One of my favorite rivers to fish is the Llano River.
I have paddled and fished several different sections, with my primary destination being the South Llano River near Junction, Texas. For this trip, I decided to try out a new location where the James River and Llano River become one.
While I have been to the Llano River near Mason, Texas before, I haven’t been to the location off of Ranch Road 2389. I scouted out different locations on the Llano River and this particular spot caught my interest. Why? This location is where the James River and Llano River converge. I thought this could make an interesting dynamic for fishing and decided to give it a shot.
FIRST IMPRESSIONS
Upon arriving at my put in / take out location off of Ranch Road 2389 I was very excited to see what the river system looked like. I also had to drive off road for a bit through large rocks to get to the waters edge where I wanted to put in so this was awesome. Quite frankly, just driving on these large rocks was exciting enough for me…as I got an opportunity to drive my Toyota 4Runner off road a bit and that is always fun. The water was flowing quite good (around 200-230 CFS) and water clarity was okay (about 2-6 ft depending on specific location). I had a great view of the James River flowing into the Llano River and I thought there was quite a bit of potential to catch some fish. There were a lot of clouds in the sky too, which made for some prime topwater fishing…at least I thought it was.
EARLY FISHING
I started fishing in the James River with a Heddon Zara Spook without any luck at all. My dad was throwing a topwater frog from his Jackson Kayak Liska with no luck either. The James River eventually became too shallow to paddle upstream any further so we paddled back to the Llano River and began heading upstream. Ultimately, the convergence of the James River and Llano River was a bit deceiving on paper, as real life proved the James River to be more of a creek than a river.
Due to the cloudy weather and early morning, I was thinking topwater would be a great lure selection, but neither me or my dad could land a fish on topwater. I was really surprised and wanted to continue working my Heddon Zara Spook, but sometimes if it isn’t working you need to change things up a bit. So we did just that.
I switched to a Rage Tail Rage Craw that was Texas Rigged without a weight and a large Strike KVD Square Bill Crankbait. My dad was fishing a small square bill crank bait.
Not too long after making some lure changes my dad was landing a few bass. He started off catching some Guadalupe Bass, which are always fun. The area we were fishing was pretty shallow (less than 3 ft) and I wasn’t haven’t much luck finding any big bass. My dad on the other hand was having a lot of success working that small crankbait through valleys in the shallow water. In total, I think my dad caught about 2-3 Guadalupe Bass with the small KVD Square Bill Crankbait.
