A Tale of Two Rivers - Updated May 2020

[YakRunabout]

Information is valuable! TKF.com has proven that many times over. Hopefully, this post is not a case of use it before you lose it!!

A bit over 4 years ago I made a trip to Cedar Lakes, which we found to be too shallow to be workable, and so we ended up going down the San Bernard River. This was my first trip to either location. I went east from the launch to the San Bernard and turned right to head towards the coast.

Not too far in I noticed a flock of birds going nuts on the bank, bathing. I thought this odd – it seemed these birds were out of place. I do not recall what kind they were but they did not appear to be the normal shore birds. Anyway, it prompted me to taste the water – it was quite fresh. Perhaps this explains the birds and their bathing?

Anyway, as I said this was 4+ years ago so I do not recall specifics of fish activity, but I do not recall much. Now, this could be due to the fresh water or it could be due to the fact that I had been kayak fishing inshore waters for maybe a year at this time! My fishing knowledge and techniques between then and now has changed dramatically! This due to many factors, like getting out and fishing, but a large contribution is from the knowledge contained in this web site.

Back to the tale – we continued as far as we could, beached for a bit of a walkabout, could hear and see some surf but could not access the gulf waters.

So, back to current time. We had sort of a repeat – heading first into Cedar Lakes to find shallow water which impacted where we could go. Plan B was to head down the San Bernard. Again turning right toward the coast we found salty water, we found current flow, we found fish! Flounder in the shallows, reds in the shallows and trout in the channels! We also found deep water areas and access to the gulf! We again beached for a walkabout, but just inside the river mouth into the gulf. Now, many of you know this already, apparently access was opened again thanks to Harvey a couple of years ago. But, this sure did change the fishing environment!

A visual representation of these two excursions? Sure – I have tracks on Google Earth for both. The recent track on the current GE image shows the outdated nature of the image! The current image on Bing maps appears to be closer but still not a current representation. The current image on both Bing and GE show that the river is open into the gulf, but both do not represent the current positioning of that opening and related channels. This just shows how variable this river mouth environment is.
The old track on the current GE image also does not match, not surprisingly. At the end of the track on that first trip we beached on sand and walked about a bit. The current image has the end of the track in brush.
I backed up the image to one from about that same time and there is now a good match with beach at the end of the track as well as confirming that there was no gulf waters access at that time.

The moral of the story – Go to an old location – it may be new again!

[YakRunabout]

A couple of images from the 2015 track - one on the current Google Earth image, one on a 2015 GE image

[YakRunabout]

A couple of kayak shots from the recent trip. Note that even in these remote areas you get photo bombers!!

[Chubs]

Thanks for the report.

I went there last year and it was flooding from rain. Chocolate brown water. But, there were tons of gulls and pelicans eating tiny shrimp. Never did make it to the cut and didn't catch anything.

[YakRunabout]

Yesterday went back out to the San Bernard and down to the mouth into the Gulf. I was able to make it close to the mouth in my PA14, though I had to flutter and paddle some to get there. PB's that made the attempt turned around well before the mouth. I did not make it to the surf zone due to lack of water depth and so stopped at that point for some pics. There is still some water communication with the gulf but not nearly as much as there was in December, at which time PB's had no problem at all getting into the gulf.

So, if you want to get all the way to the gulf waters better get your kayak out there soon!

[ben_beyer]

Good information!

[kickingback]

Very good information and report! That is some good info on that area that even I have looked at to fish. It looks like a great area. The pictures are great! Thanks for providing the GE images. Makes the info more relevant!

[YakRunabout]

kickingback - you are correct about the satellite images! They are very informative. When I first used GE to go back in time and see the dramatic changes to the area I was surprised at how dynamic this environment is. Neither Bing maps nor Google maps show the current situation, as shown by my track into the gulf, and they are not too old. My experience in the report is just around 5 years.
Now it is about to close up again! Just another endpoint of its never-ending cycle!

[Chubs]

I'd researched the river myself a few years ago, interesting history of that river and outlook.

http://www.texaskayakfisherman.com/foru ... 1&t=245997

If I recall correctly, the river ran into problems when Freeport diverted the Brazos river to its now current path. This resulted in the Brazos silt overwhelming the sbr (which had much less flow) and siltting in over time. Notice how the river swings to the West?

They cleared it open a few years back, then it stilted in. Then Harvey opened it back up, and that is what you've been witnessing, it's closing back up now. My research had shown they got a commitment over the next 25 years from the town of Freeport for a dredging project, but maybe they put that on hold due to Harvey naturally opening it up.

And cedar lakes has that opening further west probably at a natural outflow point from the new Brazos outlet is my guess. It's just a much smaller flow so it isn't open all the time. Interesting how much we impact our environment from man made changes (divert Brazos) and have unforseen consequences (close sbr).

And unfortunately for the town of San bernard, they are much smaller so have less voice for their concerns vs the town of Freeport. So it takes forever or never to rectify their situation. Better to title this post tale of 2 cities

[TexasGringo]

Has anybody fished the 1st Cedar Lake anytime recently?
Areas in yellow....

[Chubs]

I have not, but I follow the San bernard river group in Facebook and saw that hurricane Hanna has now officially dumped a massive sand bar in the river outlet, so there is no more outlet

A dredging project has been in the works for a year or 2 now though. In theory they will clear it out.

Also I made my way to the cedar lake cut and it was closed 2 weeks ago (pre Hanna). I'm going on my last weekend to the beach in a few days, will report back what I see.