You can probably think of a dozen good reasons to visit the historic town of New Braunfels. This is a community that celebrates more than a century and a half of German heritage dating back to the Republic of Texas when Prince Carl of Solms-Braunfels brought shiploads of settlers from the Old World to what he thought was an earthly paradise on the banks of the Guadalupe and Comal rivers. There’s the famous Wurstfest, the Lone Star version of Munich’s Oktoberfest, where you can stuff yourself silly on good German sausage and polka your legs into putty. If you’re a smart shopper, there’s a cluster of outlet malls where bargains are waiting to be found. There’s Schlitterbahn, considered by many to be one of the premier water parks in the country. There’s the sheer beauty of the Texas Hill Country and its wildlife.

And then there’s the fishing.

I well remember the frosty December morning I first set foot on the banks of the Comal River with a fishing rod in hand. It was almost 20 years ago. I was a returning student at the University of Texas in Austin, a 45-minute drive north on IH 35. After my German professor overheard me talk about a solo float trip I’d made on the Guadalupe River, he and I began to discuss fishing – a subject with which I was far more familiar than the finer points of the subjunctive mood. It turned out he was a fellow angling addict and lived in New Braunfels. The next thing I knew, Dr. Hans-Bernd Moeller and I were sharing a canoe on the Comal.

Here’s what I noticed first -- even though the pre-dawn temperature hovered in the high 20s, as soon as you approached the river, the air warmed up and you had to shed outerwear. Dr. Moeller – who quickly became “Bernd” – told me that because it was spring fed, the water temperature was just over 70 degrees year around. I’d never fished anything like the Comal. It’s a sparkling, beautiful outdoor aquarium, brimming with bream, bass, and Rio Grande cichlids, all finning their way through fronds of underwater vegetation. Through the years, Bernd and I have become the best of friends, sharing many an adventure, fishing or otherwise. I guess it all started that day when he taught me something at least as valuable as Conversational Deutsch: in water as clear as a glass of schnapps, live minnows may well out perform your favorite lures. If you do use lures, I recommend weightless wacky worms and anything that imitates a crawfish.

If you decide to try the Comal, be advised that you can’t use a motorized boat. The access points Bernd uses to launch his canoe are in Landa Park where a small dock juts out into the water, just below the Wurstfest grounds opposite the golf course, and the tuber exit at Union Ave. and E. Lincoln St. Fishing the Comal is an urban experience—something I wouldn’t recommend on a sunny, summer afternoon, when you’re likely to share the water with hundreds of pleasure-seeking tubers. But if fishing’s your game, you still have plenty of options in the New Braunfels area.

First of all there’s 8200-acre Canyon Lake, upstream on the Guadalupe River. This is a first class reservoir, with excellent angling for largemouth and smallmouth bass, as well as stripers, white bass, crappie, and catfish. Then there’s the river itself, especially between the dam and New Braunfels. You can wade it or float it in a tube, canoe, or kayak. Either way, you’ll probably catch all the fish you want, especially redbreast sunfish, which fight especially well on light tackle in swift water. I once caught a three-pound smallmouth on a Wooly Bugger, but my favorite rig is a small popper ‘n’ dropper, i.e. a wet fly trailing a foot or so behind a cork popper.

The stretch of river directly below Canyon Dam holds Texas’ only year-around rainbow trout fishery. They’re stocked there annually and are able to survive hot Texas summers because release water from the bottom of the 125-foot deep lake is just the right temperature enough to sustain cold water fish. I’ve done well there with #12 or #14 Elk Hair Caddis dry flies on a five-weight flyrod. I suspect small nymphs might prove even better.

Then just downstream from New Braunfels is Lake Dunlap, a small, 410-acre impoundment. If you’re looking for a stringer of “bream” for a fish fry, this is a good spot to try. Expect to catch redears, warmouths, coppernose bluegills, redbreasts (locally called “yellow bellies”) and the occasional Rio Grande cichlid (Rio Grande perch), all of which can easily get to frying pan size. You might even snag an exotic tilapia. There’s also Guadalupe bass, stripers, and plenty of channel and blue catfish.

Bass anglers take note – the fish here get huge! Lake record is almost 15 pounds – a 14.94 pound Florida largemouth caught in 1997 by Larry Todd. Just four years ago in 2005, Kenn Link landed a smallmouth that was a few ounces shy of four pounds. I’ve never fished Dunlap, but local anglers recommend soft plastics on the bottom near the snags and topwaters, spinnerbaits and cranks around the boathouses.

Much of the banks are covered with expensive houses, but you can access Dunlap by driving under the north side of the IH 35 bridge. There’s a boat ramp near the bridge, and you also have a few hundred yards of bank from which to fish before you reach private property. Once you’re on the water, you can go anywhere you like, but pay attention to property rights. Bank fishing access is very restricted.

New Braunfels straddles IH 35 only half an hour north of San Antonio and the famous River Walk. It’s fifteen minutes south of Texas State University at San Marcos, and at most it’s an hour to the capitol of Texas in Austin. For such an urban area, with so many other attractions, it’s amazing how many angling opportunities you have. I recommend you give it a try.