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April 12, 2010 - John McDonald

Begin and end times: 7:00am – 3pm
Air Temperature, weather conditions: 65 – 80. Sunny and clear, windy at 1pm.
Water temperature, water condition: Not sure temp, water was clear to slightly muddy, Lake Buchanan at 1008 ft, river flow at 170 cfs
Flies that worked (size, color, pattern): #4 and #6 White and Grey Clouser, White and Blue Clouser, White and Olive Clouser

Started off solo at 7am just in front of the park office and had the river to myself with my 3wt rod again. Fish on with the second cast and I knew it was going to be a good day. I was up to 25 White Bass within the first hour with a fish on nearly every other cast. Average size was about 15-16 inches. As the morning rolled along, a few other fishermen showed up with “standard tackle”, but the fly was favorite 8 to 1 and I broke the 100 mark (all catch and release) by 11:30am. Wind was still calm and the long cast / hookup was working very well. Waded very slowly down river about 300-400 yds past the park office where the water was deeper, but the bite seemed to slow down. It is also not as fun fishing the deeper water, so I moved back up to the faster flowing rapids. My friend showed up with his spinning gear and was not having much luck. I gave him a #2 Clouser and he was able to cast it and his luck turned around quickly. I had 3 really good hook ups that snapped the tippet, but had plenty more to fish on. Just for fun, I also used a #4 white and blue clouser which worked well, but went back to white/grey after one of the line breaks. Ended the day around 3pm with 145 white bass landed and released, give or take a couple, and my friend with about 25 WB and 1 Bluegill. Wading down the middle and far side can be tricky as the boulders are very large and the current pretty swift in some spots. Took 1 swim with the waist high waders, but was dried off in an hour or so. Unlike the previous week where we were able to hook up until we left the water at 2:30pm, the fish did slow down after about 1:30pm. We had to work a little harder, but it was a fantastic day. As we left the park, we stopped by the office and the attendant actually said it was getting slow and the run was coming to an end. From what I could tell, it was better than last week and if that was slow, then I have been fishing the wrong spots. It did look like the Fly action was much better than what other folks were using and now I am trying to find another day to skip work.

April 5, 2010 - John McDonald

Begin and end times: 7:00am – 2pm
Air Temperature, weather conditions: 60 – 75. Cloudy in the morning then very windy and part sunny after 11:00
Water temperature, water condition: Not sure temp, water was clear, Lake Buchanan at 1008 ft, river flow at 206 cfs
Flies that worked: #4 and #6 White and Grey Clouser, White and Blue Clouser

Started at sunrise from the last parking area up river and had a fish on with the first cast. I was with a friend and we both started with fly rods, but he was using chartreuse and white with no luck and with the wind, decided to switch to light spinning reel. I continued with the trusty 3wt fly rod and the White/Grey clouser could not be beat. We worked our way down river and the fishing was solid from sunrise till about 10am and slowed just a bit. We ended up down river just past the park office and by 2:30, we had 115 white bass (all catch and release) and 1 Blue gill. About 90% of the White Bass were all over 10”, with a noticeable difference in size as we moved down river. The larger fish were down river and most were on the far bank. It was really exciting to practice the long cast and hook up with a 30-40ft shot to the far side. The wind picked up mid morning and was very strong by noon with white caps on the water. I almost switched to my 6wt to fight the wind, but didn’t want to get out of the water and miss the action so I fought on with the 3wt. Ended up with about 6 good size welts on my back and one good pop on the back of the head. Those lead eyes tend to sting a little! My buddy was just as successful with the spinning gear using a white and grey roadrunner, but I still think he was cheating. Crowds were light since it was a Monday, with maybe 10 fishermen on the water with plenty of room to move. Great day overall.

April 1, 2010 - David Craig

Fishing spot: near campsites and park registration
Begin and end times: 9 am- 6pm
Weather conditions: slightly overcast, wind 5-7 mph with 10 mph gusts
Flies that worked: #8 grey Clouser w/ bead chain eyes, # 8 white Clouser with dumbbell eyes

On the water about 9 with my son, dead drifting Clousers in deeper runs. Caught several early and then it slowed down for a while and then picked back up at night. saw LOTS of carp and a few large gar. at the end of the day we had 30 whites and one nice crappie.

