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May 23, 2009 - Don Johnson

I floated the San Marcos River with a group from the Austin Fly Fishers. We floated from Spencer Canoes near Martindale down to a take out point, also owned by Spencer Canoes, near Staples. For the upper half of the float the river consists of relatively short pools separated by mild riffles. In this part of the of the float I caught a lot of sunfish, several in the eight to nine inch range, and one nice Rio Grande Perch. I was moving along faster than the other members of the group, and I had little contact with them during the rest of the float. This part of the float was a very pleasant experience on the beautiful San Marcos River. Then things turned downhill.

At about 11:00 a.m. I was overtaken by a troupe of canoeing Boy Scouts. There were a lot of them, and they were spread out on the river, so it took a long time for them to pass by me as I was fishing. They seemed like nice enough kids, but they were noisy, made a lot of commotion on the water, and clogged up the riffles with overturned canoes. The riffles were all shallow, and when a canoe tipped the two occupants just stood up and tried, sometime with difficulty, to wrestle the canoe upright and empty it of water. As the boys were passing I stopped for lunch.

I had been hearing occasional rumbles of distant thunder, and, while I was eating I noticed that the rumbles had become closer and more frequent. I didn’t want to get caught on the water in a thunderstorm, so I decided to quit fishing and move as quickly as possible to the take out point. I got back on the river and began rowing my little kick boat at the fastest pace that I thought I could sustain for a long time. I rowed along at this comfortable pace for about twenty minutes before it began to rain, slowly at first, then quite heavily. There was very little wind, and the rain was not cold, so, even though I was soaked through and through, I wasn’t uncomfortable. As I was rowing along I had began counting the seconds between a visible lightning flash and the resulting thunder. When time between the flash and thunder got down to four seconds I decided the lightning was getting too close for me to be safe out on the water. I pulled my kick boat into a little gully that formed a break in the otherwise steep river bank and stepped out onto the shore. After searching my memory for what I had ever heard about the safest way to behave when trapped in the open during the thunderstorm, I decided to stay in the shallow gully, move a little way from the water, check to make sure I wasn’t too close to any tall trees, and squat down on my heels, with my head low and the soles of my feet being the only body part in contact with the ground. I found this position to be surprisingly comfortable, or at least surprisingly not uncomfortable, and I stayed there for about twenty minutes while the thunder storm passed over. At one point there was a lightning strike and resulting thunderclap separated by a little less than a second.

After the thunder storm abated, though before the rain quit, I pushed back out into the river and resumed rowing. The rain eventually quit, and I even saw some patches of blue skies above the clouds. I could have resumed fishing, but I decided I had had enough adventure for one day, and continued to row along, reaching the take out point at about 2:30 p.m. After stowing my gear, putting my kick boat onto the top of my car, changing into dry clothes (glad I remembered to pack a change of clothes), and calling to tell my wife that I hadn’t drowned or been electrocuted, I headed for home.

Despite the difficulties of the day, I would like to try this float again, preferably on a week day (with, I hope, fewer boy scouts) with a fair weather forecast. The river is really pretty, the water is clear, and there is good fishing, for numbers if not for size. The riffles are all easy to negotiate. Because of the dam near Stables there is no current for the lower two miles, or so, of the float, which can make things a little troublesome for a kick boat fisherman, but it shouldn’t be a problem if you allow enough time. Spencer Canoes’ reasonably priced use of their put in and take out points makes this float quite easy to orchestrate.

July 29, 2008 - Michael Seery

My son and I took a canoe trip on the San Marcos on Tuesday afternoon. We arrived at Spencer's Canoe Company in Martindale about 2:30. Jack Spencer shuttled me to Staples and I dropped off my truck. Then he brought me back to the campground where Shane and I got in their canoe and headed downstream. There was a breeze along some of the stretches but the sun beat down on pretty hard. We stopped at an unattended rope swing for a little cooling-off. The water was great!! We did a little fishing too. There are a significant number of holes, riffles and deep slow pools on that stretch of water. We fished pretty intently for the first three and a half miles, catching a few bass and some sunfish. For the last mile and a half, we pretty-much paddled. It's a long trip for an afternoon. I'm looking forward to a return when I can spend the kind of time the river requires.

Prospective visitors should take plenty of water, maybe even lunch, and plan to spend the entire day. There are plenty of places to pull up the canoe and fish on your feet for a while. I would not do the trip in a pontoon boat, only a canoe or kayak. There are a couple of portages that would be problematic with a pontoon, one over a fallen tree.