After a tough week at work, I needed to get out of the house and spend some time on the water. Although I don’t have much to report regarding the fishing, some people might be interested in the water level on the Pedernales. Needless to say, with multiple 100+ days in a row, the water was very low and the fish weren’t active. I did see a couple of hits on the surface, likely attacking dragonflies, but I didn’t land any.

So, here are some pics..

Had a really nice trip out to Hamilton Pool yesterday. Fishing isn’t allowed but I did take some pictures. It’s worth the short drive out there for the hike. Hamilton Pool flows out to Hamilton Creek which connects to the Pedernales River. The first pic below is close to where the creek connects to the River.

Some pics from my Flickr account:

Not much to say about the trip today other than I caught a couple of fish in the hour and a half I was at the river. I caught one larger white bass that I decided not to manipulate into a fishporn shot. The water was much murkier than on my last few trips. I couldn’t see the bottom which is a bit disconcerting considering I decided to see if I could fish, wade and use my new Canon DSLR camera at the same time. I only had one close call when a boat motored by me and drove a series of waves up to the bottom of the camera.

White flies tended to work better for me (white Cypert Minnow about a size 10 and some ghastly combination of giant dumbbell eyes, white chenille, and white marabou on a size 8 hook that I threw together one day when I bought into the logic that bass like big ugly stuff). Also, fishing in the weedy shallow areas was most productive. Some pics below:

Although I had a ton of stuff to do today at work, against my better judgement, I took off early and went out to Reimers Ranch to pick up an annual pass and see if there were any white bass that were hungry for a fly. The $10 a visit admission fee has been adding up lately. I’ve enjoyed every visit out there so what the hell, I brought my $100 check and now can go to the Pedernales any time I want.

I only had about 2 hours before the park closed so I spastically put on my wader pants (the ones I bought from Orvis a while back when I went back to Utah) in the front seat of the Saab. That brings up a point, I really need a 4 wheel drive trout bum-type of vehicle. The Saab just doesn’t fit the bill. I wonder if people in Sweden even go fly fishing in a Saab. I’ll have to check that out some day.

I ran down the hill and saw a frickin Jetski fly by on the river. What? Why would somebody take a Jetski to the Pedernales? Regardless, they only made one pass by so hopefully the fishing wasn’t too ruined.

The water was very still compared to last week but it was still pretty clear. I found a nice spot to enter the river and started fishing. I started with a green Cypert Minnow I tied a few weeks back. Nada. I switched to a white clouser, nothing. A mayfly hatch was starting to come off so I tried a dry fly. That didn’t work though some top water activity was starting to occur. I also tied a white Cypert Minnow in my last tying session so I tied that on. First cast, fish on – my first white bass on the fly. He was a pretty good fighter for a little fish. I had a hard time managing the net, the rod, the fish and the 3GS so the picture below sucks. I need a better solo photo strategy….

After letting the fish go and overhearing a bait caster exclaim “look, the fly fishing guy caught one”, I cast again. Fish on. Another 9″ ish white bass. This is getting fun.

Another cast and I snagged the fly. I ended up breaking off the white Cypert fly and losing it. I took that as a sign to leave. Mission accomplished.

Poor quality pictures follow:

On Saturday, I had a little extra time to fill while my son was at a birthday party. So I did some chores around the house. Well, that’s what my wife would have preferred. As you probably guessed, I went fishing.

I decided to run over to Reimers Ranch to check out the Pedernales River. We’ve received a fair amount of rain in Central Texas over the last few months so I was really hoping that conditions would improve from my last visit. Take a look at the pictures in previous posts… the river was almost dry.

Although I didn’t get a fish to even wink at my flies, I enjoyed getting out on the water and casting some flies I tied a few months back. Here are some pictures which illustrate the change in the river. Dramatic…