October 2015 Competition

[Warthog]

This month, let's do the longest of each species combined. The longest guad+largemouth+sunfish+cichlid+gar+catfish, etc., etc. The code word will be "ALL".

Good luck and tight lines!

[skypilot]

This month, let's do the longest of each species combined. The longest guad+largemouth+sunfish+cichlid+gar+catfish, etc., etc. The code word will be "ALL".

Good luck and tight lines!

Congrats on the Sept. competition.

You are thinking way out of the box on this one.

I like it.

Let's go fishing

[skypilot]

This month, let's do the longest of each species combined. The longest guad+largemouth+sunfish+cichlid+gar+catfish, etc., etc. The code word will be "ALL".

Good luck and tight lines!

Of course you are aware we have several species of sunfish three species of gar etc. so are you counting just one per category or each species

[Warthog]

Let's do one per category except for bass. You can submit one guad, one lmb, and one smallie. Go get em!

[Warthog]

I ran over to the Blanco River today between the morning and evening bowhunting sessions. Fishing commenced around 11 am. Slow and deep was the name of the game. From dragging a lure on the bottom and watching the angle of the line, I could tell that there was an underwater drop 5-10 ft off of the bank in most spots. Cast to the bank, let it sink...wait...wait some more...drag the fly off of the ledge...let it drop...wait some more. Big bass love those ledges. I told myself today would be a big bass-targeting day. First hookup was a monster. I fought it for a while; it kept trying to go back to the depths. Finally I got a look at the beast, just in time to see it smirk at me, shake its head in just the right sequence, and throw the hook. Darn, well, there's gotta be another one in there I thought. After dealing with some dinkers hitting the fly on drops, I hooked up on another solid fish for about 5 seconds, then gone. These fish didn't get so big by coming in easy!

Finally it happened. I cast a "crazy craw" fly to the edge of some grass in the water and hopped it off the underwater ledge. The slow, steady movement of the line told me it was a lunker. A solid strip of the line and raising of the rod tip set the hook, the fly rod bowed, and the battle was on. Once it realized it was hooked, it swam straight back to the grass, ran parallel to the bank, and shredded the grass. Its parallel bank run continued towards a downed tree limb. I held my 10lb tippet just at the breaking point in hopes of discouraging entry into the branches, all to no avail. The fish entered into the branches, and I frantically paddled to an angle that reduced stress from the tree branch. After almost flipping the diablo and fighting the fish whilst it was inside of the downed tree branch, it was landed. It was 21" and had some serious girth. Would have blown the current Blanco flyfishing record out of the water, no pun intended, but this fish deserved to live to be caught another day. Unfortunately, I can say with confidence that the first fish that I lost today was significantly larger than this one. Looks like I need to go back for a round 2.

After the lunker, I ended the run by trying for a decent sunfish. I didn't get one over ~6", but they sure are purdy. The code word is on my left hand in the bass pic. The evening bow hunting session was much less fruitful than the mid-day fishing. I'll get one for the freezer next weekend...

[honkey1]

BRAVO! BRAVO! did Sparrow give you your flies?

[Texjbq85]

Caught this guy out of my float tube just below Horseshoe Falls on the Guadalupe. I assume Stripers can count as a category. There are lot more were he came from.



And NICE Bass Warhog.

[Warthog]

Thanks fellas. Yep stripers count. No, sparrow didn't give me the flies honkey. I'll get them from him on Friday I guess. Texjbq85, what are you using to catch the stripers?

[Zackthefisherman]

Awesome bass warthog that will be tough to beat.

I finally caught my first decent fish Saturday since my big smallmouth from early last month. It was only 15 inches so I didn't bother taking a pic as I hope to catch a few bigger ones.

Nice Striper Texjbq85!
May I ask how you caught it or just any tips in general? I've attempted to catch them a few times since all the flooding with no success.
Thanks

[Texjbq85]

On a Sculpin minnowy looking fly. I only caught two, but as I was leaving these guys showed up using rooster tails and were hooking them on just about every cast. They are all stacked up in the current right below horseshoe falls. Those things grow to be rainbow trout eating machines, so if you get one over 18", remember they fry up really well .

[Zackthefisherman]

Thanks for the tips. Could I paddle upstream from Maricopa to access the horseshoe?

