Anyone fished the upper section recently? Reports?

Not sure but i'll let you know next Monday!

Haha, fair enough. I'll probably be there with some inferior spin casting friends making them look bad this weekend. See you there.

You floating or fishing the HWY 16?

Probably just fishing HWY 16. I can't get a hold of my buddy with a canoe and my other friends just want to get outside so I'm thinking we'll just play it by ear.

On fire!!

Hey! SexyCarpenter,
How about some details? Are the trout on fire? Hybrids? What?

Other parts of the Brazos suck. Trout Bum and I fished the Brazos, today, below and above Dick Outpost and the fishing was terrible. I got 4 in about 3 hours. TB got about the same. Windy. LOW river conditions. Did I say it was WINDY??? Tough fishing. Did I say it was WINDY????

But, on the other hand, the hamburgers at the Hillsboro burger place was great...

My buddy and I had planned to do the 8 miles below Rochelle's but at the last minute we decided to go PK dam to Rochelle's. Trout were surfacing every where in the trout area but we weren't interested. We kept a paddling. Stopped at the first big bend to see if we could pick off any striper trolling for trout. No luck. May have been too early and the water a bit too chilly. It was 0830 at this point.
We cruised down farther through Garland Bend as the air and water heated up. Fish started moving but mostly they were carp. Saw a few cruising bass at the last minute and spooked them. Paddled on to Fortune Bend. The wind began to howl. We stopped for lunch with still no fish caught. Paddled through more wind until we could turn North East and get the wind behind us. Now with one of us paddling the other would bang the banks with streamers. Started picking off LMB in the 1/2 to 2 lb range. Continued this way until we stopped at the big sand bar before Chick Bend. The last wall of rocks on the north before we stopped yielded several nice bass in the 2 lb range. We overnighted and enjoyed the Supermoon and some super beers. In the AM we packed up and headed to Chick Bend. Made the man turn into the wind and it was already banging us. Pulled in tight to the boulders where I figured we'd get into some good fish and ....nothing. That is until I worked a tiny, in retrospect, size 6 clouser behind a rock and got hung up. Or so I thought. I had been fishing a standard streamer and getting hung up a ton and so when I switched to the clouser I figured the eyes were hung. As I tugged to get free my tug moved. And slowly began to move to the surface. All was good until the behemoth caught my eye, and I his. A LMB in the 10-12 lb range surfaced just enough to see his huge head and big black eyes. He tucked and ran as I staggered back in the canoe to get closer to my buddies net. All the while I knew I hadn't made a proper hook set, but at this point he was moving toward me too quick and I had too much slack out to accomplish it. Then it happened. The bass in all her fatness and glory jumped out of the river, shook, I think she even winked, spit my hook and she was gone. I was devastated. The same thing happened nearly a year ago in nearly the same spot in the river.
When I was done sulking we paddled on. Decided the bite this morning hadn't picked up with streamers so we started banging the rocks and grass with poppers for the rest of the trip, and on about every other cast we were dawing strikes. Just as in trout fishing I suck at setting the "dry fly" hook and missed about 5 fish in a row. We finished the trip with about 25 fish caught. Most were LMB a few blue gills.

But the difference a year and a lack of a golden algae bloom thus far made was a huge difference from last years bust of a fish catching trip.

All in all it was a great time and was on fire. Had we been able to fish more and paddle less, and had we keyed on poppers on day one we could have easily doubled or tripled our numbers.


WHY DIDN'T I SET THE HOOK???????

I ventured out to the Hwy 16 bridge on Saturday. The caddis were hatching like crazy just before dark, and the trout were keying on them. There are a LOT of trout just above the Hwy 16 bridge. A person could catch them on a #16 caddis emerger or about the same size brown or black caddis.

The moon was awesome driving back to Mansfield.

Just kidding, buddy. I know that was a tough moment for you.

I've decided to take more of a Gierach view on these missed fish this year. I think it's in Another Lousy Day in Paradise that he briefly hooks a good fish and loses it. His friend A.K. sees him loose the fish and asks if he hooked a nice fish and Gierach replies, "For a minute." A.K. smiles and says, "Good for you."

THAT is how we need to view those lost fish. You were lucky/blessed/skilled enough to get to see her. Take that moment of piscatorial ecstasy and put it with your special memories.

Here's some pics from the river.
The conditions started great

First fish

First good sized one

Same fish


Camp


Supermoon rising


Biggest of the netted fish

Great pictures, SC. Look up above what you just posted as I think you might have missed what I posted just as you posted right after I posted about your post.

Good point. More about being on the river with my friend and having a good time. He and I both within seconds of one another(grinning ear to ear) " that's the biggest fish i've ever seen on the end of a flyline!!"

Look below what you posted after I missed what you posted when I posted what I posted and then saw what you posted and then posted this in response to what you posted