The Buffalo Capital of the World

Austin, Texas may be better known for barbecue, live music, and keeping things weird, but beneath the surface of its urban waterways swims one of North America’s most overlooked giants. Smallmouth buffalo can grow to enormous sizes, live for decades, and offer an entirely different challenge from the gamefish most anglers spend their lives chasing. I headed to Texas with my good pal, Loren, to spend a few days with current world record holder, Austin Anderson, to learn how to target these incredible native fish, and find out why Austin, Texas might just deserve the title of “Buffalo Capital of the World.”

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3:10 to Austin

It had been a good few years since I shared a car with Loren. Years earlier, when I was first stumbling my way into carp fishing back in Kansas, Loren was one of the first people I met through the Kansas City Carp Anglers (KCCA).

The group had found me through a YouTube vlog of my brother and me attempting to catch some common carp – and reached out to show us how it was actually done. Loren and I hit it off almost immediately. He had an infectious enthusiasm for fishing and a seemingly endless social battery, the kind of person who could strike up a conversation with just about anyone and somehow make it feel like you’d known each other for years.

After moving to Milwaukee, a few years passed without another fishing trip together. So when the opportunity came to make the 12-plus-hour drive to Texas, it was high time we fixed that.  It’s a rare thing to find someone you can spend 12 hours in a car with, never turn on the radio, and somehow still find enough things to talk about to fill every mile.

But by the time we reached Austin, we were ready to find out what buffalo fishing was all about. The next morning, we met up with Austin Anderson, the current smallmouth buffalo world record holder, targeting the fish that has quietly made Austin, Texas famous among carp anglers across the country – and even around the world.

He already had the bank set up with all the doo-dads and whatcha-macolics an angler could ask for. Buckets full of prepared bait, tackle bags stuffed with rigs, tubs of paste bait, state-of-the-art carp rods, bite alarms, a four-rod pod, and even a bait boat programmed to drop our rigs at precise points around the lake.

It was impressive. Although, considering the man had caught the largest smallmouth buffalo ever recorded, I suppose showing up with a folding chair and a can of corn would have been disappointing.

We spent the morning picking Austin’s brain about his tactics – when one of the alarms finally screamed off. Loren jumped at the opportunity and began what would become a long, steady battle back to shore.

What we hadn’t fully appreciated until then was just how far Austin’s bait boat had been taking our hookbaits. Some were sitting nearly 150 yards from the bank, which meant hooking 30-plus pounds of buffalo was only the beginning. You still had to bring all that fish back across a football field and a half of water, made considerably more enjoyable when it collected a healthy tangle of weeds along the way.

Eventually, a glossy white shape broke the surface. Austin waded out with the net, and just like that, our first smallmouth buffalo of the trip was on the bank.

At around 23 pounds, it would have been a damn good carp back home. Here, it was a relatively modest buffalo.

And honestly, that’s about the perfect fish to start a guided trip with. Big enough to beat your personal best, but small enough to leave plenty of room for improvement. You get the satisfaction of accomplishing something while still being able to look back at the lake and think, Alright… now let’s catch a big one.

It wasn’t long before another alarm raced off, and this time I took to the reel, finally connected to a buffalo of my own. Somewhere during the fight, another alarm sounded. Loren grabbed the rod, and suddenly we were both standing on the bank with bent rods and fish somewhere out beyond the weeds.

This was a perfect example of one of the things I’ve always enjoyed about carp fishing. Coming from a background in gaming, I’ve often thought of other types of fishing as a little like PVP. Every spot another angler casts is one less place you can cast yourself. Even among friends, you’re sharing a finite amount of fishable water.

Carp and buffalo fishing has always felt more like PVE. Everyone sets out their rods, crosses their fingers, and waits to see which alarm goes off. When it does, the whole bank seems to become invested in getting that fish into the net.

So there was something particularly satisfying about Loren and me fighting buffalo side by side, rooting for both fish to make it safely onto the bank. But of course, when they did, I didn’t mind being able to elbow Loren a bit in the side and point out that mine happened to be just a tad heavier.

As the day moved on, another alarm finally screamed off. The fish on the end fought harder… wilder… than the buffalo we’d been catching. When it finally came into view, the flash of golden scales explained why.

A near 25-pound common carp, a new personal best for me.

The common carp in this lake may have been sharing the water with some massive native buffalo, but evidently that hadn’t stopped a few of them from putting on some serious weight.

The rest of the day was filled with bites sprinkled between stories of fishing trips past, along with a few opportunities at some larger fish. One of those came toward evening, when I reeled in a buffalo weighing more than 44 pounds. It was the kind of fish that should have been more than enough to call the trip a success.

Instead, it had us wondering what might come along tomorrow. Maybe, with another day on the bank, one of us could finally break that 50-pound mark.

A 50lb fish and 3x the Luck

With bellies full of barbecue, we slept soundly through the night and woke ready to take on another day. Austin, meanwhile, was already off and running, landing a near 46-pound buffalo before we even arrived. We took it as a good sign, readied our three rods in position and settled in for another morning of action.

