Late February is about right if we don't get a lot of cold weather, but a good indicator that I use is when the peach trees blossum with the little pink flowers.

Ultra light tackle using 1/32nd to 1/16th ounce curly tail or maribou jigs and roadrunners. Usually you can get by with three colors. White, chartruse, and black, or a variation of those will work.

Cast up current at about a 45 degree angle and start your retrieve right after the lure hits the water, but not a very fast retrieve, and with your rod tip held high, just enough to take the slack out of the line, and just enough to allow the bait to swim along with the current just off the bottom so as not to snag.

It takes a little practice to get it down but once you do, you will know when to reel and when to let the lure drop, and just keep your eye on the line for the suttle tap, tap, and set the hook.

Is this area upstream from Pop's place?

thanks Jimbo for the advice. I will be using both spin cast and fly, figure woolly buggers on the fly should produce some hits.

Kyle, yes this is up stream from Pop's. just about two bends up.

Yep. Its further up. Not sure exactly how far. My dad would take me when I was a kid. Havent been out there in years. I dont know if I would remember How to get there. When the Lake is up, can you get there by boat?

http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=29.668841,-98.970455&spn=0.004531,0.007972&t=h&z=17

thats where red bluff creek dumps into the medina.

Ruede rd. is the ranch road to take off of red bluff ranch road.

as you can see.. when they lake was high it went pretty far up but not quite to the boulders. I can't imagine a boat could get even half way there these days, even with all the rain.

should be plenty of flow for the whites it seems though.

it looks like there is a park at English crossing though, so if the flow is way up, that might be a good place to park and bank fish.. if you want to avoid that precarious bridge at red bluff.

We used to go up almost to the big boulders when the lake was all the way up, but there are a lot of huge boulders in the middle of the channel that you would see just under the surface of the water on the way up, and it was pretty hairy running an outboard up to the shallows, but it can be done when the lake is up, and then you have to get out and wade up to the upper pools.

Back when I fished there I'd rather go to Ruedes camp and walk in and wade fish because you were right where the fish were and didn't have to mess with dragging a boat around.

It wasn't a place for the faint of heart or if you had small kids, and having to cross that rickety bridge, although the new one doesn't look all that bad, and at least you can brace yourself against that wall and there is a handrail.

I googled it, and it's really different from when I was there years ago. It was just a simple winding ranch road that lead to the Ranch house on the banks of Red Bluff Creek. Now it's more or less a subdivision now and I'd probably get lost trying to find it especially if the old farm house is gone, which it probably is.

I can add to English crossing. I fished there quite a bit two summers ago. Fished upstream and down. The very first trip there two springs ago, late April, I saw a few white bass that still hadn't made their way back to the lake. Since then the water has been too low to head more than a couple miles downstream from English crossing, or a more than a mile upstream. And that's with a canoe. I can pull a canoe in a couple inches of water, and there wasn't even that. The rain will at least get us access from english to the lake.

When the lake is up you wouldn't have much trouble going from English crossing toward the lake for sure, but unless it's changed up there they used to be pretty strict about letting anyone access the river from the bridge and didn't allow any parking whatsoever even near the bridge. Barbed wire, no parking and posted signs, tow away signs, along with complimentary No Trespassing signs, used to be heavily used in that area.

is red bluff off of whartons dock rd. or hwy 16

There is a parking area maybe big enough for 5 vehicles on the left side before crossing over the bridge. There are no "no parking signs" in this area. It's a gravel shoulder about 5-10 yards wide. The past two summers this has been the case.

If people are saying there isn't any water at Pops, then English Crossing and Ruede Ranch which are upstream aren't going to have enough water for a run either.

Good point. There is a wide, 300 yard long section upstream from Pops and Red Bluff that is shallow and all limestone cuts. This was high and dry two summers ago. This is another area that would need a decent amount of water over it for whites to make it past.

I guess this is one case where developement is a good thing. The Medina river used to be mostly private ranches along the river and folks didn't take kindly to people using "their" river thru "their" property. With the development, and popularity of the Guadalupe and tubers it looks like someone caved and provided access to river which is only right.

Won't have to worry much about that unless we get some much needed water in the lake and the river continues to flow.

Im headed out there today about 1;00 or so. Is there any other boat ramps usable besides reds?

I went to Pops Place about a 1 1/2 weeks ago and there was just a little stream running. I dont think you could float a kayak in it.