We had a fly rod and two ultralite spinning rods in three kayaks. Thinking that we would do much fishing was a bit optimistic. Especially when you’re floating the San Marcos River with two 10-year old grandsons. Swimming every gravel bar from Martindale to Staples was more what they had in mind. Skipping rocks across the river was also above fishing on their priority list.

While they were horse playing off a big gravel bar I picked up my fly rod and cast the bug across the river against the base of a tall, steep bank. Guadalupe bass love swift water. They hang out at the base of tall cliffs, hoping for a grasshopper or pill bug to fall down the bank into the fast water.

As the bug drifted in the swift current a bass rolled on the bug like a flash of lightening. It reminded me of the way several brown trout have taken my dry fly last week in New Mexico. But this fish was stronger than a trout. Even the grandsons stopped their horse play to watch me battle the fish. I reached down, lipped the fish and held it up for the boys to see. It was a Guadalupe bass about 11-inches long. Not big but feisty and full of fight.

When I examined the beautiful little fish I could see that it was not a pure Guadalupe. Smallmouth bass influence could be seen in the color and markings. It was a Guadalupe-smallmouth hybrid. That is now the norm on the San Marcos and Blanco Rivers. A pure Guadalupe, which is our state fish, is a rarity.

How did such happen? The answer is pretty simple. Between 1974 and 1979 the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department stocked about 400,000 smallmouth bass in Canyon Lake and the Guadalupe River. Other Central Texas rivers were also stocked with the non-native smallmouth bass.

“The thinking was that smallmouth bass would not cross with Guadalupe bass,” said Gary Garrett, a TPW research biologist.

Wrong. The two species took to each other like a horse and carriage. Within a few years it was obvious that the hybrids were taking over.

Garret, who works at TPWD’s Heart of the Hills Fisheries Science Center at Mountain Home, began ongoing research on this hybrid phenomenon more than 15 years ago. He sampled the bass population in Johnson Creek, a major tributary of the upper Guadalupe River, and found 30 percent of the Johnson Creek fish were hybrids. And they were on the increase. The creek was blocked off and pure Guadalupe bass produced at the Heart of the Hills hatchery were stocked in the creek.

“For years the program showed no improvement, and then it took off,” said Garrett. “Now the hybrids are only 3 percent of the population. The project shows that pure Guadalupe bass can come back.”

Recently, these ongoing efforts by TPW to restore our state fish got a big boost. About 100,000 Guadalupe bass fingerlings obtained from the Heart of the Hills Fisheries Science Center in Ingram and the US Fish and Wildlife Service in Uvalde were released into the upper reaches of the Guadalupe River near Hunt. This stocking effort is part of a five-year Guadalupe Bass Restoration Initiative. The goal of the initiative is to stock 225,000 pure-strain Guadalupe bass fingerlings each year.

Such an ambitious project takes money. And that’s something the TPWD is always short of. But the little state bass has some big friends. The Upper Guadalupe River Authority, the Kerrville Convention and Visitors Bureau, the Hill County Fly Fishers and the Hill Country Shooting Sports Center all have pitched in on the bill.

“This project will assure the Guadalupe bass’s survival in the Guadalupe River and raise awareness of the unique value of this valuable natural resource,” said Garrett. (He concedes that the Blanco River is probably a lost cause as far as the Guadalupe bass is concerned.)

Some might ask, “Why all the big stir over a fish?” After all, the hybrid is a great fish.

Yes, the Guadalupe-smallmouth hybrid is a great fish. He’s an awesome fighter. But there’s something morally wrong about polluting a gene pool that is thousands of years old. It’s always dangerous to tamper with nature and introduce non-indigenous species into an ecosystem.

The ramifications can be far reaching. Ask the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. They’re working hard to erase their embarrassment of almost wiping out our state fish.



Jim Darnell is an ordained minister and host/producer of the syndicated television show God’s Great Outdoors. His column appears every Thursday in the Daily Record.