The Brazos River Trip 2006 –

Catching Brown Bass, Catfish, Sand Bass, and …. a Raccoon!

Day 1: We put in below Possum Kingdom Dam with fishing gear, battery, solar powered battery charger, trolling motor, Coleman Ram-X Scanoe, plenty of dehydrated food, and not enough water. For a four day river trip, we focused so much on our camping and fishing gear that we did not focus enough attention on the most important item: water. We have a water purifier, but it has not been used in years and is full of spider webs and dirt dobber …. dirt, or whatever it is that they plaster on everything.

We saw a happy party of four, on two paddle boats, loaded to the rim with gear and think this might be a fun way to try the river some time. Since the water is flowing fast and furious, they tied their boats together and made a little party barge.

To assist with our trip, someone in control of the dam kindly decided to let out an enormous amount of water from Possum Kingdom Lake. The sun is scorching, the water is ice cold and churning well up across the banks, and we can see right to the bottom. As with the first few hours of any river trip, we felt hurried and time-constrained until the Brazos finally won us over by pushing us along while gently gurgling “You’re on a multi-day trip on a river, no one can call you, there is nothing to do but become primal and fish.” The Brazos River Authority kindly stopped by our canoe to check our docs and we are very thankful to have them patrolling the river to make sure that everyone respects this unique environment and the rules we must follow to keep it unique.

After passing many of the infinite perfect natural campgrounds along the bank and on the islands, we settled on a high shoal across the river from some giant cliffs. The water is about 10 feet deep by the cliffs, and since the water is surging down river, we know the catfish will be biting. We quickly set up camp, bartered with one of our camping neighbors for some frozen shad (believe it or not, he actually had several baggies of frozen shad), and set up shop in the channel. We quickly caught two beautiful Channels on five foot ultra light rods, put them in the basket for the night, and returned to camp. If you have never caught a catfish on a five foot ultra light rod, I highly recommend trying it. We couldn’t wait to fry up some fresh river catfish for dinner the next night. We are reminded we only have 2 ½ gallons of water!!

Day 2: To our horror, when we checked the basket this morning, the little escape artists had somehow pulled a Houdini. They left a tiny note that said “You are rusty and you have forgotten that we are not mere lake catfish. We are wily river catfish.”

We also met a Ms. Walton of Wal-Mart, who fished with her dog and looked as much a river rat as we did. She was one of the nicest people we met on the river, and we hope to meet her again. Some locals told us that she is buying up all of the river front property, and plans to take good measures not to develop it.

We didn’t realize that we were camping on her land and not state owned. Had we known, we might not have scolded her barking dog as much on her own property! Ms. Walton didn’t mind though. She generously allows strangers to enjoy her river front property at no cost. Ms. Walton bass fished from a large inflatable raft with a small trolling motor and had her pony tail pulled through her baseball cap. It was so refreshing and intriguing to find out that the third wealthiest woman in the nation is one of the nicest people we met on the river, and we hope to meet her again!

At dawn I began fishing, of course, with several different lures from the bank, but had no takers. We met a man that said the bass will not be biting because they get “sick” and “dizzy” when the water is flowing. We laughed at this logic the entire trip. After I cooked fried potatoes and onions, scrambled eggs and ham for breakfast, we quickly stowed our gear in the canoe so we could get back on the water and go fishing, of course!

The scenery on this part of the Brazos is very impressive and reminds us of southern Colorado with it’s high cliffs, ranges, and brown and red colors.

The reason we take a trolling motor is so that we can paddle less and fish more. A trolling motor also allows us to pace ourselves and back up to some of the honey holes that appear immediately after most sets of rapids. Unfortunately, our solar panel decided to quit working, so without a trolling motor we were reduced to frantic casting at eddies while getting whisked away through rapids.

I caught several Sand Bass, one of which was about two pounds. This is a quality size of fish for a river. We wanted to eat them for dinner, but it wasn’t even noon yet and they weren’t as hardy as the catfish we had, so we let them go and continued fishing, of course!

We have all day to catch a mess of fish on my little green and yellow shallow running crank bait. This little guy was given to me by Brett Meyers and was en fuego. We stopped at a little island point just before a narrow rapids chute to have a snack and some water, and I thought I would hit some good looking little eddies on the other side of some logs. After missing a couple, I successfully sunk my demon crank deep into a 25 foot high tree bass. We are pretty used to spiders on a river by this time, but there was no way I was going to wade through a log jam, climb way up into that tree, and negotiate with six hundred and sixty six spiders to get my magic lure back. We performed a quick funeral service for the dearly departed lure, and shot the rapids.

