Bray's Bayou, Houston- 3/17/13

I was given an assignment in Houston for work the next couple months, and although very far away from spring in the Rockies, I decided to try to make the best of it and do a little fishing while down here.  I decided to buy an 8wt to bring down with me and hopefully hook into come nice carp in the Bayou City.  Really having no idea as to what I was doing down here, I searched all over the internet for information on chasing fish around town on the fly.  Not a lot to go with, so I visited IFLY- The Anglers Edge- Fly Shop in the Galleria for some locals knowledge.  People do fly fish around Houston, but mostly in local neighborhood ponds for bass.  I told the guy at the fly shop that I was more interested in chasing some Golden Bones around.  He kinda laughed at me, but he did point me in the direction of some great spots to find them.

After being down here for a few days, and working some really long hours, I finally had a little time to start some reconnaissance missions around town, and scope out some spots to try when I really had some time to wet a line.  The first place I looked was in Bray's Bayou, in the southwest part of Houston.  Now the bayous of Houston are completely different than any other place I've fished.  They make the DSP look like a beautiful mountain river, which is very hard to imagine!  They are basically concrete canals to help control flooding in the event of a hurricane.  The water is shallow and slow moving, and there is no structure to be heard of.  But there are fish!!  Lots and lots of them, and very big.  I couldn't believe all the fish that I saw swimming around.  Bigmouth, smallmouth, catfish, and carp.  Lots of carp.  My stoke factor significantly went up.  I was ready to do a little urban fly fishing right in the heart of Houston!!

Beautiful Bray's Bayou!

Had some time this afternoon to finally do some fishing in this city.  The first place I went was a little pond in southwest Houston off the 610 that supposedly held some nice bass.  The little ponds were located in Meyer Park.  I was only able to get about 15 casts in before I swarmed by some curious little guys, wondering what the hell I was doing waving a stick around.  I spent about an hour teaching them how to cast and fish, hoping that one of them would hook into a fish.  It didn't happen, but I had a blast watching them take turns trying to cast my fly rod.  It really is funny the people that you meet because of this sport.  Little guys with a complete different background than me!

My new fishing buddies

I broke away from the my new buddies at Meyer Park and headed back to the spot in Bray's Bayou that I had scoped out earlier this week.  Again, there were carp everywhere.  I used damn near every fly in my Fly-Carpin swap box, but could not seem to get the carp to take any of them.  They were not real spooky, but they did not seem to be feeding too hard.  I did manage to fool one on Mr. Reynolds carp fly, but the hook up was short lived, and I had lost him before I knew it.

I traveled farther down the bayou to a spot closer to the Houston Medical Center.  I parked in a church parking lot, and started walking the concrete lined bayou.  I started seeing fish, but I had no idea what they were.  They weren't moving or feeding, kinda just hunkered down on the bottom of the river, but there were probably over a hundred in this little pod.  I started fishing to them, and they kinda seemed to chase the fly, but in an hour of fishing, I couldn't get one to take the fly.  Finally I got one to eat, I brought this ugly beast to hand.  No idea what it was, and I didn't really know if I should touch it or not.  I took some quick pictures, and gently nudged it back into the water with my foot.  After doing some research, it looks like the fish is Pleco catfish, which is a fish that people keep in their aquarium.  No idea how these tropical fish made their way in the bayous of Houston, but it sure is a first for me.  Even though it sucks being away from my beautiful wife and my Colorado home, at least there is some interesting fishing deep in the bayous of Houston.