Texas stripers

For over a decade Dr. Jonathan Leffert of Dallas, TX has been monitoring and controlling my thyroid problems. After listening to my often soul-stirring tales of fly fishing during office visits, the doctor asked if I could teach him and his young daughter Catherine to fly fish. Aha, another opportunity to, “pass it on.” While still being works in progress, they have both been able to catch trout while floating famous rivers such as the White in Arkansas and the South Holston in Tennessee.

For many years, the Lone Star State has been stocking striped bass in a number of impoundments and rivers. One such stream is the main stem of the Brazos River below the Possum Kingdom (PK) dam. Ahem, that name is pronounced Braz-us. Only a dumb Yankee would pronounce it Braz-ose. Willy Landem, my Texas fishing buddy, was quick to correct me when I made that mistake. In addition to striped bass, Texas Parks & Wildlife (TP&W) stocks nine- to 10-inch brown trout in the months of December, January and February. These fish are obtained from a hatchery in Missouri. The larger stripers are very appreciative of the largesse of TP&W.

Saturday morning, November 21, found Dr. Leffert and me headed for the Brazos in hopes of catching a Texas striped bass. At the Fort Worth Fly Fishers meeting earlier in the month, a fellow member told me he had caught a large striper above the bridge on Route 16, below the PK dam. This was to be our destination. We were delighted to find there were no other cars parked at the bridge. Today we would have the river to ourselves. Once the trout stockings are announced in the local papers, this area is deluged with bait dunkers and spin fishers. The poor little trout are virtually trampled by the eager hordes.

Below the dam for several hundred yards the river appears to be a large and shallow lake. At its lower end it eventually runs out over a riffle and becomes a stream. The Brazos at this point is the size of the Willowemoc at DeBruce.

Doc and I hiked up to that first riffle where I gave him a chartreuse Jack Gartside soft hackle streamer to try. When fishing streamer flies, which imitate small minnows, Lefty Kreh likes to say, “if it ain’t chartreuse, it ain’t no use.” Doc is still learning the art of being patient, and after five minutes he wanted to change the fly. Not wishing to lecture him, I took a white soft hackle streamer from my fly box. However, before I could give it to him he began to shout excitedly, “I’ve got one.”

Indeed he did. Despite Doc’s best efforts to hold the fish, it was pulling two or three feet from the reel with every surge. Doc was trying to win a tug of war with a very strong fish. The inevitable happened. The line suddenly went slack and the fly and the fish were gone. Luckily, I had tied two of that color and Doc was shortly probing the currents again. In only two casts he was into another fish. After quite a tussle he was able to strong-arm this fish onto the gravel shingle and beach it. This proved to be a 15-inch-long striped bass that had fought all out of proportion to its size.

This seemed to be the start of a great day. Unfortunately, for the rest of the time the fishing was fine, but the catching was regrettably non existent.