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March 12, 2012 - Don Johnson

Begin and end time: 7:45 a.m. to 11:30 a.m.
Weather: sunny, 45 derees at start, 70 at end
Lake Level: 631 ft
Water Condition: bottom details were visible in thigh deep water, deeper pools were opaque gray green
Flies that worked: clousers in gray, blue-gray, and black over gray.

Clint Barton, Keith Lovin and I went to The Narrows. There was an SGFF white bass outing scheduled for the day, but we saw no other SGFFers on the water. The drought has made Lake Travis extraordinarily low, and we were able to wade across the river in several places. There was visible current in the few narrow places in the river, but you could feel no current while standing in the wider, deeper, parts of the river. From the parking area we crossed directly across to the north side and walked about a mile (rough guess) upstream to a place where the way is blocked by a limestone boulder slide. Clint found a way to scramble up and over the rock slide, but Keith and I decided his path was a little too risky for us. Clint went on upstream; Keith and I fished our way back down toward the park. Keith and I found some deep water on the downstream side of a riffle; I fished immediately down from the riffle while Keith fished a deep spot a little farther downstream. Both pools were up against some rocks on the south side of the river. Clint reported walking up almost to the falls to a spot where his way was blocked by a sheer cliff falling directly into deep water. Clint thinks if he had crossed the river somewhere downstream from the cliff he could have walked up as far as the falls. He fished his way back downstream and joined Keith and I shortly before we left. Each of us caught between five and ten fish.

The river shore had fresh muddy spots, and the shore’s dry sand had obviously been sculpted by flowing water. We took this as evidence of recent releases from Starcke Dam. If you visit this fishing spot be aware that releases might double the river’s depth, and you might get stranded, or worse.

July 16, 2011

See this Outing report

Marcj 10, 2007 - Bruce Wilks

I caught 23 Whites and this big Smallmouth Buffalo at the Narrows Last Sat 03/10/0... A gain on my last cast... About 20 min fight on my 6 wt Avid ... I have pictures of the fight and all...:)...

My nephew caught 16 whites on his very first time fly fishing ( me as the instructor and guide and I let him use my XP...) and his very first whites ever...!

Mar 04, 2007 - Bruce Wilks

I caught this on my very last cast Sunday, 03/04/07~ 4:30 pm... Carp at The Narrows, old model Avid 6wt 9ft rod , cheap Mayfly TFO reel, wht_gray_chart clouser #10 hook I tied myself using fast sink S.A. Streamer Express 200 S Grain... Me and my friend Blake each Caught another carp on San Gabriel while fishing for whites with fly rods at night using head lamps...

I also landed 17 more whites last Sunday... This is now 87 white bass landed to hand on my 5wt and 6wt fly rods since the second week in Feb... Not bad for early season run in two rivers...:-)... I have also landed at least 45 more on my spinning real out of two other short trips on San Gabriel... These whites are fighting very hard and do not want to give up at all... Even the 11" whites are fighting hard...

Feb 25, 2997 - Bruce Wilks

See the club outing report.

Feb 7, 2007 - Bruce Wilks

I took a day off work and I went fishing for white bass (sand bass) and caught qty 11 (9 on my fly rod) and my friend bob caught 18...! All were 13" inches to 15.5"... No small ones were caught, which is surprising this early in the run... They were either big males or early in the run females. We kept qty 12 (13" to 15.5") and fillet and fried them up the night we caught them... Yum...Yummy... We practiced catch and release on the others in hope they won't be caught and will help make more whites for next year...

Where you ask did we go... Early in Feb... We launched kayaks on lake Travis at the Narrows Recreation Area ( This is where Colorado River heads into Lake Travis) This is normally 25 to 40 feet deep, but due to the drought it is 1' to 12' deep... We went upstream about 1/2 mile, used spinning rods with crank baits and jigs to find the whites, just after we went through low water fast current narrow section, and came around a big boulder we both cast and had a double hookup of two 14" inch whites using our hunt and search spinning gear. We always let the first one go... I cast again and hook another 14" white on my second cast, so we head to the sandy bank, park the kayaks, pull out the fly rods with fast sinking line, tie on some #8 and #10 clousers and Bob starts catching one right after another. Bob would cast count to 10 to let the line sink to the bottom, start stripping say here fishy-fishy, and hook a white. He did this and caught 10, then I asked him what fly he was using and he told me it was a grey and white #8 clouser with silver bead chain eyes... It was the only one he had, so I franticly looked in my fly box and I had one grey and white clouser. with chartreuse flash tied in on a #10 hook. Once I tied it on I caught 10 more and Bob caught 10 before they quit biting... We also lost at least 10 fish each, which we did not hook on the strike or pulled off during the fight before we could land them. We did really good for early Feb just after 5 days of really cold nights. Average size was 14" These are all very nice whites, very strong fighters, along with being good to eat...!!! With the low water it is truly a beautiful place, perfect spawning habitat for whites, so the white bass run should only get better as the white run progresses from now into early to middle of April... Not counting the 3 we caught on spinning gear while trying to locate a good school, we only caught these whites on 5 weight fly rods casting full sinking line with clousers that had White/Grey. Bobs was white and gray only. He also caught 5 on a White/Gray with a little red tied in. Mine where White/Gray #8 with chartreuse flash black chain bead eyes... If it did not have White/Gray silver or black chain bead eyes, then it did not catch fish that day...