A fishy surprise! Austin is an angler's Mecca.

Just at the very moment I took the photo of the homeless plaque, this guy landed this fish right beside me. It's a 13lb carp. Earlier on in the morninghe'd caught a 40lb fish, and he said it wasn't particularly unusual to do so. There's a fishing competition on in Austin at the moment for the biggest carp over the weekend. The record is 42lbs, which someone's broken already. I've lived in Austin about 18 months, and I didn't realise that the lake had such big fish in it. He told me that Lake Austin is, in fact, one of the best lakes in America for catching carp and bass. There are fish in excess of 80lbs in the water, and there are a lot of fish, apparently. One fellow just yesterday, a few yards along from this spot, caught over 500 lbs of fish! And this is right in the middle of Austin, by a road bridge.

I think I'll be getting my fishing tackle out soon...