10/25/09 Cibolo Creek

Hello again, this morning I hit the Cibolo Nature Center to try and hookup with some Guadalupe bass. My local creek is still muddy and I was figuring the Cibolo would be a little clearer and luckily it was. Taking my Southfork #5 flyrod I hit the creek with some waders on, first time using them this fall. Luckly, for some cheap $25 waders, they are still holding up (Albright has amazing sales sometimes and pretty good equipment as well).

The Guadalupe Bass eluded me but there were plenty of nice red bellied perch willing to hit on a Muddler Minnow and later they hit on a black leech pattern. I got a little bit of Trout practice mending some line and floating a dry fly down a few riffles to catch a few perch as well. One thing is for sure, with all this rain and lack of fishing, my casting has reverted back to being really poor- guess I'll just have work on it.

10/9/09 Lost Maple Primitive Camping

Hello again, this is a late entry but the weekend of the 9th I had reserved a primitive campsite at Lost Maples State Natural Area. With all the rain we had I was afraid that the park would be closed so I called an hour before I planned to leave. Luckily the park was not flooded so I headed out there.

This trip taught me a lot about hiking in camping, namely to pack as light as possible. I had brought moving dolly, stapped my ice chest, tent, backpack, fishing rod, and other items to it and had to haul it in about 2 miles to the camp site- that really sucked. Other backpackers had nothing but their packs and this intrigued me so I asked one young lady from a local college that was there for a backpacking class (what an awesome course to be able to take in college, lol). Other people were simply just using water filtration and getting their water from one of the several creeks in the park- this negated the need for the ice chest. They also packed in dehydrated food- I was living off of beef jerky, mixed nuts, cereal bars, and coffee, lol, but I'm not too hard to please I guess.

I had brought my fly-rod and a packable ultralight spinning reel. That area in the pick was like a wind-tunnel so it was really hard to cast the fly-rod and I didn't have any luck catching fish. Using the ultralight spinning reel with some bait got some bites and the next morning I hooked and broke off what looked to be a nice catfish of about 5 pounds. There were many nice chunky small bass in that water as well but they were not biting.

Overall, it was a wonderful trip and I hope to do it again soon. The next time I'll use the lessons I learned to pack lighter and have an easier time getting into my camping spot.

9/26/09 Trip to Fredericksburg

Sorry for the late post, been a little lazy the past week or so. That weekend my wife and I met up with her sister her husband to check out Enchanted Rock and enjoy a kid free weekend. I had hoped to get some fishing in but driving into town I saw the Perdanales River was looking like chocolate milk and I had hoped the creek in Ladybird park would be a little nicer. Well I was wrong, the creek was very muddy also and I only managed to catch a small perch.

Enchanted Rock was as pretty and scenic as I remembered it to be and it made the trip all worth while. It sucks getting older, I remember climbing the rock in my late teens and early 20's with little effort but here in my later 30's I was shown how out of shape I've become. Sitting behind a desk these past 2 years at work has taken it's toll, lol. I had hoped to get in more fishing this past weekend (10/03/09) but the rain had the rivers and creeks too high, not that I'm complaining about the rain though.

Hopefully I'll have another update this weekend.