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April 3, 2010 - Tim Nickels

Begin and end times: 11:00 -12:30
Air Temperature, weather conditions: 70's, clear, slight breeze, perfect spring weather
Water temperature, water condition: comfortable wet wading temp, almost crystal clear
Flies that worked: olive & white beadhead streamer (caught 1 fish, slow, on bottom)

Tejas was a circus again, lots of kids, people in the water, kayakers etc. Whites were pretty abundant and, easily seen in the water, but not easy to catch. I saw one guy using minnows with 5-6 on his stringer. I caught one using a sinking tip and bead head fly. Most people weren't catching anything, lots of pressure in the area.

April 2, 2010 - Rod Viator

Begin and end times: 0700 hours to 1000 hours
Air Temperature, weather conditions: 65, Overcast and Windy
Water temperature, water condition: Cold & Clear
Flies that worked: No. 8, Gray over white Kip Tail Clouser with black bead eyes and 4 strands of black flashibou each side.
Description of the fishing spot: About 100-feet upstream of the low water crossing at Camp Tejas called, "Rod's Spot." Look for the cairn.

Arrived at sun up at Camp Tejas and was gearing up and putting my waders when Don Johnson pulled into the parking lot. I laughed and said I beat him to the river. He got out of his car and laughed, he was already dressed for fishing and headed to the river while I finished. It's hard to get one-up on that guy! I fished the river upstream of the low water crossing about 100 feet. Didn't have much luck and moved downstream to where Don and another fly fisherman were located. No luck. Headed back upstream about 200-yards to search for whites. No luck. Returned to Rod's Spot and spoke with Don who mentioned he had only caught one WB. I figured the day was a bust if he hadn't done well. Don left at 9:00 AM and was driving across the low water bridge when I hooked my first WB of the day. It was about 11 1/2" and was returned to the river for another day. I fished closer to the low water bridge and caught another 11" WB. A young boy came running over from the bridge to have a look at the fish carrying his stringer in his hand, so I gave him the fish. He acted like he had just won the Lotto! It's no fun if the bass aren't active, so I left the river at 10:00 AM and went home to do the yard work. That's not fun either. I was using my 5-weight with 6-weight floating line and a 7-foot leader and 2-feet of tippet. I placed a small lead sinker above the tippet to get the Clouser to bottom faster in the swift current. The lead was about this size, ( ) and works like a dream.

March 28, 2010 - Tim Nickels

Begin and end times: 11:00 - 2:00
Air Temperature, weather conditions: Very windy, 70, clear & sunny
Water temperature, water condition: Comfortable wading temp, visibility good but not crystal clear
Flies that worked: nothing

Lots of people fishing, no one catching anything. Didn't see any other fly fishermen. Could see the whites in the river in some places with lots of people trying to catch them, no luck.

March 28, 2010 - Rod Viator

Begin and end times: 0700 hours to 1000 hours
Air Temperature, weather conditions: 55, Perfect!
Water temperature, water condition: Cold &Clear
Flies that worked: No. 8, Gray Kip Tale over white Kip Tail Clouser with black bead eyes and 4 strands of black flashibou each side. If you don't have this fly, you'll be wasting your time.
Description of the fishing spot: About 100-feet upstream of the low water crossing at Camp Tejas shall now be called, "Rod's Spot." Look for the cairn.

This was another solo outing to Camp Tejas for White Bass. Arrived again at sun up on the river upstream of the low water crossing about 100 feet to the area now called Rod's Spot. Very few anglers on the river and not a soul upstream me. I had my trusty 5-weight with 6-weight floating line and a 7-foot leader and 2-feet of tippit. I placed a small lead sinker above the tippet to get the Clouser to bottom faster in the swift current. Again used lead sinker about this size, ( ) 2-feet up from the fly on the tippet. Began catching small male WB immediately and had a six-pack landed and released within an hour.

Two rude fly fishermen entered the river downstream of my spot and p upstream thru the pool I had been fishing for the last hour. They then proceeded to empty my pool of all White Bass into their floating fish cooler. Here's a few Common Sense and Courtesy tips for these ignorant anglers:

DO ask before you step in anywhere close to someone on the water. Politely approach behind them from their non-casting side and ask how they’re doing and if it’s okay if you fish where you intend to. If they don’t answer – move on!
DO holler down to an angler if you have a fish on and need to enter into their space. Of course they’ll say it’s alright and will probably offer to help you net.
DO get out of the way if someone has a fish on in your area. Just reel up your line, let them do their thing, and offer to help. Try not to be too envious.
DON'T be rude, period. Fishing is supposed to relieve stress, not induce it.
DON'T step into the water where someone is fishing.
DON'T assume it’s okay to fish just because a person is sitting down or standing without a rod. If a body is just surveying the water of eating a sandwich at the water’s edge – that’s their water. Move on.

