Guadalupe Now: What is the State of Our River and Its Fishery?

By

Mick McCorcle

Much has happened to the Guadalupe River in the last few years. We’ve had record droughts and 500 year floods, have seen a Special Regulations fishing section established and obtained a hard-won guarantee of minimum summer flows sufficient to support trout on a year-round basis. Each of these events, whether natural or manmade, has affected the flora, fauna, water, and structure of the river. While we’ve all made informal observations of the changes and have our own pet theories about the effect on the Guadalupe trout fishery, we have no strong empirical data on the current state of the river.

If we are going to be effective stewards and advocates for the Guadalupe River and its trout fishery, we need a clear strategy to guide our efforts. To help us become more effective stewards of the river and to provide clearer guidance for our chapter’s future conservation and stocking efforts, members of the Board recently met with representatives from TPWD and the Aquatic Center at Texas State University, San Marcos. We have asked them to assist us in developing and conducting a priority list of study and work projects. The projects could range from studies of water temperature and quality to surveys of invertebrates to tracking studies of adult or fingerling trout.

There is a lot we don't know about the river, especially post floods, that we could learn from well-defined projects. They could also give us stream work objectives that we sorely need to energize the conservation agenda in the chapter. If we claim to be more than a fishing club, then a research and conservation agenda is crucial to our success, as is a long term strategy for advocacy of the fishery (which includes diligence on stream flows, water temperature and quality, special regulations, etc.) If we claim to be stewards of the river, but are doing no more than stocking fish, we'll open ourselves to critiques from all sides.

In order to kick off the studies, which we’ve named Guadalupe Now, we have added a line for volunteer contributions on this year’s membership applications. We plan to use those funds as seed money to get us started and help us find matching funds or grants from other sources. If you’d like to contribute or are interested in helping plan or provide volunteer labor from some of the projects, contact me at 830-230-5507 or via e-mail at mick.mccorcle@grtu.org and I’ll forward the information to our newly-formed Conservation Committee.