Brazos River Fishing Trip July 2009

This is a little belated post, I started it last year after the trip and just thought I publish it because the pictures are nice.

The Brazos River above the city of Waco, below the Lake Whitney dam, is a very nice stretch of river and a great bass fishery. Down in the Houston area where I live, the Brazos River is a red muddy river that doesn't reach out and grab the interest of most fly fishermen. But this section below Whitney shows none of the characteristics seen as the river reaches the Gulf Coast.

I have fished here several times with local guide Chris Shafer, but I've always wanted to give it a try without a guide. I've tried it and I think I prefer the guide.


I led at trip in July with my club, the Texas Fly Fishers, and fished the section of the river about three miles above Ranch Road 2114.

Here are a few pictures of the trip. No fish porn, but there were a few nice largemouth bass caught.

Because the trip was in late July, it was really HOT.

We stayed in the Cottage at Dick's Canoe at the FM 2114 bridge - http://www.dickscanoes.com . It's a nice place and well worth the price, especially if you have a group for four or less.

Because this post is belated, I thought I should add that we attempted to do this trip this year - 2010 and we were washed out. This is a tailwater section of the river and the Corps of Engineers like to generate. So, if you plan on fishing here, check out the USGS water data website. Here's a sample of the Brazos River at Aquila http://waterdata.usgs.gov/nwis/uv?08093100

Fly fishing lessons in Houston Texas at http://www.texasflyfishingschool.com

Steve and Mabel at Seven Lakes

This is a very belated posting. Blogging is supposed to be more real time than almost two months later, but I have good excuses. I went fishing in Wyoming and Montana the following weekend. Those stories and pictures have yet to be posted either. So it goes!

Anyhow...
I got a frantic call on a Sunday afternoon from Mabel (pronounce Ma Bell) for an on the water fly fishing lesson. We ended up spending the following Saturday at Seven Lakes private bass club in Damon, Texas teaching Mabel and her husband Steve to fly fish. This was a first time for both of them, and it was Steve's birthday present. They had both spent plenty of time fishing with conventional tackle, which of course presents some challenges to most fly casting instructors. It's that broken wrist on the back cast that's so hard to overcome! I spent some time talking about gear and flies and then we got into pick up and lay down casting and roll casting. Very quickly we were casting and fishing. The fish weren't cooperating with our fly fishing neophytes, even though the tiger bass in the lake were jumping out of the water attacking the dragonflies.

Seven Lakes' owner Mike Arnold stealthfully pull up behind us in is little Rhino cart and started casting to a very nice prospective piece of structure about 50 feet away from Steve. He proceeded to pull three very nice sized (9+ inches) sunfish out of the lake. I'm not sure if that was to make us feel bad or prove that the fish were biting. As soon as Mike left, Steve moved into his slot and tried his luck. Meanwhile on another piece of the lake, Mabel was trying to lure the bass to here fly. She caught the first fish of the day. The catch wasn't very large or plentiful, to the point that the competition became on of who caught the smallest fish.

We tried our luck on some of the other lakes. On Goose, there's a feeder that the fish like to hang out at in anticipation of the 6 pm feeding. The water is clear as an aquarium and there are lots of bass and bream swimming around. Of great interest to Steve and I was a very large looking bass that was working his way through the weeds. We hooked up a nice sized black wooly booger and start to get that fishes attention. No luck, but the trying was fun.

As the sun was moving down and the shadows were getting longer, we switched lakes one more time to those pictured on this blog. This fish became more interested in the Miss Prissy fly that we'd tied on to Steve's line. He finally caught a few fish that changed the smallest fish competition to a biggest fish competition. The warmouth pictured was a feisty bugger. Steve brought a little ultralight spinning rod, which he pulled out to try his fishing luck with some old familiar gear to see if the fish challenge was about the fish or the gear. No luck on the spinning gear.

The day ended with a happy couple beaming for a closing shot before we drove home.

What a great gift from Mabel!
Happy Birthday Steve!
I hope to see you guys on the water again soon.

Find out more about fly fishing lessons in Houston, Texas with the Texas Fly Fishing School.
www.texasflyfishingschool.com