Jimbo
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Did you take the temperatures out in the current or right next to the shore? It could make a difference in these lower flows.
Jimbo
Before the Flood
Again in an attempt to integrate my thoughts to align with more civilized times, I present another few words to be believed or not….
As I look in the mirror I see an old man. Where thick curly brown hair once covered my scalp that made women laugh as they ran their fingers through it in my youth, now a few wild loners stick out like dying timber in an old lake, and require to be covered when out in the open to prevent sunburn on delicate skin. There are crow’s feet in the corner’s of my eyes, from years of squinting with straining eyes to peer through the filtered glare on the surface and reveal what lies beneath. The tops of my hands have liver spots from constant exposure of the intense rays of the sun that have permanently damaged the tissues of the dermis even though gallons of sunscreen have been applied. Joints that once seemed to bend at all angles and spring back for more when enthusiasm and vigor exceeded common sense and skill, now feel like rusty hinges that require effort when attempting to flex them early in the morning. Scars mark my knees, hip, and neck where skilled hands of surgeons attempted to repair with screws, plates, and rods what nature could not.
All these are my badges of honor. The marks of an ancient mariner, who has seen sights that would strike fear into the heart of even Ahab. Days spent running before the storm in Bass Boats traveling at interstate speeds, the winds blowing so hard that the tailwind made it almost feel calm in the cockpit while traveling over a mile a minute. The hull slamming into only the very crests of each wave, sailing across the troughs, and then again feeling thunderous shocks of the angry seas shutter through the boat, as lightning bolts struck the lake all around us on the inland seas they call Amistad and Falcon. A day to be remembered when I was caught in open water in a aluminum canoe on Fayette Power Project when a rogue summer thunderstorm that seemed to linger southeast of the dam was suddenly driven by strong winds coming off the gulf. Trying with all my might to keep the canoe pointed downwind, surfing passing waves driven by downwind gales, and trying to make it to the safety of the boat ramp on the opposite side of the lake before this silver hull with all my gear and myself disappeared into the depths forever.
Days in the high country caught in the open by nature. I remember a afternoon climbing Casa Grande in Big Bend National Park. It took longer than expected to negotiate up the talus fall that spilled out the only route to the top that did not require piton and rope to make to the crested rim of the ancient caldrea. And a storm the brews too quickly out of a hot summer day. An all out desperate attempt to get back down the talus field as the rain and hail fell on us, the dark 50,000′ cloud turning day into night, with only the flashes of lightning illuminating our path through wetted sharp and loose rock that made every step a death defying wish for the boot’s sole to find purchase and not the being caught in a deadly ever accelerating game of moving too fast down hill to make the bottom without spilling blood. Another day Fishing On a Stream that will Remain Nameless solo, after a long day working up a steep sided canyon and deciding to climb out a another loose slope with a Thunderstorm upstream threatened to send a cascade into my face, only to have it avalanche beneath my very feet, started by only the weight of my body, carrying me down the 45 degree slope towards the edge of eternity. Yes I have looked over the edge many times and managed to pull myself back in various states of good health or need for surgery.
What does this all have to do with the Guadalupe you ask?
I am a Texan, born and raised in the Hill Country. I think I was a fisherman even before I held a rod. Many days spent on Medina Lake and the limestone streams that drain across the Camino del Real of Tejas before I had a driver’s license. I fished the Guadalupe River before Canyon Dam was even a dream. I’ve fished what was the Guadalupe River and is now the bottom of the lake in 140′ of water. And started fishing for the Trout swimming in the Guadalupe back in the 1970’s. The river changes I have seen over the years are usually slow and gradual, but sometimes they come in mere minutes.You see, this, the Hill Country is one of the most flood prone areas in the world. These Hills create channels that funnel what mother nature creates from Gulf Moisture as it meets the rising elevations of the Hill Country Plateau on a steady wind from the southeast. Legendary floods like the one that drowned many in downtown San Antonio in 1921. Many floods, too many to name, and many never seen before man even set foot in Texas shaped the land. In fact flooding occurred so often the Corps of Engineers stepped to try and control the rath of Mother Nature.
