Just outside of Medina, Texas lies, shockingly, the Medina River. Access on the river above the lake is excellent compared to below the dam. This trip to the Medina River I utilized a small park just west of Medina that afforded great wade fishing both up and down stream. I chose the wade down stream.



Like most of my Hill Country forays I figured I would spend most my time landing the variety of sunfish and one of the two bass species typical of said rivers.





Several sunfish, some larger than my hand, and a couple of bass were landed on various flies. Unfortunately, none of the bass had much size to them. There were larger bass I could see, but I couldn't get them to bite anything. Saw a couple of catfish as well as a single carp. About 1/4 mile down river were a couple decent waterfalls.




After the second waterfall I waded up to a small pool and while I was tending to a small wind knot I glanced over and spotted a Rio Grande Cichlid. It's been a couple years since I got a decent shot at cichlids. Today ended up being a great day on the fly for cichlids as I landed 8 or 9 with easy. Man I forgot how great they fight on a 4wt.




The fishing was pretty good today and after about 3.5 hours of fishing I had only waded down river 1/2 a mile. The last pool I came up to provided a few more cichlids and sunfish and water too deep to wade with unprotected camera equipment so I decided that would be it for the day. Don't let the following picture of water deceive you, it was quickly over my head feet from the river bank. So I took a 10-15 minute swim in the cool, clear waters before heading back up river to head back to SA.




I can definitely get used to wading the Hill Country rivers now as a resident of San Antonio.

Nice Josh! That last picture though....to early in the morning for that!

LOL, ouch Joe.

Thanks for posting! It's been a while since I've been to the river!

Since you live in SA now you need to get with Bankeralwaysfishing (Chuck Dewey) over in the Bluegill section. He knows about every hotspot around and loves to fish for those Rios.
He's also an official weigher and can set you up getting your fly rod caught gills into the record books. I think fly rod records are wide open!

Beautiful shots and man that Longer Sunfish really has a damn long ear.

I'll get in touch with him in the future before another trip, not much of a record chaser though.

Awesome report as always, Josh.

Did I miss something? You moved to SA?

Nice photos as usual, Josh (except that last one).

Is that water cool? It looks inviting.
Enjoyed it neumie.