March 26, 2010 - Rod Viator

Begin and end times: 0702 hours to 1032 hours
Air Temperature, weather conditions: 55, Perfect!
Water temperature, water condition: Cold & Clear
Flies that worked: No. 8, Gray over white Kip Tail Clouser with black bead eyes and 4 strands of black flashibou each side. If you don't have this fly, you'll be wasting your time.
Description of the fishing spot: About 100-feet upstream of the low water crossing at Camp Tejas shall now be called, "Rod's Spot." Look for the cairn.

This was a solo outing to Camp Tejas for White Bass. Arrived at sun up on the river upstream of the low water crossing about 100 feet. Wild turkey moving to roost opposite of the park and heard an old Tom calling his ladies home for the day. At sunrise a young spike deer jumped in the river about 30-feet from where I was standing to swim to the other side and I went into cardiac arrest for a short period. A white bass on the end of my line brought me out of a minor stroke and I landed the first of 14 at 0711 hours. On the same pattern I caught a 26 inch Carp that ran line to the beginning of the backing and it took 10-minutes to disengage from this ugly critter. That was the most fun I've had since my honeymoon. (Don't tell my wife.) Very few anglers on the river and not a soul upstream but me and another fly fisherman. Most of the WB were females and I only caught 3-males. The SPAWN IS ON in the shallow gravel area opposite of the cut bank of this portion of the river. I was using my 5-weight with 6-weight floating line and a 7-foot leader and 2-feet of tippit. I placed a small lead sinker above the tippet to get the Clouser to bottom faster in the swift current. The lead was about this size, ( ). Works like a dream.

March 24, 2010 - Dakus Geeslin

Begin and end times: Fished from 9:00 til 11:00 a.m.
Air Temperature, weather conditions: Air temp in the mid 50's, cloudy, little wind. Nice gray day for fishing
Water temperature, water condition: Water temp = 60 deg F, Water Clear, good flow ~ 220 cfs. Lake appears to have backed up into this reach of the river.
Flies that worked: Grey and white clousers with bead chain eyes tied sparsley with a heavy amount of Krystal Flash (pearl in color).

Arrived at the bridge at 8:30 and there were at least a dozen other anglers fishing on either side of and on the bridge. I walked a ways downstream where the water was about waste deep and very clear. I targeted shallow males as I was using a floating line with 9' 4X tippet and a size 4 split shot above the surgeon knot connecting the tippet to the leader. Not the ideal deep dredging set rig.

Over the 2 hours of fishing I caught and landed 5 white bass. All less than 12" and two red ear sunfish. The whites seemed to hit the clouser after letting it sink to the bottom and then sporadically stripping in line with small strips. Not too bad for 2 hours of fishing. The other anglers I talked to hadn't caught or seen any fish. Just because you can't see them doesn't mean they aren't there. I released all the fish I caught and within a few seconds of swimming off I could hardly see them with polarized glasses. Once they were more than 5 foot away from me I couldn't see them at all.

March 24, 2010 - Clint Barton

Caught 5 whites and lost that many more. Above the bridge up river. Hooked a couple of carp but I think I snagged them.

March 18, 2010 - Don Johnson

I got on the water just before sunrise, at about 7:00 a.m., and fished till 10:00 a.m.. The sun coming up behind a light fog from the river made a nice sight. Too bad I had forgotten to bring my camera. The water was cool enough to chill me through when wading waist deep, though I did see some people wet wading. The water was just a little off color from rain two days ago. The flow was 222 c.f.s., and the river could be easily waded. I started fishing downstream from the bridge and found a spot about a quarter mile downstream that held some fish. I caught seven fish, and could have caught more, but the spot soon became too crowded with other fisherman - crowded enough that you had to cast carefully to avoid fouling someone’s line. I left the crowd and fished for a while upstream from the bridge. The river was beautiful, and there were many fewer fishermen, but I caught only one fish up there. All my fish were males, and all were caught on a number 8 grey clouser with a black accent.