The Guadalupe has seen it’s fair share of these floods. The towns of New Braunfels, Seguin, and Gonzales have all spent their times under the waters of the Guadalupe. The Corps of Engineers designed and built, what was at the time Canyon Lake was impounded, the largest earthen dam on the face of the earth. The construction began in 1958 at a hard rock narrows at mile 303 on the river. The dam was finished in 1964 and the impoundment of water began. It was thought it might take 20 years or more to fill the lake to pool, but mother nature stepped in with one of her deluges and the lake reached pool in 1968. The waters that flowed from the dam were cold from lying at the bottom of a lake that reaches 160 feet in places.
What does all this historical perspective do other than make me sound as old as Moses?
Back on Subject…. In the many years since I started fishing for Trout on the Guadalupe, the character of the river has changed. Even after the dam was built there were floods raging down the Guadalupe below the dam that changed things forever. There are two that had some of the biggest impacts on the river and set a dividing line of what it was like before and after the floods. These were the famous floods of 1998 and 2002. In October 17 & 18 1998 moisture from two hurricane’s, one in the pacific and one in the Gulf combined with a Cold Front and anywhere from 20-24″ of rain fell below Canyon Dam and were therefore uncontrolled and headed downstream. Many of the flow gages were overtopped by the wall of water. On June 30 2002 a tropical wave moved off the gulf and into the Hill Country where it stalled and became stationary for over 2 weeks. Areas over the upper Guadalupe received estimates of over 60″ of rain. Canyon lake rose and rose till for the first time ever water started coming over the spillway at 943’msl. The lake continued to rise and reached a level of 950.37’msl with 60,000cfs that came roaring over and down spillway creek. Houses were swept away in the Horseshoe Bend subdivision. The destruction along the banks of the river was terrible. There were pictures of the flood making national news and famously the video of what was left of a home, the roof sticking out of the river floating over the submerged bridge at Comal Street in New Braunfels.These events also changed the makeup and bio-diversity and abundance of the river itself.
Back when I started fishing the Guadalupe for Trout there were many more caddis flys in the river. So much so that many evenings a layer of caddis flys, holding millions of individuals, hovered over the river in a layer several feet thick. So many that fishing an adult on the water was an exercise in frustration. How would a Trout pick out your offering among the thousands that surrounded it. I tried and about the only success fishing drys was when you skittered the fly so it appeared to be trying to escape and drawing a reflex strike. There were also many more BWO’s and Trico Hatches. There was such a dependable Trico sinner fall at 10am you could set your watch by it. And these were some of the first times I was able to successfully fish and emergence and spinner fall with reliable success.
After the floods the river was scoured to bedrock. Gravels beds moved around filled in old holes and opened up new ones. But there was so much debris washed into the river that the county actually paid contractors to get into the river bed with front-end loaders, and other heavy equipment to remove it from the stream bed. Everything was scraped and dragged around. They removed everything that was washed into the river and ground up by the moving waters into pieces. Everything from Houses, Stores and businesses along the river to the small stuff like fences, picknick benches, canoes, and kayaks from outfitters was dragged of of the river bottom and picked out of the tree tops. The bridge at Rio was under about 5-10′ of water and when the waters finally receded it was totally covered in woody debris and barbed wire. River Road was closed for weeks afterward. The cleanup took months after it started. I remember watching a front-end loader work the riverbed below me while fishing at Cedar Bend an old campground above Rockin R.
After the floods the huge insect bio-masses were gone. There was just a few spotty hatches for a long time. It took years for the insects to come back. The Caddis have never again reached their abundance of the pre-flood times. The mayflys came back first but their abundant has made a painfully slow comeback. The BWO’s seemed to be the first to have returned close to what they were before and a lesser extent the Tricos. The larger Drakes, Hexs, and PMDs seem to be making a significant comeback this last decade and are now fishable hatches.
TBC….
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Well what is this?
Hummm….
Peach Jam
In my continuing series of what I don’t want to talk about because they bother me too much lately,
I want to turn my attention to Peach Jam.You might ask….
Jimbo….
“What the H#!! does Peach Jam have to do with the fine art and noble effort that is flyfishing?”
And that would be a good question. There are many good questions that come up in conversation among flyfishermen.Oh I’m not talking about the ordinary ones like….
