Our meetings are held on the first Tuesday of every month. The meetings are held at (map).

Chamber of Commerce building
100 Stadium Street
Georgetown, Texas

We begin gathering at 6:30 p.m.; the night's program starts at 7:00 p.m. and usually runs about one hour. During the half hour before the program begins there are usually one or two members tying flies who are more than willing to answer questions from beginners and to discuss tying techniques with more advanced tiers. Sometimes, depending on the weather, there is practice fly casting on the lawn beside the building. This is a good time for members to talk about the past month's fishing and for new members and prospective members to learn about the club and its activities.

Programs scheduled for upcoming meetings

Tuesday January 6, 2009

January’s program will feature Chuck Naiser, the dean of fly fishing guides on the Texas Coast. Come learn how to make the most out of your next trip to the coast for redfish.

Notes from Previous meetings

Tuesday December 2, 2008

This meeting was our annual Christmas Party! As in prior years, the venue was the main Ballroom (upstairs) at Berry Creek Country Club. We raffled off a $710.00 MSRP Sage Bluegill Rod, Line and Matching Reel and several other items. We also had approximately 20 silent auction items, including plenty of non-fly fishing items, such as dinner certificates from local restaurants.

The food was great and a good time was had by all.

Tuesday November 4, 2008

Jim Gray presented “Fly Fishing for Carp in the Texas Hill Country”. Until this year, Jim claims his success with carp in Texas has been hit or miss.....mostly miss. “I've had success with carp in the UK, India and Japan, but unlocking the secrets of our Hill Country carp has been difficult. For the past year, I've focused on developing techniques for consistently catching Texas carp on the fly. While I don't consider myself an expert, I have enjoyed some success and would like to share what I've learned with others interested in chasing the golden ghost”. Jim‘s presentation was a practical guide to fly fishing for carp on our Texas Hill Country rivers. The following is a brief summary of Jim’s presentation.

• Once carp sense your presence they will not bite. Even if they are not spooked enough to dart away, they will get lockjaw. So you must try to avoid being seen by wearing dull clothing and being stealthy. Jim says it is best to try to avoid getting into the water at all because it makes it easier for the carp to sense your presence. He tries to cast from the bank when at all possible.
• There are four situations in which you might encounter carp, and each has its own fishing method.
  • Carp feeding on the surface - Jim casts a size 10 elk hair caddis, with lots of floatant, ahead of and past the carp, then times the strip so that the fly is in front of the carp as it swims by. You can't tell by sight when the carp has taken the fly, so you have to keep the line tight so you can feel the take.
  • Carp feeding on the bottom - In this situation the carp look similar to redfish - with their heads down rooting in the mud and their tails up. Bottom feeding carp are focused on a very small area in front of them, so you must get the fly into this area and attract the fish's attention. You can do this by casting slightly ahead of the carp then very slowly twitching the fly when the carp comes near. Once again, you must keep the line tight so you can feel the take.
    
    Occasionally you will find carp feeding in weed beds near the edge of a stream. In this case they are harder to spook, and you can get close enough to just reach your rod tip out and dapple the fly in front of the fish.
    
    Jim’s favorite fly for bottom feeding carp is size 8 to 12 olive damsel nymph. The ties the fly by: 1) tying on a gold bead chain eyes, 2) tying down the tip of a marabou feather as the tail, 3) twisting the marabou feather around itself, 4) wrapping the twisted feather around the hook shank to form the fly’s body.
  • Cruising fish - You can stand on a bank, preferably behind some cover, and reach out and drop the fly into the path of the cruising fish. You can also use the carp fly as a dropper, with the dropper line set to the depth of the cruising fish.
  • Suspended fish - Jim hasn't figured out a way to catch fish that are neither cruising nor bottom feeding
• Jim fishes with 8 to 10 pound test fluorocarbon leaders. He uses just a single piece of level fluorocarbon, not a tapered leader and tippet. He uses light weight long (7 to 9 feet) leaders for cruising fish and heaver short (3 to 4 feet) for mudding fish
• When a carp feels the hook it will usually immediately, and explosively, take off on a long run. Jim originally had a lot of fish break off because of this strong sudden reaction. He learned two tricks:
  • When you feel the take, just fairly gently lift the rod while slightly elevating the tip (don't strip strike, and don't violently raise the rod tip up over your head)
  • Get the fish on the reel as quickly as you can so you can let the drag do the work. While Jim is fishing he tries to keep as little fly line as possible off the reel; when he feels the strike he wants to be able to just drop the line and raise the rod to set the hook and immediately get the fish on the reel. From then on he tries not to touch the line at all and just use the reel's drag to fight the fish.
• When a group of carp is feeding together their competitiveness makes them less wary and more aggressive, and thus easier to catch. Jim says that most of the carp he has caught came from water that is two and a half feet deep, or less.
• Carp are hard to catch. Jim considers it a good day if he catches one or two carp per outing. Now that he has put in the research time to figure out how to catch them, he almost never goes out specifically to fish for carp. Instead, he always carries his carp flies and leaders, and he fishes for them when he happens onto an obvious opportunity to catch feeding (mudding or cruising) fish.
• Jim sometimes chums carp with corn. He did this mostly when he was trying to hone his tactics, but does it sometimes still. Once the corn has drawn the carp in, Jim fishes for them as described above for mudding carp.