March 17, 2010 - Clint Barton

My son-in-law and I went fishing this morning at Tejas. We got there around 8:45 and started out below the bridge using a black and white clouser. After no luck I added a chartreuse and white clouser tied behind the black and white. We caught 2 fish on the chartreuse and switched to two chartreuse and white clousers. We caught a total of 4 fish below the bridge in 2 hours and then went up river above the bridge. We found one hole that we caught 6 in an hour. Out of the 10 fish, 9 of them hit the trailing fly and one hit the lead fly. The weather was great! By noon there was a crowd at the bridge and below the bridge but we were the only ones fishing above the bridge. All the fish were males.

I forgot to mention, below the bridge I caught a Shakespeare spin casting rod and reel! I know I was getting down to the bottom!

February 29, 2010 - Tim Nickels

See this fishing report for the Steps at Granger Lake.

December 24, 2009 - Clint Barton

My son Aaron and I went fishing below Camp Tejas this Christmas Eve morning. We were carp fishing using my corn fly system. I caught one 3 lb carp and Aaron caught this 52” yellow catfish. The catfish was hooked on a corn fly, fought with a 6wt fly rod, and landed after an 10 minute fight.

March 22, 2009 - Tim Nickels

Begin and end times: 2:30 – 3:30
Air Temperature, weather conditions: 80’s, windy, sunny
Water temperature, water condition: water was a milky green color

Parked at Tejas Camp and went down to the river below the low water crossing to check the conditions. Deeper pools are holding good water but there is virtually no flow. Water was greenish white, a bit warm. Fished for about 30 minutes with no indication that there were any fish there, whites or sunfish. Met two other parties that hadnrsquo;t had any luck, no sunfish either, may have perished due to the low water conditions.

February 25, 2008, Randy Johnson

See the report for the club's outing to Tejas Park.

Februray 19, 2008, Don Johnson

BEGIN AND END TIMES: 1:30pm 3:30pm
AIR TEMPERATURE, WEATHER CONDITIONS: 65 degrees, partly cloudy, windy
WATER TEMPERATURE, WATER CONDITION: murky water, couldn’t see the bottom in one foot of water, very low flow
DESCRIPTION OF THE OUTING: Got skunked. I saw only a few other fishermen and the ones I talked to weren’t having any luck either. I guess the whites aren't there yet. There is a riffle about two hundred yards above the old sunken bridge. I don’t know if the whites can make it past this riffle.

November 3, 2007, Don Johnson and Clint Barton

Clint and I went to Tejas Park for some wade fishing. We first fished downstream from the bridge. We couldn’t go too far because with Lake Georgetown at 791 feet (the conservation pool level) the river channel becomes too deep to wade just a few hundred yards downstream from the bridge. The water was off color, and we didn’t have much success, so we decided to try the upstream side of the bridge. As we crossed the bridge on our way upstream we saw a ten year old boy and his grandfather fishing from the bridge. They were using a spinning rod to drop worms straight down by the side of the bridge and catching small, four and five inch, sunfish. Each time he pulled up a fish the boy announced his current catch count, and as we passed by he announced fifty five.

In my memory the river upstream from the bridge used to be wide and shallow and running over a scoured limestone bottom for a long way upstream; you used to have to go quite a way upstream before finding water deep enough to hold fish. However, the summer flash floods had changed things, and Clint and I found a fishable pool not too far upstream and more pools fairly frequently as we went farther up. The first fish we each caught were tiny, not much bigger than the fly, and, after our lack of success downstream, we thought we were going to have a bad day fishing. However, we started catching small bass, mostly ranging from seven to ten inches long, and we kept catching these small bass as we worked our way upstream. We caught very few sunfish and caught nothing over twelve inches long, but between the two of us we caught at least fifty of those small bass. The most successful fly was a quickly retrieved chartreuse and white deep Clouser minnow

We went about a mile or a mile and a half upstream before turning back. The whole area we fished, and farther up stream too, had been flooded when Lake Georgetown was at its fullest, and the retreating water left a four inch layer of silt over everything. When we were wading the silt masked the bumps and ridges of the bottom and every step kicked up a plume of mud. The water was off color; you couldn’t see the bottom in thigh deep water. This probably made the fish less skittish than they would have been in clear water. The slit layer near the river’s edge was still a wet slippery sucking mud that made walking difficult. I think it will be a long time before this part of the river returns to a clear stream running over scoured limestone, like it used to be, but maybe some of these fish will stay and grow bigger.

March 23, 2007, Don Johnson

I fished from about 7:00am till about 11:00am and caught only one white bass. I saw about ten other fishermen on the river, and they were all having the same poor luck.