“What Fly did I really use back in 2010 to catch that 27 1/2″, 8ish pound monster that remains the thing of controversy as to whether it was really caught on the Guadalupe in Barking Dog Pool or a thing from the BigHorn that was deviously photo shopped into a scene on the Guadalupe among the Bald Cypress?”
No,… I won’t speak of that here today.No, I want to talk about other really important matters that are essential to sustaining the flyfisherman when he is on the quest for things that are out of the ordinary when plying ordinary and familiar waters. And nothing is more important to a flyfisherman when he is afield than what he will take along to eat in the middle of a great adventure.
Peach Jam
Yes,… Peach Jam that is constructed so perfectly by a closely guarded secret recipe handed down from Gomie through the generations…. to Mom and to my sister. There is some talk that this same recipe was developed by some ancient and noble French relative some hundreds of years ago. It is said that it’s development was a key to bringing about the end of the Thirty Years War and the signing of the Treaty of Westfalia in 1648. This recipe has never been written down for fear the Johnson’s down the street or the in-laws from New Jersy would discover the nuances of this particular delicacy and just anybody could enjoy it. It measurements so finely guarded as to be told about handfuls of this, a pinch of that, and only so many drops of what I really can’t say per jar. No this is to be saved to be doled out in mason jars to family and friends on special occasions, like Christmas during a leap year, or say Tuesday afternoon.And you say….
“Jimbo,… why is Peach Jam so important?”
That is a good question to be pursed by great minds and like individuals.
These containers of joy are essential in constructing the perfect “Jelly and Peanut Butter” sandwich. Yes and notice the emphasis and the prime ingredient leading the thought process.You have heard me talk about this fine fare before and the qualities it has to keep up your concentration late in a long day, when a hidden and masking hatch comes off in the late afternoon. You know when a good Pale Evening Dun is hatching and you put on the perfect CDC Crystal Compara Dun and it is ignored by steadily rising Trout. But your mind is sharp because of this finely portioned sustenance and you realize it’s not the Dun they are taking but the cripple caught and struggling in the surface film. And you tie on a Split Flag of a similar size and color and the Trout move sideways to take it. Yes this type of thinking only comes about when you mind stays sharp during the long tiring day on the water. It’s the “Difference” between coming in to your friends standing in the Porch light of Action Angler in the early evening of a long day with slumped shoulders talking about the maddening conundrum of the seemingly impossible to catch Hatchery Trout you can see everywhere dimpling the surface and coming in light on your feet with a twinkle in your eye, a rye smile on your face, and a story to tell that brings all conversation of your IPA sipping buddies to a hushed and almost reverent breathless attention.
And yes,.. yes,… yes,… You have heard me talk of using other fine accoutrements like Cherry and Blueberry, Honey and the like. Sure Strawberry is fine when you can’t get any of Gomie’s Peach Jam, but here in Texas, the Stonewall Peach is King. They make fine pies, and cobblers that are often mentioned as being the finest end to a great meal. But this is not practical when on the water. No this is something that needs to be easily portable and not needing cutlery, fine china, or linen. And Gomie’s Peach Jam in a Peanutbutter sandwich fits the bill to a “T” !!!
Some have also mentioned Gomie’s use of sealing waxing to cap the top and the first thing you see when you open a jar for the first time. Is it an important as the unmentionable ingredients that make up this perfection in sugar and fruit and other lesser secrets that make this the sought after confection? That is a good question. But again it can only be answered by greater minds than mine of long past generations and that ends that discussion…. Except that I still carry a piece of sealing wax taking from one of Gomie’s jars of Peach jam polished of a long ago when I was a just young tyke and still in cutoff shorts, barefoot, and spin fishing. I have carried that piece of sealing wax with me for some 50 years or so. I carry it with me on every trip and it has been contained in many ziplock bags that need replacing over the years when they wear and split at the seams, so as not to loose some of that remaining mojo that I use to lubricate the ferrules of my rods as I put them together so they don’t come loose during the day and are still easy to take apart at the end of the same.
Ah yes….
Peach Jam and Peanut Butter Sandwich.
