So, I made my annual pilgrimage to the Brazos below PK. Last Memorial Day, I recorded my experiences with some nice carp and a juicy cheeseburger. This week, a guy (from the metroplex) on an internet message board was looking for advice on good rivers in the New Mexico for his upcoming vacation. Then, he went on to say that he had limited dollars and an unreliable vehicle. I had the temerity to suggest that perhaps it would be better to stay a little closer to home, and added that this stretch of the Brazos is a fascinating and productive stretch in the early summer. Some nimrod on the board jumped all over me for recommending this stretch for summertime, noting that "it smells bad and is covered with slime". You know, you can talk bad about my wife, my kids, and my dog-but don't say anything negative about the beautiful, beautiful, Brazos River. Cool and green, a little salty, and blessed with a huge biomass, the Brazos has nurtured, sustained, and yes, even saved lives for tens of thousands of years. She remains my home water, and my favorite piece of water in the world. Alaska, Montana, Florida, Canada, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Mississippi, the Hill Country, the Bahamas, Arkansas, Missouri-even Oklahoma-I have been blessed to fly fish in more than my share of exotic locales. There is, however, no place like home. Sure, she gets a little low and green and goopy in the summer, but this is TEXAS, for Christ's sake. What do you expect? I guess it was General Sherman who observed that, if he owned both Hell and Texas-he'd live in Hell and rent Texas out. It's hot, and it's dry, and it's windy-but it's by-god Texas, and I'll love her 'til I die. So, to defend Mother Brazos's reputation, and to check it out for myself, I made a mad Friday afternoon dash to the dam.
After dumping the dog at the farm, I slipped in to the water about four o'clock in the afternoon, with a brisk southerly wind and a temp of about 95. Cool and green, a little mossy, and just enough current to counteract the wind. Fish were visible everywhere, and most were willing to bite. The first bass I saw sucked up my foam topwater bug without hesitation. After five or six refusals, though-I switched to a black cone-head wooly bugger and stayed with variations of that pattern the rest of the day. I was pleased and surprised to find that a bugger, fished deep and slow in the main pool, was poison for channel cats. I pulled six or eight from that hole, and could have stayed with that pattern all day. "Never leave fish to find fish" they say-but I did just that. I wanted to catch a few more bass, and scout for stripers and sand bass. I did find a few smallish blacks, but the Roccus species eluded me. I hear the early morning bite is better for those particular species, but I was long gone the next day. All in all, I'm guessing I had a hundred or so fish on, in the middle of the afternoon, on public waters. You've got free camping, bathroom facilities, cell signal, even sort of a boat ramp at the highway 16 crossing. (That low water bridge, by the way, now known as the John Graves Memorial Bridge-is worth the trip just to see the dang thing). It would be nice if there was a takeout at eight miles for boats, but there isn't. But-down and back (against the current, but generally with the wind) is possible if there is any flow at all. Without much flow, like today, you're better off wading. My only real complaint about this area is the difficult, dangerous climb in and out of the river at the dam. I don't understand how a park that has been in existence for seventy-something years has not been improved. The Red below Texoma has multiple wide, stable, un-erodable concrete stair wells that lead right to the water's edge. Here, you scramble up and down in a few thorn-ridden, slick, snakey, damn near vertical cliffs. I think I'll write my congressman.
There you have it. Reports of the Brazos's demise have been greatly exaggerated. Had I been able to be there at first light, and able to climb down in to the river in the near dark, I'm certain I could have worn myself out on stripers and sandies. Bass and sunfish, on the other hand, prefer banker's hours, and don't really heat up until the sun is on the water. Didn't have time for a cheeseburger at the world's loneliest Whataburger, but stopped at Chicken-E for a bunch of hot wings on my way back to the farm-and Tucker.
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