Troutfest 2013

Mark the calendar, GRTU's annual Troutfest will be held the weekend of February 15th-17th this year. Rio Raft Resort will once again be home base for the weekend's activities which get underway that Friday night at 6pm. The banquet promises to be an unforgettable experience as legendary angler/author/photographer Lefty Kreh will be the special guest speaker. Can't make Friday, then head down Saturday or Sunday. Both days will be jam packed with family friendly activities including the kid fish pond, educational classes, local shopping and the Hill Country Casting Games. The Fly Fishing Film Tour (f3t) presents their compilation of the latest and greatest independent fly fishing films Saturday night at 7pm, bring the lawn chairs and popcorn. Advanced tickets are now available now off of the website (http://www.grtutroutfest.org/).

BBQ and Trout

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season filled with good food, family, friends and maybe even a little fishing. As it was our daughter's first Christmas and New Year's, it was quite a memorable season in our household and we enjoyed every minute of it. My birthday also falls right in between the two holidays so the whole week was jam packed with celebration. We even made it out to Driftwood to the heavenly gluttenfest that is The Salt Lick. Man, I love the holidays!

 

Oh buddy, can't beat that Texas BBQ

On my actual birthday, Liz told me to take the day and go do some fishing. I headed down to the Guadalupe and spent the day fishing near the third crossing. Being that it was the holidays and everyone seemed to be off of work, the river was packed. I made my way down stream to a little calmer stretch and focused on some riffles and deeper pocket water. It was a perfect day weather wise so I had high hopes for some active fish. Unfortunately that would not be the case for the first couple of hours. I could not get anything to bite. It wasn't until I started to make my way back upstream towards the bridge that I had anything close to a bite. 

Walking back up the bank, I noticed a pod of fish happily feeding and going about their day. There was a good number of fish and I thought for sure my movement would have scared them but they did not seem concerned with me at all. I sat back for a minute and planned my method of attack which to start, was the hares ear/zebra midge trailer combo that I currently had tied on. I made my first cast upstream and let the bugs drift back down into the fish, no response. After repeating similar drifts for a while with similar results, I switched up tactics. 

Next up was the wooly bugger which they were much more interested in. The olive color I tied on had a lot of fish chasing but pulling back at the last second. It wasn't until I tied on a smaller dark purple that the first strike came. It was a small eight or nine inch rainbow that was too little to put up much of a fight. I got him in quickly in hopes of not spooking the remaining fish. Lucky for me, none of them moved so I went back to it. After netting one more fish on the wooly bugger, a nicer 16 inch rainbow, I started noticing something that really got me giddy, fish taking dries off of the surface. I rarely get to fish dries on this river so I was all to anxious to try and figure out what it was they were eating.  

There was no major hatch taking place that I could see so I tried out a couple of the old trusties. Little ant pattern, .... nothing. Little tan hopper, .... nothing. Elk hair caddis, .... whammo! A nice little rainbow came up and smacked it. Unfortunately, as soon as I was hooked up, he decided he no longer liked my fly and spit it out. No problem though, that great old sight of watching a trout charging the surface was enough to make me happy. 

I fished a while longer but all of the fishing action of the day was behind me. I was ready to head home and spend the rest of the birthday with the family. 

Happy New Years to everyone, I hope it is a great start to 2013.