David Agerton
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Joe, Like you, I’m in my 70’s and I began chasing rainbows on the Guad many years ago. For me, it was probably in the late 80’s when I resumed the practice that started when I was a teen. I can still recall the feeling of catching that first fish with my dad’s old fiberglass fly rod and Pfluger reel that makes a soft putt-putt sound. Mrs. Kanz gave me permission to fish and Mallory permission to draw and sketch the landscape for her paintings. I still have Bud Priddy’s ’94 spiral wound book, “Fly-Fishing the TX Hill Country” in which he writes about the Guad below Canyon Dam and how the stoneflys have disappeared. Anyway, I’m happy to meet you in Sattler this season. Mallory & I reside in Houston, but I travel through Sattler each month on my way to & from Fredericksburg to look after our Bella Regalo short term rental / guest house. Also, this winter & spring I may just stay overnight in Sattler in order to catch the evening rise. Yesterday AM (Tuesday) I was there when the water was murky from 2″ of much needed rain. Kelli Prescott was there too, guiding with customers, encouraging a gentleman to stop the rod at 12 O’Clock instead of 3. Maybe we try to meet Jimbo Roberts. We could buy him lunch at the Wildflower Grill and see if he’ll reveal the secrets to catching more rainbows with a flyrod than anyone ever has! Classic! Best, Dave Agerton dagerton@gmail.com
Christopher, I LOVE my Korker boots. I probably have the Darkhorse model. They are easy for me to put on and take off and the speed dial lace system works beautifully. My normal shoe size is men’s 11.5 to 12. My Korker boots are US 12.
Brilliant! This looks like a super good event! Wish I could be there for it. Thanks for arranging it.
Jimbo, I’m enjoying the journey; thanks for taking your GRTU friends along. About those Simms G4 boots: Love the customer service and I guess they are very comfortable. What kind of soles did you choose? But why a lace-up boot? I’ve really enjoyed Korkers Devil’s Canyon with the Boa M2 Fit system. Very flexible back with dial in wire speed lace means i save time and more importantly at this advanced stage of our backs, ease of putting them on and taking them off.
Jimbo, Thanks for “taking us along” on your adventure. Next best thing to being there.
Ready for the next installment of your summer vacation log. Enjoyed every paragraph
Ready for the next installment of your summer vacation log. Enjoyed every paragraph
Bill, The availability of natural food in the river to support the large number of trout GRTU stocks is a potential issue, IMO. That said, either the trout have learned to ignore the wide variety of flies I’ve offered this winter or they are not as hungry as I think they should be! Anyway, can GRTU ask an aquatic biologist from TPWD to survey the river and share his or her observations along with any recommendations to enhance the bug life? Fortunately, Ron DeMeyer & colleagues at the New Braunfels Fly Fishers club feed the fish from May through October several times per week. Interesting to watch the water boil with trout responding to the floating pellets — especially just after I’ve carefully fished that stretch with a variety of offerings. In 2010, GRTU offered a weekend class, Entomology of the Guad, by Rob Woodruff, Woodruff Guide Service, Quitman, OK. Gary Burns knew all about that. What I remember was how the invertebrates varied widely from below the dam to Rio to on of the lower crossings from tiny shrimp to mayfly & caddis nymph to crayfish. Best, Dave Agerton, Houston
Yes, if you read the entire set of private correspondence on this subject, you’ll see that stocking River Redhorse suckers (Moxostoma carinatum) is also part of the plan.
Adults: typically 22″ and 4 lbs, sometimes sometimes over 26″ and 8 lbs. Record weight: 17 pounds. This will cut costs and allow year-round action. Plus it will cut poaching and predation.
JC, Thanks for sharing this. Pls thank Madoka Myers accordingly. V. interesting to read about her strategies and technique: alternate rigs at hand, cast-sink-slight jig, observe flow regime, structure and activity and change accordingly. Here’s pic of Antonio’s BWO Emerger: https://www.flyfishfood.com/products/antonios-emerger-bwo Cheers, DJA
Love and respect the spirit of these follow up posts. They reflect a spirit of competition and collaboration that went into the event.
For the benefit of GRTU members and as a gesture of appreciation, please invite the competitors & judges to share their observations of what flies, rigs and approaches to their assigned beats were most productive and what weren’t. Last Wed., I fished 2 locations from 10-2. At 1:00, I switched from series of typical nymphs, ranging from big w/ rubbery legs to tiny black) to Whitlock’s weighted green caddis imitations, size 16. In the next 45 min., I landed 5 large rainbows. Run was ~4′ deep w/ medium strong current. Casts were 4-6 yards quartering upstream. I was prepared for a trico hatch, but observed none. On a previous trip, I’d observed a lot of rainbows feeding ~1-2′ below the surface during a mid-morning hatch that seemed like a snow-shower above the pool.
Glad to here about it. Better, tells us what made the difference and what can we learn: choice of fly, luck of the draw to be where trout had not been stressed, skill in presentation, etc.
I support GRTU hosting a tournament. I hope it may inspire some helpers / participants to support conservation. Fishing with an expert (eg: Jimbo Roberts) would be a wonderful way to further develop an appreciation for our river (and learn to catch more fish). I’d pay to fish with Jimbo for a day. That said, I can also learn from online instructional videos.
But they are no match for the experience of being there with an expert piscator who likes to share his or her knowledge and techniques. Anyway, I hope GRTU leadership considers how we might enhance the Guad fishery. Improvements might range from regulations to physical habitat improvements, like those we sometimes read about in TU’s TROUT publication, to what might improve the bug life. It could be really interesting to invite a TP&WL biologist and ecologist to float the river some spring day. The summer flow agreement and C&R conservations zones have certainly been important improvements. Unfortunately, we’ll always have poachers, predators and pluckers (folks with bait and trebble hooks).
How does this benefit GRTU or our fishery?