One of things that legends keep secret as their success on days of tough dryfly fishing and just how many raps of hackle make up the perfect March Brown so it will float easily but not too high as to cause a Trout suspicion and turn away from the morse floating in his field of view. Yes it’s the little things that make a flyfisherman a person that commands respect and even envy among his friends and peers.Yes… Gomie’s Peach Jam is one of my secrets that gets me well into double digits on particularly tough days on the water and into numbers that most first take as fabrication on those ordinary days until they see me fish….
Jimbo
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Not sure why they are off line. I contacted Dustin Scott to see what can be done. Good news are water temperatures should not be a problem for awhile.
Jimbo
When you find a LAP badge, it is best to contact Dustin Scott, to get it back to it’s rightful owner.
Jimbo
Without watching you in action it would be hard to tell. The fact that you are using a softer rod will limit hook penetration. If you are setting the hook by just striking with the rod, try strip set first, before striking with the rod. You should also check you hook points to make sure they are sharp. Use a sharping tool if they don’t stick in your fingernail easily.
Jimbo
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Thanks for the news. I have a few more appointments to take care of before I get wet, but at least I’m in the neighborhood to do it.
Jimbo
I just got back from California…
It’s good to be back in Texas and be amongst normal people again !How did the stockings go?
Did Dan have enough people?
How did the fish look?
I’ll be on the river several days sometime later this week.
I hope to see some familiar faces and have a good time on the water.Jimbo
Ladies and Gentlemen
A Little Refresher Course
When I was drafted to be V.P. of Fisheries many years ago we had been stocking very large Trout in the river for several years. Then V.P. of Fisheries, Bill Higdon, had spoken with then river biologist Steve Magnelia and he had come away with the idea that Trout larger than 18″, would better survive when marginal conditions hit the Guadalupe in the summer. He had asked Steve Magnelia, if these larger Trout we had been stocking had higher rates of survival in higher water temperatures than smaller Trout. Steve answered that adult Trout did have higher survival rates when conditions got tough. Bill throught this was an affirmation of all the Trout, well over 18″, he had been stocking. Unfortuately Steve was talking about adult trout, and Trout become adults/sexually mature when they are 12″.
The membership was commenting that, yes they were catching giant Trout, but numbers caught during a day’s fishing were not what they had been. Then add to it the huge surge in fishermen fishing the Guadalupe River because of the very large Trout there and many harvesting these large Trout, things were not optimal. Previously we had been stocking generally Trout that were 10-14″ with a few trophies. Our strategy had swung too hard to the other end of the spectrum.
So new to V.P. of Fisheries I talked to Steve myself. That’s when I found out what the river biologist meant by “Large” trout (being 12″). I decided we needed to adjust out stocking strategy. I had some ideas and presented them to the board. The Board decided they sounded good, but we needed to find out what our membership wanted, because they were the ones paying for it with their LAP membership fees.
So we decided to send out a survey and give LAP membership a chance to pick between some alternative strategies. We explained that because they were going to pick the size of Trout we stocked they would also be picking the numbers of Trout we stocked since we buy them by the pound. The overwhelming responce called for 75% 14-18″ and 25% > 18″. Back then we were only stocking Rainbows from Crystal Lake Fisheries. We asked CLF if they could grow their Trout to meet our needs and they said yes.
Most years they have met our needs and stocking startegy. This past year they had their own problems raising Trout. They had problems with getting the feed they needed to grow their Trout out. You can thank COVID for creating this(another) problem in the supply chain. They also had a problem one year when a flood at the hatchery washed most of our 14-18″ fish down river, but that was a rare event.
During my tenure we saw expenses rise every year. So did the demand for LAP memberships. When I started the demand for membership in the 550-650 range. Every year we saw a rise in demand till it soared above 800 and decided we needed to cap membership because of limited access and easily meeting the expenses for Trout and Leases. We also saw the change in the regulations. We long wanted to protect the upper river from harvest. The new regulation: from 800 yards below the dam, to the crossing at 306/Whitewater, daily harvest of 5 Trout, BUT ALL Trout 12-18″ must be returned to the water, only 1 Trout(of the 5) could exceed 18″, all others had to be below 12″, and they must be caught using artificial flys or lures.
