On Saturday we drove to Menard and met with Brent Frazier, a kayak fishing guide located in town. Really nice guy with a stable of 12 kayaks who guides, rents, provides shuttles, etc. All we needed was a shuttle, although in retrospect we definitely would have benefited from renting some smaller, more agile kayaks (the ol’ X-Factor wasn’t exactly designed to negotiate tight S-turns on hill country rivers
). We took his advice and did the run from town to 5-mile crossing, about six or seven miles downstream. While unloading our boats, the mayor of Menard, Johnny Brown, stopped by and chatted with us. He fishes the San Saba regularly from his yak and was telling us he does well on black bass both upstream and downstream of town. After hearing the mayor describe some of his recent trips, we were feeling pretty good about our chances. It was around 1 pm when we finally put in and sure enough we started catching fish right away.
It is a small river, and with the lack of rain lately, I was worried that we might be dragging more than paddling. That turned out to not be much of an issue. The river was bigger than I thought. It gets narrow in spots but there was plenty of water along the entire route. We had to portage around a couple of private bridges and one fallen tree. Other than that it was pretty easy paddling. Like a lot of hill country rivers, the San Saba runs clear over a limestone bed, large pecan and oak trees grow along the banks, fishing is good, wildlife abundant (I don’t think I ever saw so many wild turkeys). You are not surrounded by the high rocky bluffs you see on the S Llano, but it is still very scenic and remote. Once on the water, I saw very few houses and no other people the entire day. We caught large mouth, hybrid, maybe a few spotted (I have a hard time telling the difference) as well as red bellied and long eared sunfish. The bigger fish were holding in deep holes under high cut banks.
We were steadily catching fish and not making very good time down the river and ended up paddling the last mile or so in the dark listening to the cackle of wild turkeys from the high banks. It started to get pretty cold so we picked up the pace and got off the water at around 7:30.
The fishing along this stretch seemed on par with some of the better fishing rivers in the hill country. Not as many riffles as the S Llano or as many small Guadalupes, but plenty of large mouth, hybrids and pan fish. According to Brent, the cat fishing is really good as well.
Hungry and cold afterwards, we stopped back in town and ate at the Side Oats Café. The food was great! I wasn’t expecting such a good meal. Good coffee as well. All in all, a really great experience.
I would recommend this trip to anyone who hasn’t tried it. I plan to book a two-day paddle with Brent this spring. He mentioned that he does three day trips as well.
For anyone interested, Brent Frazier’s phone number is 325-456-6447. No e-mail but he said a website is in the works.
photos to follow...
[update ~I most likely caught Guadalupe bass, not hybrids. Just not used to catching them in the slow water. Thanks Kelly]
Beautiful Scenery. Thanks for the photos.
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