Some of y'all know I do a LOT of trout fishing...very little of it on the Guad. I've fished it a handful of times in my entire 30 years of fly fishing.

I'm the kind of guy who can appreciate a fishery for what it is: urban, seasonal, put-n-take, yearround, wild, native, etc. They all have their value. I've never been anti-Guad, even though some have accused me of being that way just because I dared to say anything negative at all. And I just haven't cared for the spin in recent years from TPWD and TU trying to assert that there is significant enough natural reproduction and holdover of trout in the Guad to consider it wild trout water...which they've basically come just short of, but suggested repeatedly and with fervor. That's just a silly notion if you know much about trout water at all. So coming from TU, it's rankly political. And since I've been in the outdoor journalism business for the past decade, I said so...much to the displeasure of some TU folks.

Anyway, I discovered a whole new side of the Guad this past week - new to ME, that is. I fished it from my kayak for the first time. Wow! What a difference. I really enjoyed myself and had some very fine urban-style trout fishing. I did have multiple witnesses, don't have photos. So I won't talk specifics. But I will say that I didn't catch a whole lot of trout per day. But I caught a WHOLE LOT of POUNDS of trout per day! I even caught 2 trophy sized Rainbows on dry flies...unusual for the Guad from what I am told. I did not catch a single fish under 20"...and a couple that were MUCH bigger.

I am fairly familiar with what size trout are stocked in the Guad and even generally where. I have never questioned that the Guad had good carryover potential with minimum flow in place. And GRTU fought hard to get that done for many years. But I caught 1 Rainbow that is living proof of that potential. And that's all I'll say about that.

Do yourself a favor and float fish the Guad if you haven't done that.

Thanks Ken. That was well thought out and worded, a fine piece of writing. Too often one sees only rants and spews. The finer side is appreciated!

I'm glad you had some luck down there Ken. It can be some great fishing and surprisingly like the "real" thing if you explore and find some of those less obvious spots. Floating allows that.

Very good commentary too. The folks that just can't seem to take the idea would be surprised I think. Just goes to show you shouldn't knock it till you've tried it.

I'm going in the morning--anything other than the usual that I should whip up at the vise tonight?

I've only fished the Guad twice and have had absolutely no luck either time. It seems like maybe there's just too much pressure or something. However, I know that my brother in law fishes it a lot and has lots of success at times. I guess you just have to be there at the right time.

Right now this exact time of the year during the week is when I most prefer to fish the Guad. Several times in the past I had most of the float down the river completely to myself. Yes I'm selfish but I like it that way..

Ken's report of not a single fish under 20 makes it almost impossible to sit in my office for the rest of the day! thanks Ken!

First, I should thank Banning Collins for the 411 when he had to beg off fishing with me to set up the TFO booth. He told me where to go...very specifically.

Second, I would also recommend weekday afternoons until sundown.

Third, think rust and orange for your sub-surface stuff! I caught my BIG fish on a size 14 Red Fox Squirrel Nymph with a tungsten bead...the traditional soft-hackle collared type. I had a dropper on: size 16 or 18 rust bead head Zebra Midge. It took 2 fish as well.

In the evening, if you get a good hatch of mayflies down by Rio Raft, have some 16-18 soft hackle hare's ears and fish them fairly shallow like an emerger...perhaps 2 feet or shallower. And don't be afraid to cast an Adams in about a 14. I caught 2 fish on size 14 Adams Wulffs late in the evening casting to risers.

Longhorn,

One of the things Banning told me was to not completely ignore the shoals, but to really focus on the very deepest and largest pools and to get all the way down on the bottom of them. That was very good advice until late in the evening when fish began rising to those mayfly duns and spent tan caddis.

Sounds like the regular stuff. The squirrel nymph is definitely one of my faves down there. Thanks for the report.

how much longer with the water temps be cool enough to fish, and when does the tubers start hatching?

There were already a few last week, but not enough on Thursday to even mention. On the weekend, there were a few of the "hotspots" that had small crowds gathered during the middle of the day. It won't be long...

The last time I fished there, I had the sneaking suspicion that I just wasn't getting deep enough. Not being real familiar with that water yet, it seems that many of those deep pools are deeper than you think.

Bounce that baby along the bottom. If you're not hanging up just a bit now and then, you're not deep enough. Proper nymphing is full of lifting the rod tip any time you even suspect there could be a take. As you get more experience with it, your suspicions become more accurate and you do it far less often without positive results. But always err on the side of overkill.

Thanks, Ken, for that report. I enjoyed your summary and am happy you had a good time, including the unusual occurrence of catching trout on dries there.

