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Home › Waters › Texas › Guadalupe River
Tailwater · Texas Hill Country · Texas

Guadalupe River Fishing Guides

The southernmost year-round trout water in the United States, running cold out of Canyon Dam through the Texas Hill Country toward New Braunfels.

The bow of a canoe running a quiet river beside timbered bank
Gauge location. Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors.

Guides on the Guadalupe River

Claimed profiles take booking requests. Unclaimed profiles are built from public records so the river is never empty; the guide can claim or remove one any time.

About the Guadalupe River

The Guadalupe below Canyon Dam is a genuine oddity: a trout river in central Texas, at the same latitude as the Sahara, kept alive by cold bottom releases from Canyon Lake. From the dam down through the Horseshoe Loop and the Rio Raft area to the Fourth Crossing, roughly fifteen miles hold stocked rainbow and brown trout through the winter and, in the coldest upper reaches, year-round. Guadalupe River Trout Unlimited stocks the river heavily and manages special-regulation water, which is why the fishery exists at all.

Winter is the trout season. Stocking begins in late fall, the water is coldest and clearest from December through March, and the special-regulation section between the second and fifth crossings holds the best fish. In summer the upper river still fishes early in the morning, but the dominant use is recreational tubing, which is a Texas institution and makes fishing below the tube runs impractical on weekends. Downstream and above the lake, the Guadalupe is native Guadalupe bass water and worth a day of its own.

The Sattler gauge reads the release. Roughly 100 to 400 cfs is comfortable wading and floating water. Higher flood-control releases after Hill Country rain can push it into the thousands and make the river dangerous; very low releases in drought years warm the lower reaches and shorten the trout water to the first few miles below the dam. Check the release before planning a wade day.

New Braunfels and Canyon Lake cover lodging and shops, with San Antonio and Austin both about an hour away. This is a winter fishery in a state that does not have many, and locals treat those cold months accordingly.

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The photo at the top of this page is not Guadalupe River.

It is a regional stand-in, honestly captioned but generic — we will not put a name to a river we cannot prove. Send us a photograph you took here and it replaces the stand-in, with your credit on it.

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  • Withdrawing is one email to hello@guidedfloats.com naming the photo. It comes off the site within 7 days.
Read the full license

Version 1.0, dated 6 September 2026. Applies to every photograph submitted to GuidedFloats through the contact form, a species page, or the community board.

1. What you give us

By ticking the box on the form you grant Guided Floats, LLC (“GuidedFloats”, “we”) a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to store, copy, resize, crop and display your photograph on guidedfloats.com, in GuidedFloats’ own social media accounts and mobile apps, and in material that promotes the site itself, in connection with the fish, water or community feature you sent it in for. The license lasts until you withdraw it (section 4).

You keep the copyright. The license is not exclusive, so you can use the photo anywhere else and license it to anyone else. We will not sell your photo, license it on to anyone else on its own, or use it in paid advertising for a third party.

2. What you confirm

You confirm that you took the photograph yourself (or otherwise own the rights to it), that you have the right to grant this license, and that publishing the photo does not infringe anyone else’s copyright, privacy or other rights.

If any person is recognisable in the photo, you confirm that they have agreed to its being published here, and that a parent or guardian has agreed on behalf of anyone under 18. Please do not send photographs of other people’s catches, screenshots, or pictures copied from other websites or social media.

3. Credit

We print the credit name you give us beside the photo wherever it appears on the site, and record it as the photo’s creator in the page’s structured data. If you leave the credit blank we use the name you gave us on the form. Write “Anonymous” if you prefer no name at all. Your email address, phone number and the exact spot the photo was taken are never published.

4. Withdrawing the license

You can withdraw the license at any time by emailing hello@guidedfloats.com, or by using the contact form, and telling us which photo you mean. We will remove the photo from guidedfloats.com within 7 days of receiving your message and stop using it in anything new. Copies that are already outside our control — search-engine caches, social posts that have already gone out, printed material already produced — may take longer to disappear or may not be recallable, and we are not responsible for those.

5. What we may do

We choose which photos to publish and may decline any submission without giving a reason. We may crop, resize, sharpen or colour-correct a photo for display, and we may remove a photo at any time. We will not alter a photo in a way that misrepresents the fish, the water or you.

6. Your details

We keep your name, email address, the credit name, the water and date you gave us, and the network address the submission came from, with the submission record, as our evidence of this license. We hold that record for as long as the photo is published and for the retention period described in our privacy policy. Location data that your camera or phone embedded in the file is removed before the photo is published.

7. Versions

The version of this license you accepted is stored with your submission and printed with the photo. A later version does not apply to a photo you have already sent unless you agree to it.

Fished this water? Add a photo

Reviewed by hand before it appears. Pick the water, not the spot — we never publish exact locations.

Never published. We use it only if we need to ask about the photo.

Posting to Guadalupe River.

JPG, PNG or WebP, up to 12 MB. We resize it and strip the location data out of the file.

The name shown under the photo. Leave blank to stay anonymous.

Reader photo license v1.0 — the short version:

  • You grant Guided Floats, LLC a non-exclusive, royalty-free license to publish, resize and crop your photo on guidedfloats.com and in GuidedFloats’ own social posts and apps. You keep the copyright and can use the photo anywhere else.
  • You confirm that you took the photo yourself, that publishing it does not infringe anyone else’s rights, and that anyone recognisable in it (or a parent or guardian, if they are under 18) is happy for it to appear here.
  • Credit is printed beside the photo wherever it appears on the site, using the credit name you give us. Leave it blank and we use your name; write “Anonymous” for no name. Your email address is never published.
  • Withdrawing is one email to hello@guidedfloats.com naming the photo. It comes off the site within 7 days.
Read the full license

Version 1.0, dated 6 September 2026. Applies to every photograph submitted to GuidedFloats through the contact form, a species page, or the community board.

