New Home Waters – Pedernales River

So, it isn’t exactly the Provo River in UT like one of my previous home waters, but it’s not bad either.

I took a 20 minute drive out to the Pedernales River at Reimer Ranch today for a few hours. The drive out is a nice hilly trip with little traffic and some nice views. I turned into the park and was surprised to see that it was really rustic, which was refreshing. Rustic out here means rocky, dusty, cactusy and hilly. The road in was basically a one lane road that turned into a dirt road.

After paying $8 for parking at the park rangers station, I drove down to the water. The park ranger said the White bass were running so I was getting my hopes up.

I parked and started walking down into the Canyon.

I decided not to bring my waders for some reason, I really could have used them at first. The best hole had someone at it.

So I walked downstream a bit and tried casting a pretty heavy conehead olive wooly bugger. Nothing. I impaled my arm pretty good with it. So good/bad, that I had to actually yank the hook out as gentle tugging didn’t work. The wind was making it very difficult for me to cast.

After a while, the guy at the good spot left so I took his spot and started casting my wooly bugger again. 3rd or 4th cast, I hooked into an acrobatic bass. He made 2 nice out of water jumps and a few valiant runs, but I was able to get him in on my 5 wt Ross reel and 5 wt Headwaters Bamboo rod.

Yes, those are my lovely toes… had to wade out on a sandbar to get good access to a very deep hole.

I tried a few more times but didn’t get any other bites. Another guy and his son where working their way down to the spot so I decided to let him give it a try. I caught a great fish (for me) and had a very nice day. I’ll be back….

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