Tag: Trout

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Trout Fishing in America

I just re-read Trout Fishing in America by Richard Brautigan.  I read it last circa 1971, when I was 15 and it was all the rage.  I haven’t thought about it much since, but I started to name this site Trout Fishing in America, as though it were a child in a 60s commune, but thought better of it.  I’m not just fishing for trout.

There’s a surprising amount of internet traffic on Brautigan.  He committed suicide in 1984, apparently because along with the Summer of Love he had fallen out of favor.   His running buddy Thomas McGuane  said that ”when the 1960s ended, he was the baby thrown out with the bath water.”  But he must not be that much out of favor, because there sure is a lot written about him.

There’s a 2012 biography of Brautigan, Jubilee by William Hjortsberg.  I haven’t read the book, but the NY Times reviewed it.

I fly fish because as a kid I fished for crappie with minnows and catfish with blood bait and I read about fly fishing, which seemed altogether more serious. There was “Big Two-Hearted River,” there was an Orvis catalog I was sent because Field & Stream told me I could order it, and there was Trout Fishing in America.  The Hemingway I could fathom, the Orvis catalog was glamorous, and I don’t know what I thought about Brautigan.  I remember liking the cover photo, probably because Brautigan looked like Mark Twain and the girl looked like what the 60s were supposed to look like.

I think there’s a lot written about Trout Fishing in America because it’s a bit of an empty canvas.  If you look for grand themes, you can impose them, and maybe Brautigan’s themes were in fact grand.  I suspect though that it’s simpler than that.  It’s messy and episodic because Brautigan was messy and episodic.  It’s wry and amusing because Brautigan was wry and amusing.  It’s a bit plotless because Brautigan was plotless.  Brautigan writes about trout fishing because he liked trout fishing.  He writes about hanging out and drinking port wine with the street life in Washington Square because that’s what he did.  He writes about sex because he liked sex, and was apparently a pretty promiscuous guy–I learned from the internet that Brautigan suffered from rampant herpes and was into bondage.  At 15 it’s better I didn’t know that, and at 61 I’d rather I didn’t.  He is decidedly pre-feminist.  He is also a very clear writer, his chapters are short, and there’s enough whimsy to keep me surprised and engaged.

I like that Trout Fishing in America is each of the book, the book in the book, and the book’s other main character.  I doubt that I recognized that when I was 15.

Since I last read the book I’ve been to a lot of Brautigan’s places, San Francisco, the Big Wood River, the Redfish Lakes.  They’re real places to me now, not a mythical landscape, and I can recognize that Brautigan was talking about San Francisco and  a real trip to Idaho.  Maybe it’s just a book about trout fishing.

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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?