With light crowds, good weather and fishing that was on fire, the 2014 version of the Llano River Trip occurred this past weekend.  The trip provided an opportunity for all participants to experience a part of Texas very different  the Texas Coast.

On Friday, the group launched at around 7:30 a.m.  from the KC 150 bridge and paddled/drifted into the South Llano State Park.  The route was one of some 7-8 miles and took most of the day with the final paddlers arriving in the Park around 6:00 p.m.  As compared to last year the crowd was much lighter as we saw only one group other than ours over the course of the day. 

On Saturday, the group launched, once again at around 7:30 a.m., from the second crossing and paddled/drifted up stream to the Llano Falls.  Eli, Paula and Paula's son, John then portaged their kayaks up the banks of the falls and continued paddling up stream.  Some of the others who arrived and the falls chose to wade the water upstream from the falls while others chose to slowly fish their way back down to the launch spot.  Once again, it was near 6:00 p.m. when the group got back to the launch spot but, as the paddle back was down stream, the paddling was much easier. Adding to the pleasure of Saturday was the fact that, over the course of the entire day, we saw only one other paddler than those in our group and that paddler was met as we were almost back to our end of day destination.

The weather on both days began with over cast skies and some wind.  As the day progressed, however, the cloud cover cleared and the wind dropped.  The weather was pretty good all weekend.

The fishing was spectacular as many, many fish were caught. The species were large mouth bass, Guadalupe bass, sun fish of several varieties, cat fish and the highly sought after Rio Grande Perch.  These fish were caught on both flies and plugs thrown on light spinning rods.

As always, the scenery was beautiful.  From beautiful clear, cool, blue water to majestic mountains the group was treated to some of the best scenery the State of Texas has to offer.

The bottom line is that this was once again a great trip which seemed to be enjoyed by all participants.

Jim Richards