Lake Buchanan fishing guide Fermin Fernandez pilots his boat to one of his many fishing holes in search of striped bass for his clients. Staff photo by Dakota Morrissiey
Fermin Fernandez has been fishing since he could walk. For the past 28 years, the 63-year-old angler has been a professional fishing guide on Lake Buchanan, taking clients on countless angling excursions and reeling in countless freshwater memories.
In that time, he’s gained a deep knowledge of the lake and a deeper appreciation for sharing the joy of the sport.
“Holy smokes, it’s a cool way to make a living!” Fernandez exclaimed. “The older I get, the harder it gets, but I still enjoy it. There’s a lot of people that have been working their whole lives and they can’t say that.”
Fernandez grew up in Dallas but was born in Guantánamo Province, Cuba, where he lived until he was 6.
“Both of my parents are Cuban,” he said. “We fled communism like a lot of Cubans did back in the ’60s.”
Fernandez credits his father with nurturing his lifelong fascination with fishing. They fished creeks, tanks, and ponds around Dallas.
“My dad taught me a lot of what I knew back then, and after a while, I taught him,” he said with a laugh.
Fernandez moved to the Highland Lakes in the 1980s, originally guiding on Inks Lake before switching to Lake Buchanan full time in the mid-1990s. In total, he has nearly 40 years of experience as a fishing guide in the region.
Fishing for stripers is his superpower. His clients count on his expertise to help them snag and drag the most prized trophy fish of the Highland Lakes. Striped bass are coveted for their adrenaline-inducing fight on the line, large size, and good eating.
Buchanan stripers are 3-8 pounds on average, but a trophy striper might be 20 pounds and up on that particular lake, Fernandez said.
Fishing the waters of Lake Buchanan as a pro provides ample opportunities for landing a trophy fish. Fernandez has personally reeled in 77 stripers each weighing in at 30 pounds or more.
While his mission is to help clients go home with their daily bag limit of five fish of 18 inches or larger, that’s not guaranteed.
“It’s called fishing, not catching,” said Fernandez, using an old angler’s joke as a caveat.
“I put a lot of pressure on myself,” he continued. “Your reputation is at stake every time you take people out. You can do everything right and the fish still may not bite, and you’re going to take the blame for that. It is up to the fish. All you can do is put the bait in front of their face.”
Slow days happen, but with his decades of knowledge, Fernandez said most trips are a success.
“You’re either a hero or a zero, and I would much rather be the hero,” he said. “There’s a lot to know. It’s not just casting a line.”
Over the years, Fernandez has developed a profound understanding of Lake Buchanan and its fish. He described the lake as “big, wide-bodied, and deep,” estimating it has an average depth of 45-50 feet with long stretches averaging 60-70 feet deep. The lake reaches 132 feet at its deepest point. The exact size of the Highland Lakes reservoir fluctuates depending on its level, which depends on drought conditions. But when full, it spans 34.9 square-miles.
Over the four seasons, Fernandez adjusts his methods to give clients the best chance at hooking as many fish as possible. In the early spring, he gets up at 4 a.m. to cast nets for live bait before his morning guided trips. In the summer, he begins trolling with jigs to get the fish to chase. In the fall, he switches to topwater fishing. And in the winter, he does whatever he can to get the fish to bite.
This reporter experienced an early summer guided fishing trip on Lake Buchanan with a New Braunfels family.
Jamie and Vince Parks and daughters Maddie and Emily met Fernandez at his dock on the lake’s western shore at 7 a.m. The outing ended four hours later. It was the perfect encapsulation of a fishing trip: a lot of waiting and patience punctuated by moments of intensity and satisfaction.
Fernandez began the day with a tried-and-true opener: “I hate fishing. It’s boring and slow. Catching is a lot more fun.”
He positioned eight rods around the boat and baited them for the family, giving precise instructions on how to snag the fish and how many cranks to lift the bait, depending on the depth of the spot on the lake.
For the first hour, things looked grim. The anglers drifted across the massive lake, coming up empty-handed at spots Fernandez had helped clients limit out only days before. He attributed the slow morning to the full moon, explaining that strong moonlight helps fish hunt throughout the night so they’re not as hungry at sunrise. He estimated things would pick up at around 10 a.m. or so, and he was right.
After hours of slow fishing, every rod on the boat seemed to be slammed faster than the Parks family could reel them in. In the final hour of the trip, the family nearly filled their cooler after playing the waiting game for most of the morning.
Fernandez went a little above and beyond for the Parks. Older daughter Maddie, 13, became affectionately known as “the fish slayer” because she caught the most.
Fernandez made sure to find the largest, liveliest bait in the bunch for younger daughter Emily, 12, who closed out the trip with the largest catch of the day.
“Sometimes, you get the kids that dads drag out there, and they hate it, but it’s a whole lot of fun to see the ones that actually enjoy fishing,” he said. “I do this for a living, and I still get excited. But my excitement now is watching other people catch fish.”
Lake Buchanan is stocked with 150,000 striped bass every year by the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department and with 2 million hybrid striped bass by the nonprofit Lake Buchanan Conservation Corp. Without these stocking efforts, the lake would not be the exemplary fishery that it is today.
Also, the Lake Buchanan Conservation Corps stocks the lake with 1 Million “small-fry” Hybrid Stripers each year around the beginning of May. Mr. Hernandez (from the article) has caught many of them.