Been awhile since I've posted a fishing report. Sorry for the absence, I'll blame it on laziness
I've kayaked fished a few times since my last report with mixed success and failures. Salt and fresh. All good experience and learning opportunities.
Fishing for bass and fresh water fish is a different lesson in figuring "them" out and I figure it's all translatable.
Anyway, my eldest son had spring break last week so we decided to head out to my parents ranch near junction Texas where we've got our camper hanging out till turkey season is over. I brought my inflatable seaeagle 385 fta to go with us and fish junction Texas area for a few days of the trip.
My dad had his old Towne kayak (forget the model, it's about 10' SINK). We tried at the dammed up River a few days before and went exploring with my 2 sons and wife. Caught a throw back apiece. Nothing to write home about.
So on the 11th we decided to try fishing from the south Llano River state park. No idea what we were in for. The park ranger told us we could put in at the park entrance and then drift down River till we got back to junction dam. He said the trip would take 3 to 4 hours, or it takes him 7 if he goes and fishes hard.
We figured we had it fine and would just drift and do a little fishing. Fortunately we had 2 cars and mom and my wife would take the trucks to the dam while me, my dad, and my 2 boys drift fished back to the dam over 4 hours.
That was the plan anyway...
We put in at the park entrance, myself with my 2 boys, and my dad in his kayak. The women folk head of to meet us at the river trail for lunch that we think will be in 30 minutes.
We go a little ways then run into a problem. I'm to fat for rapids with my 2 boys!!!
I have to spider pig crab walk us over the rapids while my precious inflatable sea eagle is getting rubbed up with pointy rocks! Oh well, they built this thing very solid and it's held up to gulf coast oyster very well so far...
But the problem is our fatness is causing us to go a lot slower than planned. We make a few cast on the way but
no fish and we were supposed to meet the women folk in 30 minutes... 1 hour later we limp to the rendezvous. Wives are ok so we all eat lunch. They ask us how long do they have till they need to come pick us up so being menly men we chalk our original slowness up to just a fluke and say 3 hours well catch our fish and meet at the dam.
Off we all go to continue down the river. Well, we probably should have rethought it plans because it turns out we were still fatty fatsos and had to crab walk each rapid. Suffice to say 3 hours in and we still had 2 miles to go as the crow flys. Ugh.
More on that later because I'm sure you are reading this report for the fish. Let me tell you about the fish... They were on fire!! The water was clear and the sky sunny so my dad and I were throwing small spinner blades and road runners and tearing them up. We caught the crap out of the fish! Guadalupe bass galore and a few brim tried in the mix
Fishing was great!
I think we ended up with about 9 keepers (remember Guadalupe bass have no minimum size limit). We threw back smaller ones too. This fed the whole family for Friday dinner
They made it to a broken bridge and we ended up hauling our gear a ways out of the water to the road, but at the end of the day it was all worth it. There was even a portage in the middle of the trip thanks to a fallen pecan tree!
Even so, I highly recommend this trip to anyone that can manage. It was a great adventure and scenery was spectacular.
Alright, 4% left so hitting submit. I'll find some more pics to add later.
Thanks for reading.