We then drug our canoe across a series of several very wide, shallow shoals. I changed my opinion about how much fun it would be to run the river in paddle boats. The boats are very short, wide, and loaded with gear. Pulling a 150 pound, deep running boat, loaded with at least 100 pounds of ice chests and gear each, across shoals over and over might not be fun after a while. In addition, how in the world do you get these boats (successfully) through a fast running chute with large rocks strewn everywhere?!? It looks like a recipe for a yard sale to me. We have 1 ½ gallons of water left.

Day 3: We drank the last of our cold drinks and cooked the last of our meat for breakfast, as our ice will last until about 11:00 this morning. The last cold Capri Sun was the most amazing drink I have ever tasted. We are thoroughly “rivered” by now. No worries, no hurries, no concrete, no horns, no concerns. Put up the bimini (we have biminis in our canoe), lay back on top of all of the stacked gear, let J steer the boat, and wander off to the endless rocking of the boat and the sounds of nature. We don’t miss anything (except the lost, magic lure) and wish this was all we did every day.

We went fishing, of course, but didn’t fare well today. No fish. No catfish, no brownies, no sand bass, nada.

After camp was set up and we had dinner, J put part of a hot dog on a 3/0 hook to catch some catfish, left his rod up against our table, and then went down to the river to rinse the pans. I was in the tent getting our sleeping gear ready when I heard a scraping, dragging sound scoot for several feet right next to the tent. I yelled for J to come see what it was, and quickly retrieved my Glock from one of my bags. When J reached the tent, I heard him quietly say “Uh Oh………” I looked out of the tent in time to see the rod and reel being slowly pulled through the gravel, with the line extending off into the trees and darkness. The next thing I knew he was running off through the woods, in the dark, trying to keep up with the raccoon that decided his hot dog might taste good. The more he hurried to give the raccoon some slack, the faster the raccoon took off through the trees, muck, and bushes. He came back several minutes later covered in muck and spiders with the fishing rod and a broken fishing line. Fortunately, it was not a treble hook.

He then went fishing, while I slept soundly with the Glock right beside me. He came back an hour or so later to check on me because he saw a wild pig with an estimated weight of 500 pounds cross what looked like right through our camp. I almost wish the pig had so we could have had fresh bacon and sausage for breakfast.

For the first time, we slept on very soft sand. We have a ½ gallon of water…..

DAY 4: Dread. The mood this morning was not the explosion of talk and laughter of the other mornings. Today we will arrive in 2006. At some point we will see a man made bridge, where our take out is, and we will be warped violently out of peace, fishing, and tranquility. One of the solaces we have is that there will be un-rationed water in civilization. Neither of us have been brave enough to risk using the eight year old, spider and dirt dobber infested water purifier. After breakfast, we only have about eight ounces of water….

At about 12:00pm, we began keeping a watchful eye upriver, where a monstrous, black thunderstorm is slowly floating down the river toward us. After two hours of successfully keeping ahead of the storm, we begin to let the storm slip out of our thoughts and began fishing again, of course. J caught two large mouths on a Texas-rigged black worm. One was caught in a large boil on the downriver side of a mammoth boulder. The other was caught on an old fence line that struck out into the current. Both of us still bemoaned the lost demon crank that was lost in the tree.

The storm ambushed us!! The river turns back about 130 degrees (or so it seems) at the base of a very high ridge and lightning was waiting for us. The storm caught us. We quickly anchored the boat, grabbed a tarp, one bimini, a towel, and sprinted for the base of a high ridge. Just as we sat on the towel, raised the (wooden beamed!!) bimini, and wrapped the tarp around it all, marble sized hail thumped us, and rain poured on us. Lightning slammed into the ground everywhere and we couldn’t see 30 feet in front of us. The sky had gone from a breezy, sunny friend to a scorned woman in about three minutes. We sat under our little emergency yurt imagining a twelve hour storm, rising water, our boat and gear floating away, and sleeping in the dark on a tarp with no light, dry clothes, or bug repellent. Then in about 30 minutes, it all went away….

We jumped in the boat, and watched the flash flooding creeks pour red water into our now fast flowing river……and began fishing, of course!