"Think again buddy, that creek's loaded with fish," a friend told
me, about what I considered a write-off piece of water. The reason
that I never considered fishing this creek is the fact that, where
it forms a confluence with the river near town, it is dried up
during the summer. What I was told is that it flows quite well above
town, but it takes an underground route, rather than flowing
straight into the river, therefore producing what appears to be a
dried up creek bed near town.
So
we headed up that familiar gravel road and stopped at the bridge
that crossed the creek. I had my 3 weight strung up with a short,
stubby, half-used leader of about 12 lb. test and on the end of it,
I tied on a #10 Royal Wulff. Not exactly a Stauffer Creek setup, but
I thought it would do on this creek. I scouted out a nice spot right
below a small waterfall and punched out my line for the first cast
of the day. "FISH ON!" I heard coming from upstream. It was obvious
Tim caught one first cast, before my fly even hit the water. Right
when he said that, I saw a little splash right at my fly. BOOM!
Double header on our first cast each. A dynamite creek it was
indeed. The average sized fish was around 6-8 inches which was
expected, but the neatest part of that day was this decent, fat lil'
10 incher, sitting right against one of the banks. This fish was
doing a perfect imitation of a monster brown.
First cast, my fly went over it; it changed feeding lanes and
non-chalantly sipped down my #10 Royal Wulff, like it was a small
midge. Damn fish! I missed it and stung it too. All of a sudden I
see Tim over my shoulder firing a cast at it. Obviously Tim wanted a
piece of the action. It's little shadow moved from under the bank
and like a bat out of hell, it smacked Tim's offering. It's sad to
say, but we lost that fish another 3 times and then it gave up on
us. I didn't mind because every pocket we fished had 2-3 fish in it.
I finished my day at a nice corner pool, where I pulled out about 10
trout on 10 casts. I think that was a pretty good way to end the
day.
Two
other creeks that we discovered last summer were ones which we would
have been embarrassed to be seen on, had they not had trout. They
were on the way to a popular tourist area, but no one ever would
have thought of stopping to fish them. The first one we fished had
some very nice pools that contained some of the most beautiful
rainbows I have ever seen. They had a nice bluish tinge to their
sides, as well as amazing bright red bands along them. We caught so
many unsophisticated trout on this creek, it was just plain silly,
especially after fishing some of Alberta's small brown trout streams
earlier in the year. This was my redemption. The fish gods had been
punishing me for so long, it was my turn to punish them. (damn brown
trout)
One of the biggest surprises of last summer was on the drive down
from one of our favorite lakes. This lake is stocked, but it has
limited reproduction as well, producing some huge trout. We were
driving with the windows down, until I demanded that we stop. I
heard some flowing water deep down in the bush and with lots of time
on my hands, I wanted to investigate. There was an extremely tiny
creek that was so thick with bush we almost immediately wrote it
off. The only places I could cast were pretty close to the road and
even in these spots I had to do an awkward sideways roll cast/dabble
with my fly. My rod tip was pretty much touching the water on the
first cast, when an all too familiar event happened. As I skidded my
dry fly against the current one trout grabbed it, no wait two,
actually three. Oh look, there's a fourth. Hey, it's a fifth
skulking in the shadows. Wowsers, five trout battling for my fly! I
could live with that any day of the week, especially on another
creek that I guarantee no one ever fishes. Just another day at the
office in the west.
These creeks were such a blast, that we needed to share the
experience of fishing them with Nick and Trevor. As they met up with
us, there was no need to fish these creeks because we discovered
another one with them! This one was by far the best of the bunch,
and the most unique as well. It had awesome pocket water that a
creek fishing guru would drool over, and enough fish to provide any
angler with hours of excitement. The water changed from deep, log
covered pools, to undercuts and side channels that you could walk
over. And yes, these side channels were loaded with trout too!
Trevor decided he would call this one "yankee creek" because it
reminded him of some of the picturesque New England trout streams,
or the nice free-flowing brooks of the Catskills. We agreed, because
of the diverse water and the banks covered with dark green foliage
and moss.
All
four of us found a way to fish this creek at the same time, but
Trevor was especially excited to get to the next pools. I picked up
the scraps after all three of them, which produced a fish a cast
anyway. All in all, we probably landed close to 80 a piece in a
little over two hours. (not too bad!) This creek was now engraved in
all of our hearts as being a truly special place. The fish were all
forgiving when it came to taking flies and they were some of the
nicest, if not the nicest coloured rainbows I have ever seen. Trevor
could only compare one of the bigger ones he caught to a golden
trout because of its brilliant gold and red sides.
Previous to Nick and Trevor's arrival, we headed out to the
headwaters of one of the area's small creeks. The nice, slow water
meandered it's way through meadow surroundings up high on the
mountain. This was completely different than down below, where the
creek tumbles over boulders and a gravel bottom. We fished the upper
reaches by pounding hopper patterns against the tall grass banks.
This produced some nice fish, and a bunch of them too. The funniest
thing happened when Tim cast a Chernobyl Ant near the bank. The fish
boiled for it : it missed the fly: Tim popped it back towards
himself like a bass popper, it smoked it again, and Tim had this
fish smash the fly 5 times on one retrieve!
This was again a unique place, that not many people would consider fishing. So if you're driving out to your favorite hot-spot this summer with your windows rolled down, and you hear flowing water in the bush, stop and have a look. You might find yourself a piece of hidden gold in the west's treasure box. Better yet, if you find yourself off the beaten path, go explore some bush. You might just find a needle in the haystack.
Written by: Andy Tchir