The Guadalupe flooded this year and damage all along the valley is evident. Clean-up crews are working at many sites and flows on the river are still very high, running at 634 cfs as I write this. Last year during my stay flows never breached the 100 cfs mark. But there is also some good good news in all this, the river is apparently full of stripers and I'll be looking for them in the coming days.
I've succumbed to a particularly virulent case of fiberglass fever and have ordered a number of rods in an effort to deal with my affliction. Yesterday the first rod arrived, a nice 7' 6" 3/4 wt Steffen built by Leiderman.
Where to check it out? The river fish are too big and the San Marcos and a few other rivers are running high and dirty so off I went to Fischer Park in New Braunfels. All told, I had a great day. I started catching onto the slower casting motion of glass and certainly had no trouble feeling the bites. I caught a couple dozen long-eared sunfish and what looked like a bluegill hybrid and sizes ran from tiny to smaller. Even the smallest sunnies put a bend into the rod and I must admit I now love glass after only one date. The one decent fish, about palm sized, missed the photo session when the camera operator failed to show up.
There is a downside to these sensitive rods. After hooking a big fish (and thinking I had on the Mother of all Sunnies) I let it run several times and after some close calls with some shoreline brush I finally spotted the fish. Ugggg, it was a channel cat and small to boot. The fiberglass rod had made it feel like a 2 lb. sunfish. On further reflection that might not be so bad after all.
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