Call me crazy. Insane. Bonkers. Completely off my rocker. But the thing is — I don't want you to have to read this. I want a weather change that's so drastic there'd be no need to even glance at what I'm about to write. I want this article to become obsolete before you got a chance to see it – even before it goes into print. I hope it's like groceries gone bad and ready for the compost heap — of no relevance whatsoever.

But don't hold your breath!

What we're talking about is the great drought that's caught us by the collar and threatens to shake us, choke us, and grind us down until we holler something worse than "Uncle!" It's spring of 2015 and much of Central Texas has dried up. Some of our top lakes are so far below their normal levels that from many vantage points, you can't even see the water. Buchanan — my home lake — is 33 feet lower than normal. That's vertical feet, not horizontal. If a bank has a ten-to-one slope, 33 vertical feet equal more than 100 yards horizontally. In some places it's more like half a mile!

Move a few miles downstream and you'll find that Lake Travis has dropped 63 feet. And Medina Lake — that aquatic jewel only an hour from downtown San Antonio -- has plunged a whopping 90 feet. What does all this mean for anglers?

Well — there's good news and bad news.

But before we get into that, let me tell you a little about the Navajo Indians. This is a tribe that makes its home in the deserts of New Mexico and Arizona — areas whose normal rainfall makes our part of the world look like a tropical rain forest. According to Southwestern novelist Tony Hillerman, most native tribes of the area perform rain dances and other rituals in an effort to change the weather. Not so the Navajos. Instead of attempting to impose their will on the weather, the Navajos change themselves. Their strategy is to adapt their own behaviors and life styles to fit whatever conditions Mother Nature provides.

And I think that's the lesson we anglers need to learn. Maybe we can't change the weather — no matter how much we want to, we simply can not make it rain. But what we can do is change ourselves — our tactics and our expectations. We can adapt just like the Navajos.

So here's the bad news. Virtually all public ramps are closed on Buchanan and Travis so you can't launch your boat unless you find a private ramp that still reaches the water. On lakes like Canyon, Belton, Georgetown and Stillhouse Hollow, not only are some ramps inaccessible, but several public fishing docks are high and dry. If you want to fish from the bank, you may have to walk over half a mile just to get to the water. Whew! But there's good news: you can still catch quality fish. And here's more good news. Local guides are still in business and they generally have figured out a way to keep their boats in the water.

I recently had a chat with Fermin Fernandez who guides for striped bass on Lake Buchanan. He told me that shrinking lakes concentrate fish populations making them easier to locate and catch. "For the past few years fishing is the best I've ever seen," said Fermin, "and I've been guiding for 30 years."

Fellow Buchanan guide Ken Milam told me that because Buchanan now has less fishing pressure, the average size of fish has grown larger every year. "With fewer anglers keeping fish, stripers have a chance to get a year or two older," he said, "and just like whitetail deer – the older the buck, the bigger the horns." Both guides mentioned that there is no shortage of fish. The Parks and Wildlife Department has continued to stock striped bass and the Lake Buchanan Conservation Corps is regularly stocking white bass/striper hybrids.

And here's more good news. There's plenty of good fishing in other bodies of water. The Guadalupe River near New Braunfels may be lower than normal, but it still has plenty of water for angling and tubing. The smaller Highland Lakes are maintained at a more or less constant level, so you can launch your boat and fish Inks Lake, LBJ, Marble Falls, Lake Austin, and Lady Bird Lake without a hitch. Another really good area reservoir with plenty of water is Lake Bastrop southeast of Austin.

If you'd like to book a guided trip, you can google "fishing guides" for any body of water you're interested in. Here's contact info for the two I talked to:

Fermin Fernandez

512-755-1007

Ken Milam

325-379-2051

Highland Lakes information including lake levels and release times are updated daily at this website: http://hydromet.lcra.org/riverreport/report.asp

For information about the Guadalupe River: http://riversportstubes.com/Weather.htm

If you're still reading this, no doubt it means we need rain and lots of it. But until the skies open up, let's all take a lesson from the Navajos. Let's learn to use our resources more wisely. Let's learn to get by with less water. And let's stay optimistic about our favorite sport – there's still a lot of fish to catch rain or no rain!