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Don't Mess with Texas: Blanco River Smallies (Guest Article)
by Tom "Ehrpower" Ehrhard

If sight casting to smallmouth in gin-clear water with a jade-green tint with no other fisherman in sight doesn’t get your attention, nothing will. Hamilton “Ham” Bell and I had been captivated by pictures of Texas’ Blanco River on Kelly “Texaskelly” Watson’s website (www.texasriverbass.com) for months before we attended the inaugural Texas Smallmouth Rodeo earlier this week. Kelly, an accomplished river smallmouth bass guide, hosted the event on his home waters, which comprise the Blanco and the exotic San Marcos River, all in the vicinity of San Marcos, Texas. Two is a fishing trip, and three is a rodeo, and this rodeo was a trip to remember.

After a seven-hour drive from Montgomery, AL I picked up Ham at his Minden, LA home and made the road trip to Kyle, Texas where we met our host. We knew weather was going to be a problem, as a major cold front had just passed through the area, plunging daily high temperatures to the low 80's under mile-high skies. Clear skies and clear waters make for tough fishing, but we were anxious to see the Blanco. We didn’t have to wait long, since Kelly lives one hundred yards from that beautiful river.

We trucked to the put-in at Wimberly with a 14-foot Rogue River canoe and Ham’s 12-foot Wilderness Systems Tarpon kayak, packed up for a two-day float. Even the put-in was spectacular, unlike anything I’ve seen. The Blanco is a tributary of the San Marcos River that flows through the Texas hill country. The limestone geology of the riverbed gives it the clear water and the light, almost white hue of the limestone bottom gives it its unique appearance. I have never seen a river quite like it - every turn revealed a new, sometimes shockingly beautiful, vista punctuated by the appearance of red-tailed hawks, raccoons, turkeys, and white-tailed deer. All this would be reward enough for attending the rodeo, but here’s the kicker - we never saw another fisherman on the entire two-day float! Not one. Almost heaven?

And we caught fish. The Blanco provides the freshwater equivalent of bonefishing on Caribbean flats - it was that dramatic. We often cast to fish shadows, which stuck out due to the mile-high skies and the light limestone bottom. The fish were spooky and we had to make long casts well in front of our position, but in general we cast to individual fish and enticed them to pick up our offerings, selectively targeting the largest bass in the pool. I used a proprietary, double-secret Trackeryak hair jig (olive and blue - thanks, T-yak!) with a Patapsco Mike custom ultralight rod (OK, so I’m an RS junkie), Kelly threw very small jig with a watermelon grub, while Ham stuck with the can’t-miss 4 inch Senko. We caught smallies from 10 inch dinks to nice 15-18 inch specimens that all sported unusually brilliant coloration. These were among the prettiest bass I’d ever seen, right up there with the light green, red-eyed Susquehanna smallies I’d caught on a previous RS get-together. The heartbreak of the trip happened when I sight casted to a very large smallmouth in the 20 inch range, who broke off my 4 pound Mean Green in a fight that we saw in living color in a stunning 20 foot clear pool - it was like fighting bass in a big swimming pool - you could see every twist and turn at every depth.

The water was low and we humped our craft across riffles and falls, but each pool at the end of the riffle was worth the effort. Blanco River smallies don’t feed in the riffles, and we often found the biggest fish in the tail section of the pool, or behind large mid-river rocks or wood. Most of the time, the fish were cruising open water in search of food, and we’d cast in front of them (anywhere near them and they’d scatter), let the bait rest on the bottom, and gently twitch it as they approached. It took light line, small baits, and a stealthy approach to make it work, and Kelly really knew how to make that happen. Ham’s kayak proved to be an efficient fishing platform because of its stealthy approach, although at times the canoe allowed us to stand and see the fish from longer range. We worked as a team in some pools, but invariably the lead boat had the best chance to catch fish, so we traded leads as we proceeded down the river.

We stopped for the night next to a fast, shallow section that gurgled us to sleep after a fantastic dinner of Creole-seasoned crappie (thanks to Ham) and perhaps a few Tecates. It wasn’t hard to fall asleep under the infinite, star-lit skies of Texas, for even though the day had been an unbelievable fishing experience, we knew that tomorrow held more of the same.

The fish responded by being active early, which got us off to a good start on Day Two of the Texas Smallmouth Rodeo. While there were a few houses here or there on the shoreline, we only saw a few people outside their homes, and again, even though we were floating ever closer to civilization, no other fisherman spoiled our experience. It was almost surreal to be the only fishermen partaking of this wonderful resource. We kept hooking fish as each turn of the river revealed another unique pool with unique, Blanco River smallmouth.

After two exhilarating days on the Blanco, we hit the San Marcos River for some greenie action. The San Marco, also a crystal-clear river, flows from a massive artesian spring smack-dab in the middle of San Marcos, TX. Archaeologists tell us that the source of the San Marcos is the longest continually inhabited place on earth, and early Native American tribes agreed by special truce to keep the spring available to all. Again, the river is so different that it’s almost surreal. The river’s exotic flora and fauna were overshadowed by the largemouth, which were off due to the cold front, but were often visible in their deep haunts. The river’s massive weed beds protected huge fish, many which had to be over five pounds. Although the fishing was tough, we managed to score some fish all the way, with Ham and his trusty Senko doing most of the damage.

In the final analysis, the first inaugural RS Texas Smallmouth Rodeo was a huge success. Ham, Kelly, and I got to meet one another after only “knowing” each other via the best fishing site on the Internet. Both guys, as Steven Flint would put it, “got game - serious game” and both are emblematic of what makes RS a fantastic resource for smallmouth fishermen. They know fishing; they have unique perspectives, and are not afraid to share them. I saw a third dimension to them that no posting can reveal, and that dimension will always be a part of their posts from now on. New friends, fantastic fishing, and nature literally bursting with vibrancy from the Texas hill country - that’s what made this rodeo great.

This was a truly unique brand of river fishing that must be experienced to be believed. Anytime you have an opportunity, give “Texaskelly” a call and he’ll put you on a truly unique smallmouth experience. He’s been a lone voice crying out in the Texas wilderness on River Smallies.com, but he’s got a gem-literally-in the Blanco River and surrounding territory. Hope we’ll see you down there on the second edition of the Texas Smallmouth Rodeo, because I know the first one will not be the last.