McKinney Roughs Nature Park
Posted: Sun May 07, 2017 6:22 pm
I found myself on the east side of Austin for the better part of a day due to taking one of my kids to an event where I was to drop him off for 6-7 hours in that area. I normally fish the Gulf marsh for redfish, but took a spinning rig and what little bass fishing tackle I have. I headed to McKinney Roughs thinking I could take a nice little hike down to the Colorado River there. Not knowing the area's rivers or lakes, it looked like a logical destination to me. As it turned out, it's about a 15-20 minute little hike to to the river. I found 2 or 3 easy access points to the river bank, and 1 or 2 more difficult access points. Using a bullet weight and a green worm mostly, I pulled in 5 or 6 8"-15" bass, and one big catfish over the course of 3-4 hours. Released them all. I also lost a few. I'm not sure if I got lucky or if it's a well known part of the Colorado to the bass guys, but from my experiences, going to a relatively random river access point with no intel or recommendations, and actually catching a number of bass seemed pretty good to me. The water was really clear - I site casted to a couple I saw hanging near rocks, pointed upstream. Watched a couple of them attack the worm from 5 or 6 feet away in the clear and shallow water - that was cool. Also saw a good sized gar swim by, toward the middle of the river. With little preparation and minimal gear, it was a good experience on Saturday.