"The best-laid schemes o' mice and men gang aft-agley"...........Robert Burns
Anticipating 20 or more participants in this outing, we finally ended up with 8. I had been checking the weather daily. On Tuesday Kurt and I left home in a light rain shower which stopped quickly. According to forecasts there was a 40% chance of scattered showers in the Mason, TX area for Tuesday morning. We arrived in Mason to a clear sky and high temperatures. We found Hipshot (Jim) and his friend Jason waiting for us. While we were settling in Ralph (kyrainmaker) showed up. So everything seemed off to a good start, as we had all planned to get in early. That evening the weather forecast suddenly changed, and we were hit with a thunderstorm. By Wednesday morning, the Llano River was a roiling torrent of chocolate milk. Checking out river flows on our phones, we made some different plans. Jim and Jason headed for Blanco River State Park. Kurt, Ralph, and I set out for the Medina River. Ralph didn't hear me mention that we needed to turn onto Highway 16 in Fredericksburg, and as we were deep in conversation we continued merrily on our way, heading east instead of southwest. When I realized we were almost to Johnson City, a trip to Pedernales Falls State Park suddenly seemed in order as we were almost there anyway. Descending into the canyon, Ralph and I attempted to fish our way through the Falls area while Kurt went on downstream. Saw a lot really large carp, but not a whole lot of anything else. Ralph did manage a small sunfish. While we strugged to find our way over or around the huge karst ridges in the Falls area, Kurt was stumbling around downstream, merrily tripping over cypress roots and loose stones. He finally said "to hell with it" and climbed out of the canyon back to the truck to wait for us. Ralph and I finally climbed our way out off all the rocks and stumbled downstream where we encountered the same conditions that met Kurt. After catching one or two small sunfish, we came to the same conclusion Kurt had and wearily ascended some goat trails back up out of the canyon. After dragging back to camp, Jim and Jason reported they had done fairly well on the Blanco, though there were some slick spots. It seemed that every time we tried to make plans for the next day, we awakened the next morning to find that the river we planned to fish had been hit with a rain shower and was too high to fish. So, instead of going to Colorado Bend Thursday morning, we went to South Llano River State Park, where the water was only a little off color and high, but fishable. Unfortunately we caught few and small fish. When we arrived back at camp, we found Mike (OKMike from the fiberglass board) and his girlfriend setting up camp. Jason left for home shortly afterward. After checking out river flows again, Friday morning found us heading to Blanco River State Park where I discovered the bottom was as easy to walk on as glass covered in motor oil. Again, only a few small fish were caught. That evening Curtis (bassackwards) from the glass board had arrived. He fortunately had made only a short trip from Austin unlike the rest of us who had driven a considerable distance. He joined us the next morning as we ventured to White Crossing on the Llano, where the water had gone down, but was still off colored. The wind was gusting to about 30 mph, so the fishing was challenging and ultimately unsuccessful. We returned to camp, and on checking the weather during lunch, discovered that severe thunderstorms were expected for Saturday evening and pretty much all day Sunday. Seemed like a good time to shut down. Bidding Mason adieu, Kurt and Mike and Dee and I packed up to head back to Oklahoma. Ralph packed up to head back to Louisiana. Curtis left for Austin. Jim decided to wait until today to return home. He called me a little while ago to report that he drove through heavy rain almost all the way home while towing his large trailer. Took him over six hours.
I can certainly recall more pleasant and successful outings, but at least the company was pleasant while we suffered the vicissitudes of poorly forecasted weather. For all those who weren't coming early, and thus had the opportunity to see what the weather was doing, lucky you. Oh well, maybe next time.
Larry
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