I decided to hit the Guadalupe River this afternoon, October 7, 2007. I noticed a solid mayfly hatch last night and figured with winter soon around the corner, the fish should be feeding aggressively. I've spent so many falls in the woods chasing whitetail and this year I made it a point to focus on fish as much as possible.

The Guadalupe was running clean and clear this afternoon. Leaves are starting to fall and the current is mixed with maple leaves and cypress needles.

This is really the only way to experience the Guadalupe River. You can cover alot of water and I haul 3 rods with a backpack on the stern full of tackle.

The typical scene. Texas rigged 6 inch plastic worms during the day.

And a few plugs to cover mid-depth.

The magic starts after the sun starts to set.

My focus this evening is a stretch of river that has shallow edges with lilly pads bordering the main channel. This stretch of river typically has a few solid bass and I lost a pretty good fish here during June.

Once the sun sets, I shift gears and go topwater. The typical scene, River bass and big perch keep things interesting.

Even dink perch hammer the old trusty Jitterbug.

Then suddenly, things get real busy....way busy. I zing a cast up tight against the pads, let the Jitterbug settle a moment and start my retieve cranking in about 3ft of line when the water boils and my rod doubles over! Line is zinging off the reel and off I go downstream on a kayak slide. Once I got visual of this bass, I nearly flipped the kayak. I am so glad I had her hooked solidly, she worked me over up close for several minutes before I could lip her.

After these photos I released her back into the Guadalupe. Probably the all-time record bass for the Guadalupe and fish like this are not typical for these waters. Just goes to show, you never know where and when that special day will happen.