[Texjbq85]

Yes, you could or go downstream from the dam. Luckily my parents own property in the neighborhood so I can park right at the homeowners park and walk down. I just looked at it on Google Earth, The falls are 1.4 miles upstream from Maricopa and 1.6 miles down from the dam. I fished probably the 1000 yards above the falls on Saturday and didn't catch or even see S@!#. So I'd access it from Maricopa. You'd have to walk the yak up a couple riffles, but most of it is very wide, deep, and slow moving.

[Texjbq85]

I forgot to mark my hand yesterday and didn't realize till I was on the water, So I added the date stamp to the picture (hope that's ok??? ). Fished from the top of Cypress Bend to the parking lot at the end. Caught a lot of Yellow bellies and 4-5 small largemouths.

[skypilot]

Nice bass Warthog! Sounds like you have some big fish located.

[jhb]

Great bass Warthog and nice Guadalupe striper texjbq. Just got caught up after a few days out in the Chisos Mtns. Hitting the water soon, keep it up guys.

[Texjbq85]

It's not much, but puts a LMB on the board for me. Fished the San Marcos from City Park down to Rio Vista. It's been a couple months since I've done that stretch. It's gotten REALLY grown over with aquatic vegetation. In terms of fly fishing it's really becoming difficult to fish anything sub surface .

[Warthog]

Sparrow and I hit the Blanco on Friday and the San Marcos on Saturday. The Blanco held another surprise; Sparrow landed a lunker I'd estimate at 6 lbs or so. He didn't write the code word on his hand for the monster unfortunately. The San Marcos was consistent with some nice lmb and Guads. Sparrow caught two nice channel cats on the fly. He also lost a bass on the fly that was an estimated 8+lbs. Much larger than the Blanco bass caught on Friday based on the up-close visual before it threw the hook. I'll let some pictures do the rest of the talking (pic heavy since it contains entries from both me and Sparrow)...

Sparrow's Blanco bass


One of Sparrow's SM River catfish


Sparrow had the code word for this one


Sparrow's Guad Entry


One of my SM Riv Lmb, 19.25"


My Guad entry from the trip (code is at an angle on my glove)

[Zackthefisherman]

Wow y'all are definitely on the fish! I haven't done much kayak fishing this month, because I recently downsized to a Toyota 4runner and I still need a kayak rack.

I have been doing some wadefishing lately for Redhorse suckers. These are the most challenging fish I've ever attempted to catch, but it pays off when you get one on the end of your line as they fight like redfish. Yesterday I managed to land two 18 inchers and I will definitely be targeting this species more.

[skypilot]

Wow . . . Warthog and Sparrow . . . . you are tearing it up.

Today was my first chance in over a week to get on the water.

The fish were active and it was fun.

I will split my entries between two posts as I still don't know how to put more than three pictures on one post.

[skypilot]

One more.

All caught on the fly.

Fun!

I have some more pics to post later.

[skypilot]

Wow y'all are definitely on the fish! I haven't done much kayak fishing this month, because I recently downsized to a Toyota 4runner and I still need a kayak rack.

I have been doing some wadefishing lately for Redhorse suckers. These are the most challenging fish I've ever attempted to catch, but it pays off when you get one on the end of your line as they fight like redfish. Yesterday I managed to land two 18 inchers and I will definitely be targeting this species more.

Very Nice!

[skypilot]

Three hours of flyfishing produced some very nice fish on the San Marcos River this evening.

It was encouraging to pick up some healthy bass on poppers.

The big bass was a fatty. At 19", this fish was about 4.5 pounds. Of course I did not have a net, so it was necessary to jump in the water to land it. I lost a nice fish at the boat, just 30 minutes earlier, so wasn't taking any chances with this one.

Heading out to Junction this weekend for Oktoberfisch. Not sure if those fish count for the competition.

Let's go fishing

[skypilot]

An hour and a half "quickee" paddle produced some nice fish this afternoon.

One more for the competition . . . . yeah

Not that I am competitive . . . . maybe just a little

One good thing about the way we compete - everyone wins - we get out on the water and fish

Let's go fishing

[Zackthefisherman]

I was finally able to catch a few for the competition this morning.

[Warthog]

Some great catches this month! Nice catch on the gray redhorse Zackthefisherman. They aren't so easy to catch. What did you catch them on that day?

I fished the San Marcos river with jhb and our Kayak Wars teammate on Saturday. The river was productive with consistent landing of lmb and guads most of the day. All three of us landed some decent lmb, with the top 5 from 18-20". Here are a few pics:

My sunfish submission


A 20" LMB decided to play


JHB test driving the Diablo (aka SS Warthog). He must have absorbed some of the fish mojo from it, since he landed a Guad right off the bat.