Hill Country Rain

As I mentioned earlier, in the post Hank's Fish, I have been extremely busy lately and life has gotten in the way of fishing.  We are moving up to Junction in a month so that my wife and I can both teach and coach at the school there.  I am excited because Junction puts us right on one of my favorite all time rivers, the South Llano.  But...the moving has kept me busy.  I am also in the processes of obtaining my CDL and living/working down south on a ranch near the border, planting a 17,000 tree olive orchard.  So, I haven't had much time to fish.

But, everyone once in awhile, you need to make a little time.  And I made a little time yesterday afternoon.  Here is the quick story:

It has been a surprisingly wet summer here in the Western Hill Country.  This has been a huge blessing, helping to fill up the rivers and the aquifers.  Don't get me wrong, we still need SO much more just to get back to normal levels and to hopefully fill up the lakes.  But, the rain we have had has been nice.

It has been raining all week in Junction, and the South Llano is running pretty good.  When the sun peaked it's head out yesterday morning I decided to take advantage of that time and hit the river to chase some Guadalupe Bass.

I launched at around 12:30, and could already see the black clouds beginning to build again, but I didn't care.  I was going to fish.

I made a few casts with a white streamer, but had no luck.  Knowing that the water was much more colored than normal from the recent rains, I kicked myself for not starting with a chartreuse streamer.  When I finally convinced myself to put the rod down long enough to tie on a new fly, my day changed.

I tied on a chartreuse streamer with a black back and began to cast upstream, slowly pulling it back to me.  Within three casts, I caught my first Guadalupe Bass that went about 9 inches.  Nothing worthy of a picture.  Two casts later I hooked into a real nice Guad, that went almost 14 inches long.  Unfortunately, as I was pulling out my camera, the fish flopped away.

About 15 minutes later, as I was stripping my fly through some grass, it got smashed.  I had a nice bass on, and it was putting up a fight.  I was able to land it and snap a quick picture before I released it to swim some more.

Then the rains came.  And it rained hard.  I caught two more small largemouth and one more Guad in the rain, but I didn't want to ruin my phone (camera) so I didn't get any pictures.  When the rain stopped I was almost at my take out point. I did however, land one more sunfish to cap the day.