Aaron Reed's Blog, page 2

You Have Questions? I Have Answers

My friends and family members don’t great with me “hello,” or “How are you?” anymore. Instead, I get: “Are you done yet?”

What started out as something between a bucket list check-off and an amusing side hustle—writing a local fly fishing guide—has somehow come to dominate most discretionary hours of my life over the past three years. It has been an adventure. Or, rather, a series of adventures.

Wanna know how sausage is made? No … you don’t. Not really. Not even if you really, really like s...

Low and Slow, with Shenanigans: No bad months here, but the best are just ahead

The end of summer in Central Texas typically brings us low, slow, and sometimes scummy waters. In the years when we don’t have tropical systems parked over the hills to the west, anyhow.

Cory Sorel exercises his 2-wt. in low-water conditions on Brushy Creek.
Photo by Araron Reed

This year is no exception, but it is perhaps a bit more of a letdown after a sustained wet period that supercharged springs and tributaries across the region. Rather than the up-down, up-down cycle we are used to (and...

Fly Fish the Republic ( Or What I did on my summer vacation)

The bear was a surprise. Most Texans fishing away secretly hope to see a bear, even while we overplay the danger and check to make sure we have the capsicum spray handy.

Literal “hang time” with the boys in the land beyond electronic devices.
Photo by Aaron Reed

This one lumbered across the winding, mountain road north of Taos, our headlights bathing rippling black fur at least as high as the 7-year-old’s head. It was a big bear. A beautiful bear. The younger boys were asleep in the back and m...

Secret Fishing Spots

I received a call from a good friend a couple of months ago. Word had gotten around, he said, that I was planning on writing a chapter about a reach of river beloved of local carp anglers. He wondered if, maybe, I could see my way clear to leave that one out.

This reach of Brushy Creek, gorgeous and full of fish, probably doesn’t see a dozen anglers in a month.
Photo by Aaron Reed

It was a rather surprising request because a.) I had been back to this stream a dozen times in the previous year,...

There’s an App for That: Technology on the Water

For many anglers, a day on the water is an opportunity to get away from it all—“it” mostly being the demands our computers, smartphones, and tablets put on our lives. If you are one of those folks, and I’m deeply sympathetic, let me suggest that you take your phone with you for safety and convenience, but put it in “airplane” or “do not disturb” mode.

The Stream Map USA app includes mapped stream flow gauges. By clicking on each icon, users can access the the latest measurements from USGS.
Pho...

Fainting Goats and Finding Bliss

Maybe you’ve seen the videos on YouTube. If not, you should take a look: someone yells or throws up his arms, and a goat (or two, or three) falls over. The goat, which hasn’t actually fainted but is merely incapacitated, recovers in 5-20 seconds. It’s pretty hilarious. Unless you’re a goat trying to get away from a leopard or something.

“Fainting goats” suffer from a rare, genetic disorder called myotonia congenita, in which a mutation of the gene CLCN1 interferes with chloride channels – pro...

Future-Proofing Central Texas Streams

It is an irony that in this anomalous year, an El Niño season of persistent rain and swollen rivers, I can’t stop thinking about the limits of water: how it is used, how it is abused, how much (or little) of it there is or will be in the future.

There is sometimes a good reason for a fence to cross a navigable waterway (controlling livestock when the landowner owns both sides of the river, for instance), but rarely a legal one in Texas.
Photo by Aaron Reed

In a mostly closed system like the bl...

The State of Central Texas Fly Fishing 2019

The Central Texas scene is growing and maturing at a remarkable rate.

Sightline Provision’s Edgar Diaz makes a cast on Onion Creek.
Photo by Aaron Reed

Davin Topel arrived at the put-in first. I offered him a still-warm donut. The professional distiller and fishing guide reached into the back seat of his truck and handed me a bottle of his latest Real Spirits Single Barrel malt whiskey release (which I had paid him for) and a second bottle (which I had not paid him for): a soon-to-be-released...

And then it rained … and rained

Back in August, I wrote about the dog days of summer and low-water conditions across Central Texas. Many local streams weren’t looking their best, but the fish sure were easy to find.

The Lower Falls on Onion Creek at McKinney Falls State Park show-off
after six weeks of rain.
Photo by Aaron Reed

My, how things can change.

In September and October, Georgetown received nearly 17 inches of rain – more than twice the average for those months. According to the National Weather Service, it rained 2...

Building Community through Pig Farming

It was the next episode up on The Fly Tapes podcast during my long commute to work: Jay Johnson. I’d never heard of the dude, but the previous 12 episodes had been a good time so I clicked the “play” button.

Adrienne Barnett prepares to tie a San Juan worm in the Iron Fly blindfold challenge.
Photo by Aaron Reed

The story (published in The Fly Fish Journal) that host Jason Rolfe read, and the interview that followed, stunned me. I listened again. And then I texted and emailed the link to my...