The Guadalupe below Canyon Lake is the strangest trout river in this whole app — a Hill Country limestone river in central Texas that grows rainbow trout only because Canyon Lake Dam dumps cold water out of its depths into the summer heat. It's the southernmost trout fishery in the country, kept alive by Texas Parks and Wildlife stocking and the Guadalupe River chapter of Trout Unlimited, who lease private reaches and run special regulations to hold a year-round fishery. Fish the cold water close to the dam, especially in summer; the further downstream you go, the warmer it gets and the shorter the trout's welcome.
The Guadalupe below Canyon Lake is the southernmost trout fishery in the United States, which is a sentence that requires a dam to be true — the cold bottom release out of Canyon Reservoir keeps a stretch of Hill Country river cold enough for rainbows and the occasional holdover brown to survive the Texas heat, at least for a while. It runs through the limestone canyon country northwest of San Antonio, clear and green over a bed of limestone cobble, ledge and the bald cypress roots that line every Hill Country river, the flow entirely dependent on what the dam lets out. It's a tailwater novelty and a genuinely fun one — stocked heavily, fished hard, prone to crowds and tubers in summer — but the lower releases hold over fish and the limestone gives it real character. Wading is comfortable on firm rock. It is trout fishing where trout shouldn't be, and Texans love it all the more for that.
Wading: Release dependent flow, summer crowds
- Limestone
- Partly confined
- Pool riffle