Tuesday October 7, 2008

The presentation covered the lease access program that is managed by Guadalupe Trout Unlimited, the largest local Trout Unlimited chapter in the United Sates. This program allows participants access to the river through specific private properties throughout the trophy section of the Guadalupe River. As you are probably aware, the Guad has very few public access spots, so this is the most cost effective way to fish large sections of the Guadalupe.

Attendees had the opportunity to sign up for the lease access program, and join TU (membership in TU is a requisite for the access program).

Tuesday September 2, 2008

Our program in September was presented by Craig Hunter. Craig is a Lt. Colonel and the Deputy Director of the game wardens of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Dept. Craig shared information on the responsibilities of the game wardens in Texas.

Tuesday August 5, 2008

Chris Johnson was our speaker at the August meeting. Chris runs the Living Waters Fly Fishing guide service and is the owner of the newly opened Living Waters Fly Fishing fly shop located at 2111 Sam Bass Rd., Suite B-2000A in the Boardwalk shopping center in Round Rock

Tuesday July 1, 2008

Kevin Hutchinson demonstrated fly tying before the meeting and then talked about fishing the Llano river. As an added bonus, to make up for the miscommunication last month, Kevin donated a free guided fishing trip on the Llano river which was raffled off at the end of the meeting.

Kevin guides on the hill country rivers. He can be reached through his web site www.hillcountryflyfishers.com

Tuesday May 6, 2008

Marcus Rodriguez of The Guides of Texas was our speaker. Marcus and his guiding partner, Johnny Quiroz, have years of experience fishing and guiding on the hill country rivers.

The club elected two new board members: David Elkins and Pete Walker. They will replace outgoing members Bob Williams and Keith Lovin.

Tuesday April 1, 2008

The presentation was a DVD titled “Why Fly Fishing”.

By exploring the many facets of the sport–the athletic, the intellectual, the scientific and the artistic–the film shows the deep satisfaction and fun anglers experience. All this is seen through the eyes of some of fly fishing’s foremost practioners—Joan Wulff, Nick Lyons, James Prosek, Flip Pallot, John Gierach, the Revel brothers, Keith Fulsher and Diana Rudolph. This film is a great way to introduce the sport to others whom we would like to become interested, and it also helps us to truly understand why we love it so much.

The nominating committee for next year‘s board of directors was announced. The members of the nominating committee are Bob Brooks(Chairman), Tommy Griffis, and Doug Cornwell. Contact one of these committee members if you have anyone, yourself or someone else, you would like to see nominated.

Tuesday March 4, 2008

Our March program was a presentation by Dr. Gary Garrett, Director of the TPWD Heart of the Hills Research Station in Ingram, outside Kerrville. He spoke on the current status of the Guadalupe Bass Initiative. This program’s objective is to attempt to reverse the hybridization of Guadalupe bass with the introduced Smallmouth, and restore a pure strain of Guadalupe bass to many of the streams where it is native. The program stocks pure strain Guadalupes in large numbers, to effectively overwhelm the hybrid population in a particular watershed. To date, the program has been a success on Johnson Creek, a tributary of the upper Guadalupe, and is continuing in that watershed.

More information can be found in this article in the San Marcos Daily Record and in this page From the Texas Parks and Wildlife web site

Tuesday February 5, 2008

Alvin Dedeaux was our speaker. He gave a presentation on trout fishing in the Guadalupe River.

Alvin was manager of The Austin Angler for the last 12 years it was open and has been guiding in the hill country for over 12 years. Alvin now guides in the Vail area of Colorado during the summer. He has fished all over the Western U.S., in Chile, and a little bit in Honduras and Belize. He is also a graduate of the first ever Joan Wulff fly casting instructors school. He says that when he is not guiding he loves to just go fishing.

Alvin's web site is http://www.alvindedeaux.com. He can be reached via email at alvin@alvindedeaux.com

Tuesday January 8, 2008

Our program was a DVD on stream insects and habitat, with underwater footage.

Tuesday December 4, 2007

On Tuesday, December 4, 2007, the San Gabriel Flyfishers had our Third Annual Christmas Party, in conjunction with our regular monthly meeting. As we did last year, the party was be held in the Main Ballroom at Berry Creek Country Club. The program will included:

• Silent Auction with both fly fishing and other prizes (restaurant freebee’s, etc.)
• Music program
• Raffle for door prizes

Financially, the event was a great success, as the club netted over $900 from the event, after expenses. Kent Conner was the lucky winner of the Sage Fly Rod and Reel, an outfit worth $1000 retail, for one $20 raffle ticket! Way to go, Kent! For those of you not able to attend, you missed a great time, and we hope you have a chance to come next year

Tuesday November 6, 2007

Our presenter was Rick Pope of Temple Fork Outfitters who talked about TFO fly rods and reels.

