Anyone in the San Marcos area out there? I just moved to san marcos to go to school and am looking for a place to fish off the bank. help!

San Marcos River, under the I35 bridge.
You can also fish City Park, I think, when it's not inudated with tube-ers (perhaps better in the fall/winter/spring), as well as Rio Vista park. The tube-ers usually don't go past Cheatham street.
Also, the Blanco River near Wimberley has some great fishing when you can find public access, or floating it.
Good luck at school! Texas State has a great campus, and San Marcos is a great little town.

Thanks, will defiantly try them out this fall.

You don't have to be defiant; just definite!

guess you proved i need to be in school

There's a campground close to San Marcos in Martindale called shady grove. They rent out Kayaks and you can do a 5 mi float trip and fish. I did it this past weekend and had a blast. That stretch is FULL of small/large mouth bass, perch, gar. If you fish up closer to the school you can catch tilapia and koi as well. Texas State students put em in. But if you want to get away from the crowds, the camp ground kayak thing is the ticket.

Anybody ever had luck out of the Blanco River at the Blanco Shoals Greenspace? It's the area between exit 206 and exit 207, near the two apartment complexes (The Heights II, The Grove i think..), on the Blanco.

An FYI for all ..... If you plan to float the Blanco in Wimberley, be prepared for the property owners on either side of the river to yell at, and threaten you with the law. The water is public, but if you touch the bottom, or the shore, you are trespassing according to the law, and they will call the law. Shallow spots are frequent and require walking. So, trespassing is pretty unavoidable.

It just isn't worth the hassle .........

Hope this helps everyone to avoid legal troubles.

I thought as long as you were inside the mid water mark or streambed that you were legal. I know a lot of fishermen that wade the rivers through private lands, myself included. People even camp out on sandbars in some of the bigger rivers as long as it is considered navigable. Is there somewhere that tells you what waterways can be waded?

I may have answered my own question. I don't know if the Blanco is considered navigable but I would imagine it is 30 feet or wider on average. I did look through the TPWD site and found this:

"Q: Some landowners in my county have deeds to the riverbed. Can they exclude the public from their part of the river?

A: Not if the river is navigable. The policy of the government of Texas, expressed in statute since the days of the Republic, has been to retain the beds of navigable streams as public property.13 However, the state surveyors did not always adhere to this law, and some land grants purported to include the beds of navigable streams. To remedy this situation, in a 1929 law known as the Small Bill, the state relinquished to the adjoining landowners certain property rights in the beds of some navigable streams. However, this statute declared that it did not impair the rights of the general public and the state in the waters of the streams.14 So even if a landowner's deed includes the bed of a navigable stream, and taxes are being paid on the bed, the public retains its right to use it as a navigable stream.

It is a fairly common myth that a person boating along a "Small Bill" stream may not set foot on the streambed if the landowner forbids it. This is based on the notion that a person who steps into the streambed has entered onto private property within the meaning of the criminal trespass law.15 This may have some applicability when the waters of a stream leave its banks and a boater navigates out of the streambed and steps onto the adjacent private lands, or on coastal land when tide waters cover private property. But the general public has the right to walk within the boundaries of any navigable streambed, even if there are private ownership rights under the Small Bill.16"

The numbers 14, 15 and 15 refer to statutes and cases involving streambed navigation.

This has been a problem area for several years. Evidently there are those who are bond and determined that they are not going to let anyone set foot in their river come hello or high water.

One of the local outdoor writers a couple or so years ago wrote an article about it and he himself was confronted, and informed them of the law, and invited them to call the law.

The sheriff showed up and talked to him and they both agreed that it was better to leave it alone and he moved on but I guess that is what those people want is the continued small victories because of fear that they would have to take it to court, and deal with all the hassle that goes with it.

On the TPWD website where they talk about river access, they also mention it is against the law to interfere with anyone lawfully engaged in hunting, fishing, or anything else. So, if someone harassed me on a stream that I felt I was legally entitled to be on, I might be inclined to go on the offensive.

I have floated and fished the Blanco between Wimberley and San Marcos for over 40 years. I have never had any problems with land owner harrasment as long as I have not walked on the banks. I owned over 2 miles of Blanco river frontage in times past, and found that the Sherrif's Department would not respond to calls concerning tresspassing, if the fishermen stayed in the canoe. Floating access was good enough that a member of this board used to run a guide service on the Blanco.

I grew up in wimberley and floated just up river from wimberley all the time and i have never once incountered a problem with landowners. Maybe i just got lucky though. I know if you float from burnett ranches down to slime bridge it is mostly large ranches and so usually you wont see anyone and it makes it a very pleasant trip.

If you paddle down the San Marcos to Cottonseed rapid, you might run into the adjacent landowner, H.O. Perkins. He will be easily recognizable as the fat, red-faced, shirtless drunk that very closely resembles a foul-mouthed, intoxicated Santa Claus. His hobbies obviously include overconsuming Busch tallboys and threatening downriver paddlers.

The dude's an animal without the capacity for reason...a complete idiot. Just a heads up.

I kayaked the Blanco near Wimberley and there was no one around so I decided I wouldn't bother anyone if I had one of my hand rolled cigarettes...Yes perfectly legal tobacco/herbal blend. Well about two puffs in a rabid old man comes charging down the river telling me the law is on the way how dare I come to his back yard to partake in "illegal" past times. Apparently he watched me roll the thing through binoculars on his back patio. Sure enough when I took my boat out county PD was waiting. I showed them what I had and they were real cool and let me go on with my business.