Fishing Texas Pictorial

[atthewall]

I spend a lot of time recharging on the Guadalupe River near home here in Texas. The river is sourced by a natural artesian spring roughly 25 miles NW of Hunt Texas. Man I love that town's name.

In this section of river, the altitude runs 1,500 - 2,000 ft elevation. Rapids typically flow through the hills pooling up in slower sections of deeper water as the river winds through the Edwards Plateau Hills.

To fish this river properly, a kayak is a must. Many sections are so rough and shallow, you literally have to wade sections dragging the kayak over rocks to clear off into deeper water.

The Guadalupe River is pure clear water and fishing during the daytime is tough for large bass. So I typically fish the last few hours of sunlight, working jigs and Texas rigged plastic worms before shifting over to topwaters.

Here's a few Guadalupe River largemouth:

October at night; black Jitterbug

During the warm days of winter, a shift over and fish day time casting Charty spinner baits. This scene was Febuary 2008 day.

March at night; black Jitterbug

Every winter the Texas Parks and Wildlife folks stock rainbow trout. These guys are tougher to catch than you think and the sections of water they are released in are very remote.

And years ago, Texas Parks and Wildlife introduced small mouth bass. What has been found after the release, and probably a big mistake, the native Guadalupe Bass, only found in Texas Hill country rivers, have crossed with smallies. Oh well, a few hybrids swim the river now.

Here's a smallie taken on a motor oil Texas rigged worm.

And speaking of Guadalupe Bass, here's a pretty good one taken during Febuary 2008 on a Charty spinner bait.

Every now and then I witness something pretty darn cool on

the old Lupe.

Working down from the Guadalupe River, which flows into the lower Texas Gulf Coast, I frequent the inshore and offshore scenes. I build custom rods and some of my gear is simply made focused for the fishing task at hand. I have 3 old Fenwick glass surf rods, solid blanks, that are old school surf sticks. Fenwick quit making these blanks back in the early 80s. I've fished these blanks since the early 70's and hauled them around with me during a 20 year Coast Guard career fishing everywhere.

Padre Island National seashore. This stretch of sand runs 60 miles from the Upper end near Corpus Christi and ending at the Port Mansfield Jetties. It's wild and free, 4x4 country with white sand, dunes and wild game. Out front, the entire Gulf of Mexico and behind the dune line is the Laguna Madre bay connected to literally 1 million acres of prime south Texas hunting.....The King Ranch. The experience along this coastline is as it always has been. No development, no condos, no cell coverage....wild and free. I frequently spot whitetail, coyotes, coons, rattlesnakes and many various birds fishing here. At night the sky is literally full of stars and there isn't a city within a hundred miles in any direction.

I use a kayak to run big baits out for sharks. We typically setup a fish camp, tents, cooking grills and ice chests full of block ice to bear through extended stays on the sand. We catch small fish with cast nets or bass style rods only to rig up the shark rods, yak out the bait 200-400 yards offshore for the soak and eventual reel's scream.

My youngest son Austin with a few sharks from the sand.

The big bad Fenwick on a bend with Austin hanging

During the fall, bullreds and rat redfish roam the suds

Austin with a ratred

And a bull red

Blast casting the surf rods for reds

Toofies up close and personal. This blacktip shark is roughly 7ft long. Released after the snap.

Speckled trout from the surf hammering an all black, with rattles..Mirolure

And snook can be found. Here's one after the land sucking on that Mirolure

Good times

Fishing

With good friends!

Rob

[Guest Andrea]

AWESOME PICS!!!!!!! And I thought WE had some nice fish!!!!:D:D Congrats on all the catches!!! Love the close up of the shark on the sand. I love fishing for sharks, but I've never done it from the beach. Am definitely going to this next spring/summer.

Question, how much did the bass in the first picture weigh??

[jerdanmagic]

Great pics!

