Fly Fishing in Texas

A regional note specific to this state: the trout fishing here is a mix of tailwaters and a few high-country freestone streams, and the state agency manages the tailwaters as trophy fisheries and the freestone streams as wild trout fisheries, and the most productive water depends on the time of year. Texas trout fishing is a small but technically fascinating tailwater fishery built on the cold-water discharge of three US Army Corps of Engineers dams. The state has three main tailwaters: the Guadalupe River below Canyon Lake Dam, the Frio River below the Frio River Dam, and the lower portions of the Brazos River below Possum Kingdom Dam. The most famous of these tailwaters is the Guadalupe, a 6-mile stretch of trophy water where rainbow and brown trout reach 22 inches. The state's trout program is administered through the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, and the agency stocks the Guadalupe seasonally with rainbows while maintaining a self-sustaining brown trout population. A regular Texas fishing license is required, and the cost is $30 for residents and $58 for non-residents, and the daily limit is 5 trout combined in most waters with special regulations on the Guadalupe tailwater. The unique regional quirk is that the Guadalupe tailwater has the only catch-and-release fly-fishing-only section in Texas — a 1-mile stretch that requires artificial flies and lures only.