March 21, 2007, Don Johnson

Tommy Griffis I and started fishing at about 5:00pm. We fished our way all the way down to the old bridge and had no luck at all. We saw two people with good stringers, but most folks seemed to be having little luck. We started fishing our way back toward the park when, at about 6:30pm, and two or three hundred yards up from the bridge (map), the fished suddenly started biting. I began hooking a fish on every fourth or fifth cast; I landed seven or eight and did a long distance release on two more. I was using a #8 grey clouser tied with red thread. Then, just as suddenly, the fish stopped biting at about 7:00pm. At 7:30pm we left the water and headed home.

March 19, 2007, Don Johnson

I was on the water from about 7:00am till about noon. Caught 6 whites, two of which were pretty small. I met another fly fisherman who gave me the most successful fly of the day - a clouser made of a little red and and a little chartreuse flash.

All the fishermen I talked to where having about having the same results that I was, that is, slow compared to saturday (see March 17 fishing report below). The ones that were keeping their fish had stringers of about four to six fish.

March 17 and 18, Bruce Wilks

Went fly fishing 3 hours last Sat 03/17/07 on the San Gabriel below Tejas Camp above lake Georgetown and caught 20 whites between 4:30pm and 7:30pm about 300 yards above old bridge down river from Tejas Camp...

Went back Sunday and caught 21 whites but it took 5 hours of fishing between 9:30am and 5:30pm, had to do lots of casting, striping and moving up and down a 50 yard stretch of the river...

The whites shut down after 2:30pm on Sunday... Could see lots of whites, but they were much more interested in spawning than taking a fly...;)... Lots of males chasing and swimming in circles around some big females... I saw some females that would have easily been 18" surrounded by males... Most of this action took place at my feet or just in front of my rod... This went on for hours... I still caught 5 more after 2:00pm. But it took me 3 hours to do so and I had to do lots of casting and striping and moving up and down the long pool to entice them to strike... I caught 16 in the morning in 3 hours all inside a 100" section of this long pool

March 17, 2007, Don Johnson

GOOD NEWS – the recent rains have put enough depth and flow in the North fork to bring the white bass up almost all the way to Tejas Park

I fished from first light (about 7:15am) until noon on Saturday and had a good day. I wasn’t keeping the fish and didn’t keep an exact count, but total catch was easily over 20 fish. Almost all of the fish were good sized – in the 12 to 14 inch range, some larger.

The fish aren’t evenly distributed in the river; they seemed to be holding in pockets of waist deep, or deeper, water. The farthest down stream I got was about 200 or 300 yards upstream from the old bridge. I saw some people fishing down by the bridge, but I don’t know how they were doing – I caught all my fish without having to go down that far.

I used a grey wooly bugger with bead chain eyes and a Cypert minnow with grey chenille underbody, both in size 6 or 8.

I saw several other fly fishermen on the river, and, for the most part, the fly fishermen were outfishing the spin fishermen by two or three to one. One of the spin fishermen, who was fishing for white bass using 4 pound test line, hooked and landed a gar that must have been over three f eet long – pretty exciting to watch.

February 24 2007, Clint Barton

I fished Tejas Saturday morning and caught 5 carp while losing 2. The carp ranged from 2.5 # to 6.5#. The day started off cloudy and the sun later came out. The wind really picked up later in the morning, but by that time I had already caught my fish. I went all the way to the big boulders past the second bridge below Tejas and never saw even one white bass. I saw a few bass and quite a few more carp, but no whites. I attached three pics of the 6.5# fish and one pic of a 3 pounder that just looked “different” from the others.

October 30, 2006, Don Johnson

I got on the water at about 7:00 a.m. and left at about 10:30 a.m. I fished downstream from the bridge. During the summer drought the river bed had been almost completely dry, so I was pleasantly surprised to see that there was water in the pools (many places over knee deep, several over waist deep) and even a little flow through the riffles between pools. Air temperature was about 60 degrees when I started fishing, warming some later. It was pretty windy, making it difficult to cast during the occasional gust. I don't know what the water temperature was, but I felt cool on my legs -- I was glad that I had decided to wear waders. The water was not crystal clear the way the San Gabriel sometimes is, but the visibility was pretty good.

I caught about 8 small (4 inches to 6 inches) sunfish. Some went for a yellow mini gurgler, the rest for a "sucker punch" which is a weighted rusty brown nymph. I walked down as far as the old bridge, but I didn't fish for the last quarter mile, just enjoyed the walk. Most of the fish were caught between the country road 258 bridge and the first deeper pool. I saw several carp feeding singly, but was only able to cast to two before they spooked, and got no takers. On the way out I stopped and fished under the 258 bridge, and this is where I caught 3 of the larger fish.