TU and GRTU have never claimed the Guad is a "wild trout fishery," though there is evidence of some natural reproduction and many holdovers in the years when we have the minimum flow agreement (like this year). But we do what we can to make the river a hospitable place for the trout, to increase their life expectancy and to give more Texans (and tourists) a chance to catch and release them. And we've had about three straight years when we have been able to stock the larger trout, which seem to draw more anglers and give many a chance for the "largest trout of their lives."

My middle son, Graham, and I fished it during Spring Break and he caught the largest of his young life, a fish the guide estimated at about six pounds. He caught it fishing deep with a drowned Trico pattern with small cellophane wings. Graham is now in his early 20s, and in college, but we have shared days on the Guad's tailwater since he was ten.

Ken's advice for fishing deep is right on. I always tell people to "look for the dark green water." The bottom is very uneven and the fish sit down in those limestone slots and wait for their dinner. You may lose a few nymph rigs to find them, but it will pay off.

As we move toward summer, the rubber hatch will become more prolific midday, so the best times to fish are early and late, and on weekdays if you can swing it. As it turns out, that's when the fish will be most active anyway.

Enjoy!

Mickfly,

You and I have had this discussion before, and it was the TU tv show "On the Rise," where there was discussion of the Guad's potential as a wild trout fishery with proper mgmt between Frank and a TPWD biologist. And that's what I took issue with...once. It was a huge stretch...which you agree is a stretch...and I called it that. Then, a couple of years ago, I questioned one of the officers of GRTU about the exchange on the TV show in private and he defended it. I've also questioned a TPWD biologist about it, and also got the same sort of "it's possible." Pretty simple. The "evidence" is very anecdotal as you know and in no way sufficient even under the most aggressive of management for a sustainable fishery. We don't need to re-hash this on what was a very pleasant thread.

GRTU has done wonderful work in establishing, enhancing, and protecting the trout fishery on the Guadalupe to make it a true multi-use resource for Texas. TU...in other parts of the country...has always been a very difficult org to deal with when it comes to hatchery stocked trout fisheries. Having spent from 1998 thru 2008 in the Ozarks, it was like pulling wisdom teeth to get TU involved in anything dealing with the tailwaters up there until 2008, when they joined a lawsuit against a developer who polluted the Norfork tailwater...known for natural reproduction of Brown trout and the posting of a few world records. And that took a lot of pressure, too. So my perspective has always been much broader than just TU in the Texas Hill Country. They do great work in some places, and are pretty unhelpful in others...alienating a lot of anglers. I'm neither pro or con - simply stating the obvious.

FYI, I also really like Frank. LOL He gave up a hole to me one day on the Taylor when he had a client and I was fishing alone. I was wading and he was in a boat. So he had access to a lot more river. Now that is sportsmanship! I'll never forget that. Well, actually it was just below where the Taylor and East Rivers come together to form the Gunnison. So technically it was on the Gunnison. But the point is: he's da man!

I think your son's fish has grown a bit.

If you watch that "On the Rise" segment again, you will see me standing there on the deck next to Frank and the biologist (Steve Magnelia), answering questions. We did 90 minutes of taping on the deck, and all but 90 seconds ended up on the cutting room floor.

Frank enjoys asking provocative questions to get a reaction from his interviewees, and he may have used the word "wild" in one of his questions (which, interestingly, were taped after our answers, so they could get a full face shot of him asking and us answering while using only one camera). He also asked me whether there was a good "bikini hatch" on the Guad in the summertime, but that didn't make the final cut, either.

From the beginning, GRTU has wanted to create a high quality fishery in the coldwater sections of the Guad. We have never operated under the illusion that it would produce many wild fish, though we hoped to enhance the conditions that would give trout a chance to reproduce (and they have) and hold over (and they do).

I can't comment on what TU has done elsewhere, since I have only recently become active at the national level, but I do know that as a nonprofit organization that derives a large portion of its funding from grants, contracts, and gifts, it can never do everything we would like it to do, on all the coldwater fisheries that need assistance. There certainly was (and still is) a bias to focus on efforts to preserve wild or native trout and salmon in their homewaters. But there is a growing awareness within TU that its greatest strengths are the 400 chapters and over 30 councils of grassroots TU members, and many of them fish waters where wild or native trout will never be viable.

I also know that efforts are underway to improve the TU presence in the part of the world you describe. This coming weekend, TU will be holding its first-ever Mid South Region Meeting in Mountain Home, AR, with representatives from Missouri, Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Texas. They will meet to discuss the common challenges and issues faced by states with few native or wild trout but some pretty substantial tailwater fisheries. I am hopeful that those meetings will be a positive step toward improving the work of TU throughout that region.