Tuesday October 2, 2007

Our presenter was Keith Barnes of Highland Lakes Fly Fishing. Keith specializes in fly fishing trips on the lakes that form the Highland Lakes chain (including stripers on Lake Buchanan)

Keith's web site is www.highlandlakesflyfishing.com .

Tuesday September 4, 2007

Our presenter was Jacob Granstaff, owner of “Wet a Fly Technologies” in San Antonio, Texas. Jacob created his company based around a new epoxy substitute for fly tying called “Tuffleye”. This new product has been endorsed by Bob Popovics and was presented in the July 2006 issue of Fly Fisherman magazine.

We also had a brief presentation about the Oktoberfisch fly fishing festival from Gene Smith of the Fredericksburg Fly Fishers.

Tuesday August 7, 2007

Our presenter was Floyd Burkett — builder of bamboo fly rods.

Floyd has lived in Universal City, Texas for the past 20 years. Five years ago he began building bamboo fly rods and taught himself through some intense research and perseverance. After building his first 5 rods using purchased hardware, he purchased some metal working equipment and now makes all of the components for the rods-the guides, seat, and ferrules. Floyd has passion for bamboo!

Floyd can be reached at UCbamboorodmaker@sbcglobal.net or (210) 659-7243

Tuesday July 3, 2007

Our speaker was the inimitable Kevin Hutchison. Kevin give a program on the San Marcos River and also tied a red squirrel nymph, one of his favorite flies on that river. Club officers for the coming year were introduced at the meeting. The new officers are: Randy Johnson - president, Clint Barton - vice president, Kent Conner - secretary, and Mike Ives - Treasurer.

Tuesday June 5, 2007

The six directors for the upcomming year were elected by the membership. The new directors are: Randy Johnson, Clint Barton, Bob Williams, Keith Lovin, George Kurhajec and Brooks Bouldin.

Tuesday May 1, 2007

Dr. Guy Harrison, of the Hill Country Fly Fishers, spoke about the Guadalupe Bass restoration initiative and about his club's youth programs.

Tuesday April 3, 2007

We saw two videos on smallmouth bass fishing from our president's extensive collection.

Tuesday March 6, 2007

Our program was video that took you into the world of some of our top fly rod manufacturers.

Tuesday Feburary 6, 2007

Bruce Moring gave a program on entomology for the Hill Country flyfisher and discussed an opportunity for club members to make a trip to the Devil's River and stay at the Nature Conservancy Preserve at Dolan Falls.

Tuesday, January 2, 2007

Before the evening's presentation, Clint Barton demonstrated how to tie a Zebra Nymph, and Brooks demonstrated how to tie a woven fly body without letting go of the yarn.

Our speaker for the evening was fishing and hunting guide Kevin Stubbs who gave an excellent presentation on fishing the Devil's river, the upper and lower Guadalupe, and the Llano. Kevin can be reached at:

• expedition-outfitters.net
• kevinstu@msn.com
• (210)602-9284

You can use these to contact Kevin about his guide services, and he also graciously offered to respond to any general questions about fishing the area rivers.

December 5, 2006

The Christmas party was a great success. We had some nice donations on the silent auction tables and they generated $844 and the Sage Rod and Reel raffle netted another $135. Cody Fisher, master magician, provided amazing slight of hand entertainment during the cocktail hour and Mr. Puppet, Bob Abdou, kept the crowd laughing after dinner. Randy and Linda Johnson helped Bob to get us in the Christmas spirit ( see photos with the December president's letter).

November 7, 2006

Our guest speaker was Johnny Cargill of the Guadalupe Chapter of Trout Unlimited. Six of our members have recently returned from Mountain Home Arkansas where we attended the conclave and/or fished the White River. All had a great time and expressed a desire to return. Ironically, we have an equally good trout fishery within an hour and a half of Georgetown on the Guadalupe (or "Guad" as it is affectionately called by regulars there). While the White is much larger and has larger numbers of fish, the areas on the Guad that are stocked by TU hold lots of fish and the average size is greater. Last year the Guadalupe was named one of the best 100 trout streams in the country. The GRTU chapter has done an outstanding job of stewardship on the river for many years. This year's stocking program is slated to begin around the end of November, if the weather permits. Johnny described Guadalupe River Chapter of Trout Unlimited's activities and programs, including its stocking programs, its program for acquiring leased access to the river for its members, and its cooperation with other agencies like Texas Parks and WildLife and Texas State University to study and maintain the fishery.

October 3, 2006

The October 3rd meeting was a swap meet.

September 5, 2006

Our guest speaker for September was Jack Ellis of Woodville, in the heart of East Texas. Jack is author of "Bassin' With a Fly Rod" and "The Sunfishes" and has contributed numerous articles to magazines and newsletters. Jack's program had a special appeal for those fly fishers making a transition from cold water to warm water fishing. He shared tips and techniques for catching Texas Sunfish; his enthusiasm for these scrappy fighters was obvious.

August 1, 2006

Kudos to Kevin Hutchison for a spirited and entertaining program at the August meeting. He tied a couple of his favorite flies for Hill Country fishing and presented an interesting slide show. It is easy to see how much Kevin enjoys hill country fly fishing.