“I may not be the only one who’s done it,” admits Dr. David Hoerster, “but I can almost guarantee that I’m the oldest.” “It” is a 125-mile kayak trip from Telegraph to Kingsland – almost the entire navigable length of the Llano River. “And it’s longer than that by canoe or kayak,” Dr. Hoerster explains, pointing out that there’s a lot of back-and-forth across the river. “Sometimes, in really shallow water, you’ve got to get out and push the boat along.”

Dr. Hoerster first thought about making the trip two or three years ago (when he was only 54 or 55 years old), and the idea had been growing in his mind for quite some time. Some time this spring (he’s now 57), he mentioned the idea to his nephew, Davis Willman and family friend Andy Virdell, both college students. While neither was able to commit to making the whole trip, both liked the idea and agreed to start the trip with him near the historic Kimble County community of Telegraph.

Now, Dr. Hoerster is no stranger to the Llano River. His family was one of the earliest pioneer families in the area, and one of the most influential. He himself has lived in Llano all his life; he wasn’t very old when his father, Dr. Dan Hoerster, introduced him to the joys of fishing on the Llano River. Things were a little more relaxed back in the 50s, and Dr. Dan was well known to ranchers all around, so it was no big deal for the family of seven (three boys, two girls) to just go camping on the riverbank.

By the time he had reached junior high school age, David was an avid fisherman. He and his two younger brothers would often go fishing with their friends, the three Wallace boys, at the lake below the dam just upstream from Llano. When David was a junior in high school, he planned what he now calls his “first escapade,” where he, his brother, and two cousins, floated down the river in “beat up canoes” on a two-day trip to Kingsland. He remembers that they h ...

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