Onion Creek and San Gabriel River, 8/13/2017
Met up with MBarker68x at Barkley Meadows County Park in Southeast Austin at 7 this morning for a day of fishing. As Mike has already mentioned on this forum, he's headed east shortly. Bummer for me since I lose a reliable local fishing buddy. Great for him since he'll be in native brook trout and smallie country, with stripers an easy drive away. I'm guessing he'll still be making us jealous here, just from a different state.
Anyway, we figured a (possibly final) Texas outing was in order.
First up: the big retention pond on the east side of SH-130. With standing timber at one end, multiple weed beds, and clear(ish) water, we figured it was good for at least a couple of bass. Mike managed three or four bluegills and that was it in a half mile circuit of the pond. I don't really know much about ponds myself. I bet Knotty would have pulled six different species out of there this morning. Oh well ....
We shook off our disappointment and moved on to the main attraction: exploring the section of Onion Creek upstream of SH-130. The first pool is deep everywhere but the big mucky silt bank part, which was the reasoning behind the canoe. I wasn't sure what else we'd find upstream, but with one short portage and three or four drags through riffles, the boat worked out pretty well.
We met another (conventional) angler walking out as we headed in. Not sure how far upstream he got, but fishing was slow to start. It got better.
It's a tight stream for two anglers -- we leapfrogged and rested water in between and it turned out okay.
This little dude thought he was going to eat a #8 mouse.
Highlights included these two nice Guadalupe bass (this stretch of Onion Creek is the only local water I have high confidence that the Guad-looking bass are actually Guadalupes, and I had to borrow that opinion from an actual Ph.D. fish guy). Mine fell to a #8 splinter mouse, and Mike got his beauty on a #12 gunslinger dead drifted through the pool.
(Hey Mike, in the pic above, I just noticed there appears to be a second bass following ... did you see that?)
Highlights also included seeing a bass go completely airborne after a dragonfly, and watching a pair of bass (one of them may have ended up on the other end of Mike's TFO Finesse 3 wt.) chase baitfish through the pool.
Ran into this little guy, a Redstriped ribbon snake, found only on the Edwards Plateau of Texas.
The trip back downstream was quick and easy. After loading the boat and the gear, it was definitely lunchtime. We had planned to make a stop at Living Waters Fly Fishing Shop in Round Rock, but of course it's closed on Sunday. Likewise, Andice Store, whose totally awesome hamburgers I'd pinned my hopes on for lunch.
We made do with Mexican food (Kidding. I really dig Mexican food.) and then hit the Gabe at San Gabriel Park. Seeing as Mike's moving halfway across the country soon and he'd already brought that nice Guadalupe bass to hand, it seemed only natural to try to put a Rio on the board today.
Water was down a bit from two days ago but running clear. It does look like -- barring another heavy rain, release from Lake Georgetown or cold snap -- some of the pools are going to snot up again. They are all very fishable now, but you can see it comin'.
Mike drew the north bank as we headed downstream, and honestly the south bank fished a lot better today. Longears are intensely colored and bedded-up along with some Rios (but nowhere near as many as late June/early July). We ran into the odd Redbreast and Green sunfish, but they have scattered since earlier in the summer.
When we got to the split, Mike took the left-hand channel and I headed right, where I picked up my first Rio of the day.
And a few other species.
And another Rio:
Mike got a couple of nice bass on his wade, but no Rios, and beat me to the main channel. I had not waded the section from the islands to the weir dam (usually sunset catches me first) and when it became clear that the waist-deep ledge below the north bank was really only wide enough for one person to fish, I backtracked and crossed to the south side.
After catching this acrobatic fella.
A couple and their little girl were enjoying a day of fishing near the railroad bridge, so Mike left the water and traveled along the high bank a ways before finding a path back down. Meanwhile, I was enjoying an easy walk along a limestone ledge in knee-deep water. Until I hung a mouse in a sycamore tree, and stupidly broke my rod tip trying to finagle it out. One 2 wt Lefty Kreh Signature Series II headed to Dallas with a $25 check next week.
Fortunately, there was a comfortable (and dry) log in the vicinity, which I shared with this guy while Mike crossed at the weir and worked his way back upstream on the south side of the river.
He mentioned something about some monster bass cruising in the middle of the stream, but of course there wasn't a **** thing I could do about it at that point. Mike did graciously let me cast his Finesse, and I liked it. More than the Signature Series II rod, in fact.
By now, the sun is low and in our eyes and we're on a mission to get that Rio. We hustled up the long run that is the south channel here to what we call the "crossover" (where the north and south channels come back together, briefly) and Mike shot a briminator into the shadow of a large boulder: Bam! A Rio erupted on the fly.
Mike fished as we worked our way upstream and then went on ahead to the pool where I caught that first Rio today while I lagged behind and played with the camera.
Some fish happened up there, too, though I'm not sure how many or what kind -- the sun was
really in my eyes. I texted my sister thinking I'd selected my wife's name. Their names aren't even similar. It wasn't as embarrassing as it could have been.
But I did get these pretty cool pics.
We got back to our vehicles 12 hours (almost to the minute) after we started this morning. All in all, it was a pretty damned fine day. I'm still rehydrating and I hear the bed calling.
*Not pictured: dozens of other sunfish, mostly Mike's.