Spring water at Concan, dry gravel by Uvalde
The East Frio is spring-fed and runs more than twenty-two miles; the West Frio rises in northeastern Real County; they meet at US 83 in Leakey. From there the river runs down its canyon past Garner State Park and Concan, and not far below that it starts to vanish. Wikipedia's account is that about 5 miles below Concan summer flow cannot keep up with percolation into the limestone, and the bed goes dry in places. The next gauge down, below the Dry Frio near Uvalde, shows how often: its monthly mean was zero in every month of 2011, 2022, 2023 and 2024.
USGS 08195000 at Concan, draining 389 square miles, is the gauge for the fishable river. Its daily median runs from 41 cfs in mid-August to 72 in mid-December; for September 24 the median is 52 and the 75th percentile 123. On September 24, 2026 it read 63.6. It has also read zero, through the fall of 1956 and on this date in 2023, and the 2024 monthly means fell to 2.78 cfs in October before a 19,400 cfs flood peak in July 2025. The record is 162,000 cfs on July 1, 1932. No outfitter publishes a flow range, so the 40 to 110 cfs band here is the USGS normal: the late-summer median at the bottom, roughly the 75th percentile at the top. Neal's reserves the right not to rent tubes when the river runs dangerous.
Garner's 2.9 miles and the no-license rule
Garner State Park has 2.9 miles of the Frio winding through 1,774 acres, and its page is blunt: no license needed to fish from shore. The Outdoor Annual says a license and endorsement are not required when fishing on state park property. Bag and length limits still apply: five black bass a day in any combination, a 14-inch minimum on largemouth, no minimum on Guadalupe bass, no limit on sunfish, 25 channel and blue catfish with only 10 over 20 inches, and five trout. Off park property you need a license; the resident freshwater package is $30, and residents under 17 need none.
Entry is $8 a day for anyone 13 and older, and the park loans fishing gear. From Memorial Day weekend through Labor Day weekend and on holidays it often fills and closes to day visitors as early as 10 a.m., reopening by 6 p.m. Public display or consumption of alcohol is prohibited in state parks, and glass is not allowed in swimming areas. A burn ban was posted September 17, 2026.
Five public crossings and a lot of private gravel
Wikipedia sums up Frio law this way: the river is popularly considered navigable from well above Leakey to about 5 miles below Concan, and all its banks are private. TPWD's legal FAQ adds that a navigable stream keeps its public character at low water, that nobody has a general right to cross private land to reach it, and that the usual legal entry is from a public road right of way where it crosses the stream, though parking on a highway bridge is illegal. Visit Uvalde County lists public crossings at 1120 Crossing, Magers Crossing, 7-Bluff Crossing, Kenneth-Arthur Crossing and Neal's Crossing.
Everything else is somebody's land. One private access lot charges $25 a day and a Mager's Crossing listing $30 per vehicle. Happy Hollow tells its tubers that failing to register vehicles and get armbands counts as trespassing, and Neal's Lodges, running since 1926, keeps its river frontage for guests and shuttles floaters to Kenneth Arthur for the short float and Seven Bluffs for the long one. The county's river etiquette page adds no glass or styrofoam on the water.
Three trout stockings, then bass and sunfish
TPWD stocked 3,500 rainbows at Garner in the 2025-26 season, on December 8, January 28 and February 25. They cannot survive most Texas summers, so this is put-and-take. The rest of the year the Frio is bass and sunfish water. Guadalupe bass, introduced in the Nueces system that includes the Frio, hold in flowing water and spawn from March into June, sometimes again in late summer or fall. Largemouth live in the quiet pools and begin spawning when the water reaches about 60 degrees. Redbreast sunfish, also introduced, eat insects, snails, crayfish and small fish, and TPWD says longears may feed on the surface, which gives a fly angler a challenge. Uvalde County's tourism office sums up the Frio, Nueces and Sabinal as bass, catfish and sunfish water.
We found no Frio fly shop or guide publishing a calendar, so the table below leans on that TPWD biology: crayfish and minnow patterns for bass, small poppers and foam for sunfish, woolly buggers for winter trout. The calendar that matters most is people. TPWD says Garner has been the most popular state park for overnight camping since it opened in 1941, and its busy season runs Memorial Day to Labor Day. Fish mornings, weekdays and the shoulder months. Garner's January low averages 37 degrees and its July high 97.