But that action never came.

Hours passed by with very little to show for them. Every so often, a slow bite would sound an alarm, sending one of us to the rod for a 150-yard retrieve that ended with a small channel catfish. Not exactly the reward you hope for after putting forth the effort.

After the success of our first day, the lake had apparently decided we’d had enough.

The afternoon slowly moved on until a bite and run grabbed our attention. Loren took the rod and began the long retrieve, but somewhere along the way the fish buried itself into a thick bed of weeds. Suddenly, whatever was on the end of his line felt immovable.

Loren kept steady pressure, trying to slowly work the fish free.

Then came the sound every angler dreads. Snap. A broken line and a freed fish.

We stood there, annoyed with our luck after such a long day of very few bites, when another alarm suddenly screamed off.

Loren grabbed the rod and began working the fish toward shore, considerably more careful this time with the sting of the last break-off still fresh. When it finally came into view, Austin immediately noticed something strange.

“It’s big. I think it’s the same fish. I can see a rig in its mouth, but I don’t think you’re hooked into it.”

Somehow, impossibly, we hadn’t hooked another fish. The broken rig still attached to the buffalo we’d just lost had become tangled with the line from our second rod. After spending all day waiting for a decent bite, we’d managed to lose a fish and then, through some ridiculous stroke of luck, catch up with the same fish again.

Austin eased toward it with the net.

The fish submerged… The line went slack.

It had untangled itself.

And it was gone… again.

This time, there was no quick return call. All three of us stood there in disbelief at what had just happened. Hooking a fish, losing it, then somehow working that same fish back to shore on a completely different line. What were the chances?

Austin resumed his guiding duties, resetting the two rods that had now been pulled from their spots without a fish to show for either.

Fifteen minutes passed. All three rods were back out when one of the alarms began to beep. A little at first, then a lot.

Loren looked at me to take the rod, but in my mind, he still hadn’t landed a fish. It was his turn.

He grabbed the rod and pulled tight, to find an eerily familiar bend loaded into it…

Loren’s expression seemed equal parts worried and determined as he began working the fish toward the bank. Whatever was on the other end was heavy. And the last two times his rod had felt like this, he’d ended up with nothing to show for it.

As a pearl-colored shape broke the surface in the distance, the whole thing suddenly felt much more attainable. Dare we say, our worry was starting to turn into excitement.

Austin waded toward the fish as Loren continued working it to shore. The net went down. The fish went in. Caught.

Austin looked down into the net.

“It’s the same fish! It’s still got the other rig in its mouth!”

Loren looked at me in disbelief.

“I got it back!” he shouted.

Three rods, three different attempts to bring the same fish to shore, and finally, it happened. We couldn’t believe the odds of something like that occurring. One in a million? One in 100 million? Who the hell knows. At that point, I’m not sure we cared.

It’s the sort of moment you dream about when planning a fishing trip. After all the travel, the days spent on the bank, the slow fishing, the broken line, and the heartbreak of watching the same fish disappear a second time, Loren was finally holding it. You couldn’t manufacture the smiles that came from something like that.

And as if the story needed anything else, the scale settled at 52 pounds, 11 ounces.

We’d spent the night before wondering if we’d get a chance at a 50-pound buffalo on the end of one of our lines. As it turns out, we’d get three chances at the same one.

But it wouldn’t be the last memorable moment.

As the evening neared its end, one of the alarms screamed off one last time. The feeling on the other end was immediately recognizable. There comes a point with these heavy carp rods and reels where a smaller fish doesn’t so much fight its way to shore as get caught in a cyclone, swimming circles while the reel steadily brings it closer.

When it finally reached the bank, our suspicions were confirmed. Another channel catfish.

But this one was different.

At 12 pounds, 12 ounces, Austin informed us we’d just caught a lake record. But apparently, it was a record he’d already helped break more than three times.

With that, we finally packed up the rods and called it a trip. The next morning, Loren and I pointed the car north and began another 12-plus hours of conversation toward home.

Looking back, it’s easy to focus on the numbers. A 26-pound personal-best carp. A buffalo over 45. A 52-pounder that apparently needed three invitations before agreeing to come ashore. And, somehow, a lake-record channel catfish thrown in for good measure.

But the numbers aren’t really what I remember most.

I remember sharing the bank with an old friend, learning from an angler who had spent years figuring out these waters, and discovering just how much fun it can be to target a native fish most Americans probably couldn’t identify if you put one in their hands. Smallmouth buffalo don’t jump like bass or carry the reputation of musky, but perhaps that’s part of their charm. They’re big, powerful, remarkably old fish hiding in waters many of us drive past without a second thought.

We came to Texas wondering whether Austin deserved to be called the “Buffalo Capital of the World.” After a couple days on the bank, I’m not sure we found much reason to argue otherwise.

But if you ever find yourself sharing a bank with Loren, I imagine he’d answer with a question of his own:

“Well… have you ever hooked the same 50-pound buffalo three times?”