San Marcos — We’re now into June.

I always consider June 1 the start of summer. Officially, summer doesn’t begin until June 21. But just tell our thermometers that little official tidbit.

Soon the long hot days will slow down the awesome freshwater fishing we have experienced this spring.     

I remember no spring like it. The white bass run on the Guadalupe in February and March was very good. Every trip resulted in a live well full of good eating 12-inch white bass.

But the largemouth fishing has been even better.

Lake Bastrop during March, April and May was unbelievable. As Austin fishing guide, Mike Hasting, said one morning as we were launching our boats, “This lake is on fire.”

It sure was.

Local fisherman Mike Schlimgen and I landed more than 50 nice bass several times from our kayaks by noon. Many of the bass were caught in less than two feet of water. Some were on spawning beds. Thus, the kayaks gave us the edge in such shallow water.

When the fish moved out a little deeper, we switched to our outboards and continued catching big numbers of bass around the eel grass patches.

A poppin’ bug pitched right on the edge of the grass line was deadly.

Fishermen with conventional tackle fishing soft plastics caught huge numbers of bass. Bobby Whiteside caught more than 60 bass several times.

With the summer heat reaching toward the 100-degree mark, some of us are beginning to concentrate our main angling to the rivers.

During the drought, the Blanco basically went dry. We didn’t fish it for two years. But now it’s beautiful and flowing strong.

Several weeks ago Mike Schlimgen fished the lower section above where the Blanco joins the San Marcos. Big sunfish and several bass attacked his hand-tied flies.

He even ended my two-pound flyrod bass record with a 2.26 largemouth. He quickly called me, to inform “the former record holder” of his new Blanco record.

Last week my next-door neighbor, Tom Ray and I took a college president from Colorado and his son down the Blanco on kayaks. Fishing was good.

The Colorado boys caught some, but Tom and I caught many.

Tom’s brown wooly bugger was dynamite on small bass. His biggest bass, a nice two- or three-pound fish, was hooked on a soft plastic fluke on his spinning tackle.

I stayed with a tiny popper.

Four big cichlid Rio Grande perch ate the popper in one small area. Then about 100 yards before the confluence with the San Marcos River, a big shadow appeared under my bream bug.

The bass opened his mouth, flared his gills and sucked down the bug. After a long fight on the tiny 3-weight fly rod, I landed the bass.

I knew it was a new river bass record, so I kept the fish alive. After officially weighing the bass at the A. E. Wood Fish Hatchery, I released it back into the river.

I soon called Mike, “the former fly rod bass record holder on the Blanco,” to give him a report. The bass tipped the scales at 2.60 pounds.

Mike’s response was typical. “The ink wasn’t even dry on my record,” he moaned.

Speaking of records — two weeks ago I was fishing the Guadalupe River in New Braunfels to catch some sunfish for supper. Filleted sunfish fried is my wife Beth’s favorite fish dinner.

Rarely did I not get a strike when I cast the little popper under low-hanging limbs and against docks and bulwarks.

In three hours I landed 98 bream.

Most were small but the big ones went into the live well. I kept enough for our family and took Bobby and Carolyn Whiteside a big platter full of fillets. Fried sunfish fillets are their favorite seafood also.

But the bream weren’t the highlight of that short fishing trip. Out of the roots of a cypress tree, a bass ascended onto my popper. When I lifted the bass into the boat I estimated his weight near three pounds.

After releasing the fish, I began to wonder about the largemouth bass fly rod record on the Guadalupe.

“I may have just released the river record,” I said to myself.

But I didn’t have long to think about it. Under another cypress tree a bigger bass ate the popper. When she jumped into the New Braunfels sky, I knew it was a good fish.

I backed the boat into deeper water with the trolling motor and just wore the bass down with the little rod.

When I lifted her into the boat I saw that it was a post-spawn female. Her tail was still bloody from being on the nest and she was a bit skinny. She was healthy but not fat. A month earlier she would have weighed about a pound more.

I called Beth and had her pull up the bass record on the Guadalupe. Her search revealed that a 1.85-pound largemouth was number one on the fly rod list.

But not now.

I knew my fish was about five pounds.

After weighing her at the fish hatchery, I released her into a new home in the San Marcos River. She pulled the scale down to an official 4.54 pounds.

A good bass, especially on the fly rod.

I wish spring could continue through the summer months — but it won’t.



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.