[clrj3514]

great story and pics

[rookieee]

great pic specially of the bulls we have plenty of them here in south fla in the area of everglades national park had one take large tarpon last summer they are nasty

[atthewall]

Thank you.

The top bass measured 24 inches in length and 22 inches in girth. I don't travel with a digital scale and the exact weight of this fish is not known but I asked Ron Kelly, Lake Fork Texas taxidermist his guess based on the dimensions I provided him. Ron states this fish should weigh out a little over 11 lbs, how much over, we will never know. It's a double digit bass and the river record is 10.5 lbs. Sure wished I had a scale that night....she's back in the river.

[Texan_Til_I_Die]

Were you above or below Canyon Lake? I've got an uncle that lives near Rebecca Crossing. We've fished that stretch some. Caught quite a few 2 and 3 pound bass, but never anything approaching a double digit. I've always thought the water between Bergheim and the state park looked good, but I've never fished it. Just ran it a few times in my yak.

[atthewall]

Were you above or below Canyon Lake?

I fish well above the Canyon Lake dam on the upper North and South forks of the river near the river's source. The water in the upper reaches of the Guadalupe are clear vs the semi green waters below Comfort.

They are in there, not in huge numbers, but they are there. These river bass are way tough to fish. The exceptionally clear water and small sized nature of the river in the upper reaches, gives these bass an edge and fishing in stealth mode is the only way I've found to narrow the odds. Daylight conditions, the water is so clear they tend to lock jaw unless you can work well in front of your position. Once the sun goes down, it's another game and I cast blind only using my memory along the drift to work structure. I hold off in the middle and work the banks as quietly as I can casting ahead with no light. When I hook up and make the land, I use a red lens light and only turn it on if I have to.

[EKYhunter]

All I can say is "WOW!" I'd really like to come down and fish with you! Those pics are awesome! What do you do with the sharks after catching them?

[atthewall]

Thank you all!

EKYHunter we release them after the fight to grow and fight another day. Every now and then I will keep a 3 footer for the grill, filet it out quickly, marinade it in Viva Italian dressing and grill it quickly on hot coals. I'm sure the bigger blacktip sharks will steak out nicely and they taste very much like Mako shark. Haven't killed one for the grill....a little too much shark meat for me and keeping it iced is a challenge on extended fishing trips.

The entire Texas Gulf of Mexico is wide open for driving and it's not too hard to put together a few days on the sand to chase these guys. We try to put a few shark fishing trips together every summer and it's an open invite. Chasing these guys is a lot like hunting.....a lot of setup strat to close the distance and then after the baits are out, it's a waiting game. There are times we are hooked up for 1-2 hours straight fighting these guys and I use 65lb test PowerPro line as my mainline. It spools up small and allows me to rig my reels up with roughly 1000-1500 yards of line. We typically run 200-400 yard sets leaving a lot of line on the reel for the fight. Once we hook up, there are times we have to run down the beach a half mile or more before we make the land. I've had literally 800 yards or more of line out on big sharks and it's a fight to get them into waist deep water for the land.

It's typically a 3 man operation with one on the rod, one wearing gloves grabbing a 20ft long 350lb test steel leader and the third swinging the tail rope (calf roping rope) to tie off the tail for the drag up onto the sand. After we get the shark landed, he fights like mad trying to bite till he runs out of air and gets still. At that point we pull the hook, snap a few pics and pull him back out into the surf to revive him for the release. They slowly swim back out into the Gulf of Mexico no less for wear and tear.

It's an absolute blast to catch these guys and talk about brute force fishing....this is it.

[muggs]

Awesome pics. Great story too.

[toddyboman]

WOW those are some amazing pics! Congrats to you and all the others on the great catches!

Loved the detail/story behind it all! Looks like an amazing time :cool:

[stevebeilgard]

very enjoyable post. some of those bass would put a tear in most eyes. way to go

[Shaun_300]

Holy smokes!!! Never see any bass that big up here. And that shark fishing woiuld be FUN!!!!