1. What you give us

By ticking the box on the form you grant Guided Floats, LLC (“GuidedFloats”, “we”) a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to store, copy, resize, crop and display your photograph on guidedfloats.com, in GuidedFloats’ own social media accounts and mobile apps, and in material that promotes the site itself, in connection with the fish, water or community feature you sent it in for. The license lasts until you withdraw it (section 4).

You keep the copyright. The license is not exclusive, so you can use the photo anywhere else and license it to anyone else. We will not sell your photo, license it on to anyone else on its own, or use it in paid advertising for a third party.

2. What you confirm

You confirm that you took the photograph yourself (or otherwise own the rights to it), that you have the right to grant this license, and that publishing the photo does not infringe anyone else’s copyright, privacy or other rights.

If any person is recognisable in the photo, you confirm that they have agreed to its being published here, and that a parent or guardian has agreed on behalf of anyone under 18. Please do not send photographs of other people’s catches, screenshots, or pictures copied from other websites or social media.

3. Credit

We print the credit name you give us beside the photo wherever it appears on the site, and record it as the photo’s creator in the page’s structured data. If you leave the credit blank we use the name you gave us on the form. Write “Anonymous” if you prefer no name at all. Your email address, phone number and the exact spot the photo was taken are never published.

4. Withdrawing the license

You can withdraw the license at any time by emailing hello@guidedfloats.com, or by using the contact form, and telling us which photo you mean. We will remove the photo from guidedfloats.com within 7 days of receiving your message and stop using it in anything new. Copies that are already outside our control — search-engine caches, social posts that have already gone out, printed material already produced — may take longer to disappear or may not be recallable, and we are not responsible for those.

5. What we may do

We choose which photos to publish and may decline any submission without giving a reason. We may crop, resize, sharpen or colour-correct a photo for display, and we may remove a photo at any time. We will not alter a photo in a way that misrepresents the fish, the water or you.

6. Your details

We keep your name, email address, the credit name, the water and date you gave us, and the network address the submission came from, with the submission record, as our evidence of this license. We hold that record for as long as the photo is published and for the retention period described in our privacy policy. Location data that your camera or phone embedded in the file is removed before the photo is published.

7. Versions

The version of this license you accepted is stored with your submission and printed with the photo. A later version does not apply to a photo you have already sent unless you agree to it.

Flow alert

Tell me when the Guadalupe River cfs

Now: 103 cfs, read 6:05 pm CDT, Sun Oct 18, 2026 (USGS 08167800, Guadalupe Rv at Sattler, TX).

We never use this address for anything else and never share it. See the privacy policy.

Access

Canyon Dam and the tailrace: the top of the cold water, park access below the dam.
First through Fifth Crossings on River Road: the standard public access points.
Guadalupe River Trout Unlimited special-regulation section: between the second and fifth crossings.
Horseshoe Loop: the most-fished reach, with outfitters and river camps.
Rio Raft and Whitewater Sports areas: private access and shuttles.
Guadalupe River State Park: upstream of the lake, Guadalupe bass water.
Much of the bank is private river camp land; use the public crossings.

Seasons

November through March: the trout season, stocking, cold water and clear conditions.
December through February: the best fishing of the year and the fewest tubers.
April and May: warming water, trout still holding in the upper reaches, spring rain events.
June through September: tubing season on the middle river; fish the tailrace at dawn or fish for Guadalupe bass instead.

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Questions

What is the current flow on the Guadalupe River?

As of Oct 18, 6:05 pm, the USGS gauge Guadalupe Rv at Sattler, TX reads 103 cfs, the 36th percentile for this date. Conditions update every 15 minutes.

What species can you catch on the Guadalupe River?

Anglers target Brown Trout, Guadalupe Bass, Largemouth Bass, Rainbow Trout, Striped Bass on the Guadalupe River in Texas.

Are there fishing guides on the Guadalupe River?

GuidedFloats lists 1 guide and outfitters on the Guadalupe River. Claimed profiles accept booking requests; unclaimed profiles are built from public records and link to the business.

Where can you access the Guadalupe River?

Canyon Dam and the tailrace: the top of the cold water, park access below the dam. First through Fifth Crossings on River Road: the standard public access points. Guadalupe River Trout Unlimited special-regulation section: between the second and fifth crossings. Horseshoe Loop: the most-fished reach, with outfitters and river camps. Rio Raft and Whitewater Sports areas: private access and shuttles. Guadalupe River State Park: upstream of the lake, Guadalupe bass water. Much of the bank is private river camp land; use the public crossings.

When is the best time to fish the Guadalupe River?

November through March: the trout season, stocking, cold water and clear conditions. December through February: the best fishing of the year and the fewest tubers. April and May: warming water, trout still holding in the upper reaches, spring rain events. June through September: tubing season on the middle river; fish the tailrace at dawn or fish for Guadalupe bass instead.

Where are the fishing regulations for the Guadalupe River?

Regulations change by season and section. Read the current rules on the Texas agency site: https://tpwd.texas.gov/regulations/outdoor-annual/fishing