing the spool, re-routing the line, then putting the spool back in.  You have to start all over.

I still like the reel though.  It’s a lovely thing. I’m sure it appeals to my feminine side. And I guess really good fly fisherfolk never screw up their rigging.

We were parked at a steep bank below a high bluff.  There were stairs down and then a path along the river.  I made it maybe 100 feet downriver, enough to get away from Kris and the other guy fishing.  Then my dropper rig got tangled before my first cast.  Do you know how to keep dropper rigs from tangling? Fish with streamers.

It took awhile, but I worked out the tangle, then cast four or five or ten times, then got tangled again, then cut off my flies and lay down in the cypress roots. I have always loved cypress, and the roots going down into the river look like something made up by Tolkien.  When I was laying in the roots and deciding whether to throw up I wondered, do I barf in the earthy space between the roots,  or go for the river?  Either was ready to hand, with my feet in the water and my back on the knobby roots.  I decided on the earthy space, but lay back down and the nausea went away.  Still thinking about it, just in case, I decided the ground was the right choice.  Barf floating downriver doesn’t sound pleasant.  Chum?  Maybe carp? I had no upchuck emergers.

So I lay in the roots and looked up through the tree limbs and wondered if this was how it felt to be a wounded soldier on the field of battle. I get dramatic when I’m sick. Honestly though, to get out of there I had to climb up the bank through the tangle of roots and then up the stairs to the car and I just didn’t think I would make it.  If there had been anyone to haul me out I’d have agreed. I did it though, sooner or later, and I didn’t even break my rod.  We drove home and I slept on the drive then slept through to this morning.

On the upside, we did find kolaches, at the recommendation of my friend John Geddie, at The Original Kountry Bakery in Schulenberg.  I hadn’t realized I was sick yet, so I ate two, a cherry and a poppy seed.  They were perfectly acceptable, though I thought the sugar glaze was gilding the lily.

And oh yeah, Kris pointed out that all those nymph rigs were in a box in the car, right where I’d have seen them if I’d just looked.