March 26 through 28, 2010 - Don Johnson

Air Temperature, weather conditions: Forty degree nights, seventy degree days, clear skies
Water temperature, water condition: Too cool to wet wade, but conformtable with waders, off color
Flies that worked: Light grey and black clouser with small black lead eyes

I joined about fifteen or twenty others in an Austin Fly Fishers outing to Colorado Bend State Park this weekend. Friday night was so windy that we fully expected to have at least one tent blow apart or come loose from its stakes, but, except for loss of sleep, everybody came though with no damage. Otherwise the weather was great: cool nights with a nearly full moon, warm days, and only occasionally enough wind to interfere with casting.

I fished a few hours each on Friday evening, Saturday morning, Saturday evening, and Sunday morning. I wasn’t keeping a careful count, but I believe I caught 80 to 100 fish, with the count fairly evenly distributed over the four visits to the river. The other experienced white bass fishermen did as well or better, and all the beginners caught fish. One of the members cleaned some fish and saw a few egg carrying females, but they weren’t much bigger than the males. The Colorado River flow varied between 300 c.f.s and 400 c.f.s, and Lake Buchanan was at 1007 feet. This put the best fishing by the downstream set of river-side camp sites, not too far up from the boat launch ramp. The river was fairly crowded, but I was always able to find a productive spot to fish. One member reported an encounter with a rude fisherman, but everybody I met was friendly and respective of my fishing space

On Saturday afternoon a few of us went to Gorman falls on a tour guided by one of the park’s rangers. With all the rain we have had this year the falls are running better than they have in many years. The falls are very pretty, and I recommend the tour if you are at the park and can spare the time from fishing.

March 29, 2008 - Don Johnson

Keith Lovin and I fished at Colorado Bend on Friday, March 29. We arrived at the park about 11:00am. When we paid our entrance fee, the lady behind the counter said “Fishing has been pretty good between dawn and 9:00am and between 4:00pm and dark, but with this front coming in, who knows who how it will be?“. It turned out that the fishing was not very good for us; we each caught one white bass.

After about two hours of unproductive fishing we decided to drive up the road to Sulphur Springs Camp which is a private fishing camp just up river from the state park. The fellow who took our entrance fee ($4.00 each for day use - the same as at the state park) said that when he cleaned up the park's fish cleaning station that morning he disposed of the remains of seventy five fish. (He also said, looking at Keith’s San Gabriel Fly Fishers shirt, “Are you guys fly fishermen, or did you just buy that shirt “, which we thought was pretty funny, or a little wise ass, depending on how you look at it.) The river at the camp had what looked like the kind of current that attracts spawning white bass, but we had no more luck here than we had at the state park. The camp had several camp sites populated with groups who were probably white bass fishermen, but there were no fishermen on the water when we there. Overall this looks like a good place to avoid the crowds during white bass season at the state park. Unless I have specific information that the fish are at the park and not also upstream at Sulphur Springs Camp, I will probably fish at Sulphur Springs on my next trip.

March 13, 2008 - Don Johnson

Our fishing party consisted of Mike Ives, Keith Lovin, Brooks Bouldin, and myself. We left from Georgetown just a little before 7:00AM and arrived at the park around 8:20AM. The weather in the morning was cool, about 60 degrees, and overcast, but by mid afternoon the temperature had risen into the lower eighties and the sky was mostly clear. The level of Lake Buchanan was 1017 feet, and the river flow, upstream at the San Saba guaging station, was 150 cfs. Water temperature was 65 degrees. It was windy all day, but casting was difficult only during occasional gusts and short periods of higher wind.

We drove upstream as far is motorized traffic is allowed and parked. In the morning we fished the river by the parking area. The water was off color (you couldn't see the bottom in 2 feet of water); the bottom wasn't slippery, but the wading was a little difficult because you couldn't see the bottom and the frequent large rocks made the bottom uneven. There was no current, and there were no fish. We fished for about 2 hours and caught nothing. In the afternoon we walked about a mile upstream on a hiking trail and came to place where there was noticeable current in the river. This was where the white bass were, and we began catching them almost immediately. The fish were almost all in the thirteen to fourteen inch range; they were taking small clousers in grey or blue-grey. We weren't keeping the fish, and we didn't count the catch, so I don't know how many fish were caught, but we caught more than enough to make up for the slow morning and allow us to call it a great day fishing.