Corpusfishing.com

[bulldog1935]

The Guadalupe below Canyon Dam has finally dropped to wadable flows almost everywhere.
I was out at 330 cfs yesterday, and shot this cool series (Olympus TG-5, aperture priority, low-sequential)
Yesterday's nice buck from mile 8





A guide reported a 22" chromer brown buck - definitely a holdover - caught on dries at mile 6
We saw the nice photo at their lunch stop

We were getting calorie deprived about 1p, and headed into Sattler for the best chop in Texas


At mile 5 after lunch, I got another nice buck, and shot this cool series of my buddy Jimbo


you can see this one was a big girl, when she came up to check out Jimbo

[TroutChaser]

Great pics and beautiful fish. I don

[TroutChaser]

Forgot about the apostrophe issue. Beautiful pics thanks for sharing them.

[bulldog1935]

Thanks
here's a brown/selfie Jimbo posted from the trip

This is 20 minutes from my house, btw.
When I was 20-something it was nothing to drive from Austin to wade at 800 cfs, but these days, I don't go out until it's 300 or below.
Jimbo and I were posting photos on GRTU forum and figured out we've been fishing together all over the hill country for 25 years.

[bulldog1935]

Had to replenish my fly box so brought the camera to the vise.
Here are the flies I was fishing
sparkle nymph size 14, and swimming BWO size 18

the sparkle nymph is both weight and attractor using a small tungsten cone head, is tied on a sproat hook - it imitates a swimming caddis.
Fished as a dropper, the blue wing olive imitates tiny baetis mayflies - the size 18 scud hook has the short shank of a size 20 nymph hook, and the wider biting gape of a size 16 hook -
- hardest part of this fly is getting the XS copper bead on the tiny hook. Pinch the barb first with micro needle nose pliers, then use the pliers to pick up the tiny copper bead. Tweezers or a 2nd set of micro pliers to manipulate the hook.

To fish them, slide the leader through the larger fly, tie on an 18" piece of tippet for the dropper - the tippet knot bump-stops the upper fly.

Both insect families live in fast, oxygenated water, usually hatch together, and both swim actively to the surface when they hatch.
BWOs cloud over the water where they hatch - caddis look like small moths and skitter just above the water surface.
Their action when they hatch makes for my favorite way to catch trout - on the swing, which often draws violent strikes. Drift to let the flies sink, slowly raise the rod tip against the current and the fly pair swims to the surface.

The 20" buck I posted above took the sparkle nymph on the drift.
A photo I didn't show before, the 17" buck below showed up on the BWO the instant it began to swing.

[bulldog1935]

Adding an 18" brown with the swimming BWO in her mouth. Flows at 375 cfs this day.

[bulldog1935]

It was a blast to fish with Alex yesterday, and long overdue. He is truly great company (and we're making plans to warmwater with Jimbo in the coming months).
I got some good photos of the river and both Alex and me in action - especially Alex - that was easy, he was always in action.

Oddly, no fish photos - the one worthy fish I got in the net - a glorious 18+" buck as red as the one in the first post, head every bit as big, and 4" of kyped jaw. I flipped my swimming BWO out of his mouth, and he flipped right out of the net - he was in great shape, laughing at me the whole time.

We made dark-thirty to the 2-car-limit prime water lease at mile 7. I needed daylight to rig - Alex was already rigged.
First thing I see when I get in the river is Alex backing away from the Barrel Hole putting a fish in his net.

Alex caught several browns, and I wasn't catching anything.
Working our way up, we traded back and forth between our favorite hole and pocketwater at lower Rocky Top.
Nice rainbow



I broke off a fish on the swing on a knot I had just tied - was splicing a rig and think I under-tied one side of the surgeon's knot - and couldn't turn another.
The flows have inched up a little bit from the other day, and I just wasn't getting down.
Decided I was going to have to add split shot and high stick.
Instant pay-off with a healthy hen, right where I had been swinging my wets.

Alex again in my favorite pocketwater - I think this one is a redhorse sucker

Upriver from here to upper Rocky Top is an island that splits the river into Redhorse Run and Mushroom Rocks. We fished up one and down the other.
Here's my big buck right where I struck him.

and taking off on his first run - Alex is on a deep gravel tailout, and I think he's hooked up to nice buck at the same time - I saw his buck catching its breath when I got up there.

Really had a blast with this fish - I would work him halfway across the fast run, and he would shoot back across the run to his hiding spots in the deep cypress roots - 3 times when I thought he was ready for the net. And as I mentioned, he was so fresh when I got him into the net, I flipped the hook from his mouth, and he flipped back into the run.

Intrepid wading to get up the run from here. I haven't waded the river this fast in 15 years. There's a spot where you're on the eroding flagstone, left leg mid-thigh, and where you want to put your right foot is shallow and too steep to get traction - one step to the left and you're over your head in fast water.
I passed Alex on the wide flagstone, fished the chute at the top of the run first - no luck - crossed over first at the upper Rocky Top tailout - even that shallow water crossing was a chore, had to ride the current the last two steps to get to the island - there were 2 dozen redhorse in the tailout.
From the top of the island, here's Alex on his turn on the chute.

Going back down on the other side, there's really nice deep pocketwater, shaded between the cypress, the cliffs of Rocky Top, and also under the mushroom rocks.
We worked it over, and each missed a couple. I'm on the pocket just above mushroom rocks, and Alex is tight-lining the deep hole beside the first rock.

This run is worthwhile fishing when flows are this high. When I fished this flow 15 years ago, I caught a 20" brown buck under the 2nd mushroom rock.
The river will fish so well in the fall, with the guaranteed flows we'll have through summer. The seasonal leases are closing next weekend, fishing pressure is already dropping off, and Alex I plan to make a few crack-of-dawn distance wades from the couple of year-round leases into summer - those days always end early, both for the fish and the tubers.