Well ... the corpse of this poor horse has about disintegrated and is starting to smell a bit, so I'm walking away from it after this post. ;-) I think this whole "debate" began with a discussion of where to hold a get-together that Larry is organizing, and you and I, Bulldog, were advocating for our home waters. It's terrific when anyone thinks they have great water in the neighborhood, and it's also pretty wonderful that Central Texas has so much of it. I will say, again, that I have no quarrel with any of the streams or locations you have mentioned. I have fished many (but not all) of them over the past four decades and they are lovely and productive.
Since I don't actually know you, Bulldog, it's hard to know precisely in what spirit you intend your comments, though it does seem important to you to be seen as authoritative and correct. Me too, I guess. Humility is a good and useful thing to have. I'll ask Santa for some in the stocking this year.
What I do take exception to is misinformation about
my home waters, because I love them, because I want other people to love them enough that they will be conserved for my kids and their kids, and also because there are a number of businesses in the area -- some operated by friends of mine -- that depend on accurate information about those waters to keep the lights on and grow. It becomes unfunny when someone decides not to visit because someone else, a self-declared expert, has stated unequivocally that the streams are muddy, or that dozens or hundreds of miles of rivers simply don't exist, or that three or four or five or six counties are not actually in the region a visitor is set on fishing.
In the spirit of correcting the most recent factually incorrect statements (or implications); Tejas Camp is the upper end of Lake Georgetown, a river interrupted. Glen Rose is, indeed, pretty country -- old John Graves certainly thought so. Anyone who has never read
Goodbye to a River should run out and get it right away. Never said it was Hill Country, just that the Balcones Fault ran up that way. The northern segment of the Edwards Aquifer actually contains more springs than the San Antonio-Barton Springs segment that has received so much attention. I can think of five, offhand, walking distance from my house in Georgetown. Just as an example. All three forks of the Gabe, the Lampasas River, Brushy Creek, Salado Creek, and Onion Creek are spring-fed streams. Lots of places in Texas don't have any exposed limestone whatsoever. The bays of the Coastal Bend being one of them. Legend has it there was a limestone shelf in the water where Rockport Harbor (thus the name) is now, but no one living has ever seen it. Of course, there are serpulid accretions in Baffin Bay (the "rocks"), but that ain't limestone. Sandstone accretions do turn up on the beaches and in dredge spoil, but that ain't limestone either. Also shellcrete rubble from old, pre-Republic and Republic-era construction. Also not limestone.
One thing, among several, that we actually agree on: TPWD has been guilty of some egregious errors in stocking fish. In defense of the fisheries biologists, though, often they have presented the science of why it's not a good idea, and the Commission (political patronage positions doled out by whichever governor is in office -- mostly large landowners with high-fenced, scientifically-bred, private "wild"life herds, and private waters) overrules them. And then, somewhere down the road, they have to figure out how to get the horse back in the barn (or the smallies out of the rivers ... thankfully the the winters took care of the Nile perch). Fortunately, it seems the tide is turning (to further mix my metaphors), and more emphasis is being placed on native fishes. I think that's a good thing.
Love this incredibly useful and generally helpful and friendly forum. Since the primary utility of this thread seems to be the pics, here are a few more ... Bulldog, since you've fished every spot on the Gabe and "fished it all -- every crossing within 150 miles," I'm sure you'll recognize all of them. ;-)
And, in the spirit of John Gierach, who said: "Maybe your stature as a fly fisherman isn't determined by how big a trout you can catch, but by how small a trout you can catch without being disappointed," here's Canoeman (and yes, Bulldog, I realize that isn't a trout he's holding):
*may be some repeat photos here, as well as arguments, but they're probably worth looking at twice. The photos, that is.