September Competition

[honkey1]

Great job !!

[jhb]

Got a chance to meet and fish with honkey this afternoon from Scull's down to Spencer's. Ran in to sky pilot on the water and chatted for a few minutes. Bass bite was slow today, first one I caught was the best of the day (18.5"), right below the Martindale Dam. Caught only a few more bass, and barely one keeper. Lure of the day was a watermelon/red flake BBH.

I did cast right behind a log and immediately saw a ripple wolf my lure down and I set the hook. I fought it across a log for a second and my braid snapped. I quickly cruised up to the log and saw mud everywhere and my lure being dangled out the mouth of a large spotted gar (large for a spotted gar, not a huge gar by any means). Dang gar.

[skypilot]

Free . . . . I like free stuff.

Yesterday, a nice catfish provided a free kayak ride on the San Marcos River.

A crawfish pattern, skull head fly on my 5wt Pflueger fly rod, was just the ticket for this channel cat.

The fly was lodged three inches deep, in his throat . . . . swallowed . . . . not nibbled.

You can see from the line marks all over his body, this was a rough and tumble event. I wasn't sure just how it would turn out . . . . paddling frantically to keep Mr. Whiskers out of log jams and away from the river bank.

It would have made an amusing video.

He measured at over 22 inches, but could not get him to cooperate and settled down for a photo session.

Let's go fishing

[jhb]

Great catfish skypilot, I bet that was fun!

So, rounding out the last week of this month's tourney, I think the total's are as follows:

zackthefisherman 32"
skypilot 36.75"
jhb 37.25"

That makes for a real close month so far. Someone please double check me. I'm gonna have to hit the river a few times to work for larger fish.

[Zackthefisherman]

Nice cat skypilot! Last month I caught a 25inch cat on the fly which is my Pb on any kind of tackle.

As of late the fishing has been pretty slow for me. I've had to grind it out just to get a few bass but the sunfish have been plentiful. Hopefully I'll make it out a few more times before the months over.

[skypilot]

Great catfish skypilot, I bet that was fun!

So, rounding out the last week of this month's tourney, I think the total's are as follows:

zackthefisherman 32"
skypilot 36.75"
jhb 37.25"

That makes for a real close month so far. Someone please double check me. I'm gonna have to hit the river a few times to work for larger fish.

I posted a 17.25 LMB and 22.00 Catfish.

So my math has me at around 39 inches . . . please check it out.

Thanks

[skypilot]

NE2 . . . O Yeh!

Here is one you didn't count on . . . . hello Mr. Gizzard Shad . . . . on the fly rod.

This is only the second one to bite the fly in 25 years on this river.

Put a hook in the water, and you never know what will eat it.

Let's go fishing

[Warthog]

After 5 months in Germany (and 8 other countries) I'm glad to be back to Texas! I have wasted no time in checking up on the local waters to make sure the fish population is good and healthy. Last weekend it was the Colorado, and this weekend it was the San Marcos. Sparrow and I hit the SM River this morning, and it didn't disappoint. There were cichlids, sunfish, Guads, largemouth, and gar in the mix. I did about 80% fly/20% soft plastics. Early in the morning I was broken off twice by nice lmb using a topwater cricket fly with a small nymph as dropper. Once I realized I wasn't trout fishing in Germany anymore, I upsized my leader/tippet material and the show was on. The morning held a good deal of aggressive topwater action, and deeper flies were successful as the day progressed. The river has changed significantly since the flood, opening up new structure while creating new obstacles. Here are a few pics below. I wrote the code word on my glove. Looks like the two longest are 48.5" combined length.

32" gar


16.5" lmb


Nice cichlid


Underwater Guad


Sparrow with a lunker

[Zackthefisherman]

Nice fish warthog glad to see you back. Although with the return of you and skypilot most of us amateurs don't stand a chance in the competition.

Yesterday(Sunday) my brother and I made a quick afternoon trip on the guad after the Cowboys disappointing loss. Unfortunately the fishing was pretty disappointing as well or at least for me. I only caught a few dink bass and sunfish which has been the norm for me lately. My brother only caught one fish but it was a good one. A fat 19 1/2 inch largemouth which is his new pb if I'm not mistaken. So I guess the day wasn't a total bust.

[jhb]

Man I'm glad to have you guys back! Sky pilot, my apologies, I blew past your LMB submission (I think it's at least 17.5"), you're around 39.5". Warthog has definitively blown us all away his first month back at 48.25". Zack it looks like your brother enjoyed that fight. I'll submit the fish below because of the difficulties associated with catching it...

