Here little fishie

The panfish were biting on nymphs just like this.

In the two years we have lived in San Antonio, I have heard stories about how it was possible to fly fish on the Guadalupe River north of town. At some point, I found out there is a member of our ward who goes fly fishing every once in a while. After several months, Joe Zamarripa and I were finally able to make our schedules come together and we went fishing Saturday afternoon. Not only did we go fishing, we also got to kayak up the river for a ways to get to the fishing hole. Even Teressa was slightly jealous, and she has no patience for fishing.

The fishing here is a little different from what I had grown up with. The Gualalupe is a warm water fishery unless you are fishing right below the Canyon Lake dam. So we weren't fishing for trout. We were looking for bass and panfish. I had never fly fished for bass or panfish before. My other issue was that we were using wet flies. I had never had any success with wet flies in the past, but I was sure willing to try again. I tied on a fly and started to fish.

In the end, I hadn't caught so many fish in a long time. The panfish were biting on the bead head nymphs I had been holding onto for a long time. (I think I had gotten these flies from Dave Falkingham 10 years ago.) Later on, when I saw Brother Zamarripa catching bass I switched to a wooly bugger I had tied myself ... and caught more panfish. That's OK. I think the seven panfish I caught would almost add up to one of those bass.