The last couple of years the Board has heard the request for more LAP memberships, so we added to those numbers, but still demand far out stripped the available memberships. I don’t think we will again ever be able to satisfy all the demand for all LAP memberships desired.
So here we are today. Doing our best to meet the demands of LAP membership and still providing a healthy fishery. I think Dan Cone, our new V.P. of Fisheries and the Fisheries Committee, has been doing the very best thing possible during these COVID years. One of the best things we has done (under the radar of most LAP members) is the suplemental feeding through the late spring to early fall. And without a doubt holdover has been better these last 2 seasons because of those feedings. We also have seen the constraints in the supply chain that finally resulted in not having the normal availability of almost any size or number of Trout we wanted this year. The hatcheries which grow this year’s Trout last year, have not been able to produce all those Trout for this season’s stocking. This is a national wide shortage.
As supply chains are restored I think you will a return to the availbility of almost any size or number of Trout we desire. The Board has also been talking about another survey of LAP members sometime this spring. The question about the sizes we want to stock can be addressed again, as will be other concerns. I think we all want some large Trout swimming around in the river that provide the thrill when hooking and landing these monsters. The question remains how many we want to stock? And of course we want to let the hatcheries know what sizes we want well ahead of time so they will be ready next season.
The GRTU Board, the V.P. of Fisheries, and the Fisheries Committee, will continue to do the very best we can to establish the best Trout Fishery we can and satisfy the desires of the LAP Membership. It is not easy. It takes 1000s of man hours to make it happen and still some years things are just out of our hands. But we will continue to try and improve the fishery. Eventually we will get back to river enhancement projects which should provide long term results, push for more restrictive regulations, and continue to promote catch and release of these sportsfish.
Jimbo
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I wish I cold be there, but I’m still bouncing from hospital to hospital seeing how much medicare thinks I’m worth. Most recently the cardiologist came in and asked if there was anything else he could do for us. I told him “a new Corvette would be nice.” and got a good laugh. Ya’ll be good to Dan Cone and I’ll see you on the river about mid December.
Jimbo
I’ve never seen a sign like that and there never has been a flyfishing only area on the river. We do have regs that allows only lures or flys in the two special regulation zones if Trout are to be retained by the general public. (Of course all LAP members pledge to pratice catch and release on all the Trout they catch.) I do wish we did have a catch and release zone, but we never did win that one either.
Jimbo
Before I left for California I fished #5 and in addition to the river clearing most of the slit out for us, things have changed here and there. I went down to S Turn Rapids and Mountain Creek Pool and they changed greatly. Apparently there was a lot of water coming down Mountain Creek and it deposited a lot of gravel in the tailout of Mountain Creek Pool. The channel going to the right around the island there is almost impassable now. With the big rains and the higher flows I suspect you will see the greatest changes around where creeks dump into the Guadalupe. So wade carefully and use your wading staff to check the depths where you want to wade.
Other places to be very careful: The creek at the bend island at JDL, Cordova Creek below 306, Mountain Creek at S Turn Rapids, Jacobs Creek upstream of Little Ponderosa, the creek flowing into the Top of Devil’s Playground, Turkey Creek at Meckel’s, Deep Creek in the lower end of Mountain Breeze Pool, The 2 creeks the flow into the river between River Bluff and Lone Star. There will also be other places were the river narrows and current either scours out new holes or fills in old ones with gravel.
I might get a couple of days on the river before Christmas and will try to report what I see, otherwise I will be out in California for another series of operations this winter. The consult for them is this afternoon. I hope to be patched back together and see everyone on the water later this spring.
Jimbo
No announcement has been made yet. There will be an e-mail blast and a topic started on this Lease Access Forum a week to 10 days before the actual stocking date…..
Jimbo
LAP packets will start going out next week, so they will be a few days late. I know some are itching to get back on the water but don’t try and use the LAP without your current 2021-22 season parking permit and personal tags. The good news is we are negoatiating for an additional LAP site this season. Dan will be making an announcement sometime soon. Meanwhile, I’m off for California again and won’t be back till mid-December. So enjoy the river and all the new stockers. When I get back I’ll have to settle for all those Trout who have already first hand knowledge of what is hidden in the fur and feathers….
Jimbo
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