I spent my Saturday and Sunday redneckin' at the Comal County Fair and Rodeo and tractor pull, but I did have a chance to fish mid-day Sunday for a few hours. Put-in at Gruene and floated down to I-35, covering new water for a friend. He quickly landed 3 bass and right as we're approaching the first rapids below Gruene I cast my BBH long in to 9" of water under some overgrown grass right at the bank. A perfect cast. In the crystalline water I see the bass lurch forward and suck up my lure, and I reeled in the slack and set the hook and the fight bore down. She screamed drag off my Battle and raced for deeper water, her back having to skim out of the water to get across the limestone flats. I kept the line tight and the rod up and eventually brought her to the boat, another hefty Largemouth from the Guadalupe. At the moment I got her to the boat, I start to fumble around for a marker and realize, not only do I not have a marker, I don't have a way to show the code. Alas, I resolved to get my buddy to type the code on his phone, and we'd include his phone in the picture.

As we released the bass and shoved off to go down some rapids, I turtled my Ride avoiding a tree and spread my belongings out along the surface, scrambling around I managed to get everything, except my Penn spinning combo and a box of plastics. My friend and I started wading around and managed to find my rod and reel but never my box of plastics. So, just below Gruene is a box of decent plastics that aren't totally sullied in algae yet.

We floated down to I-35 and the bite was on fire from Gruene to Common St (11:30am- 2:30pm) and from Common through CBP, the confluence, Mill St and the boat ramp it was slow. I think we each pulled out a fish and hour (2:30-5).

I think the corrected lengths are as follows:

Warthog: 48.5"
skypilot 39.5"
jhb: 37.75"
Zack: 32"

There are still a few days left folks!

[Warthog]

Nice bass from your brother Zack and nice one jhb. It looks like the Guad is producing some lunkers lately. Lots of good submissions this month.

[skypilot]

Warthog it is good to have you back.

Nice gar.

Let's go fishing

[Warthog]

Thanks Skypilot! Hope to see you out there again sometime soon. Maybe I'll be out there again this weekend if I have early success bow hunting (opening weekend). Its that time of year, and venison stock has been depleted. Set up a new tripod, restrung, and returned the bow. Can't wait. Venison sausage on overnighters coming right up!

It looks like I can reclaim the Texas State Record and San Marcos water body catch and release record with that Rio Grande cichlid. I held those records until a year ago, then someone beat it. Its good to be back .

[Warthog]

Oh yes I almost forgot; I had a disturbing water moccasin incident on this San Marcos trip. I was back fishing some Lilly pads in an inlet, and out of nowhere comes a very large water moccasin at 100% full steam towards my kayak. I locked eyes with this thing, let it know I was there, and it wasn't backing down. it was getting close to the bow so I engaged full paddle in reverse, and it kept coming. It wasn't until it was almost at the bow that I was able to gain enough speed to deter it. It was coming so fast that I would have only had one chance to wack it before it became a passenger. Not sure if it would have gone that far, but that appeared to be the intention. I was checking the back of the boat for unwanted passengers the rest of the trip .

[honkey1]

you and your brother are magnets for snakes.. that is a great cichlid you got there. can any one verify my blue gill catch? go back to main nb/sm forum and see fish ID

thanks

[jhb]

It looks like I can reclaim the Texas State Record and San Marcos water body catch and release record with that Rio Grande cichlid.

Congrats on that! You better not let deer season impede your attempts to beat me in KW either... and I agree with honkey, something about you boys attracts them snakes. Sparrow killed one in camp on the SM overnighter, we saw at least a dozen total snakes on the Roddy overnighter, and now you're trying to make an amigo.

Glad we could all put sometime in on the water this month. Hopefully y'all are still thinking about the Coloroddy overnighter as well.

[skypilot]

Thanks Skypilot! Hope to see you out there again sometime soon. Maybe I'll be out there again this weekend if I have early success bow hunting (opening weekend). Its that time of year, and venison stock has been depleted. Set up a new tripod, restrung, and returned the bow. Can't wait. Venison sausage on overnighters coming right up!

It looks like I can reclaim the Texas State Record and San Marcos water body catch and release record with that Rio Grande cichlid. I held those records until a year ago, then someone beat it. Its good to be back .

Congratulations on the C & R record.

Fun on the fly rod!

Let's go fishing

[honkey1]

I cant believe it.. warthogs first month back and he wins. its rigged!!!!

[jhb]

I kind of had that thought also after I submitted the competition, he hasn't even been back a full month (I think 20 days if I'm correct), and I knew he might pull out a Longnose Gar just to spite all of us. He lived up to my expectations.