May 4, 2016 – Urban “Blue Lining” for Wild Browns

Yes, that is the reflection of an HD billboard in the water...

I had a rewarding adventure this morning, exploring a tiny creek that doesn’t even show up on most maps.  Although, I guess it can't technically be called blue lining if there are no blue lines on the map....  The creek is a spring fed tributary of another creek that I often fish, and it’s been on my radar to try for a few years, but I just never got around to it until today.  It is amazing where wild fish can thrive if there is a little bit of spawning habitat and cool water temperatures in the summer so they don’t go belly-up.  This place had discarded tires, and Doritos bags, and construction debris, and god knows what else in the stream bed, but it also had healthy wild fish and a good number of them in the prime holes.

One of the larger fish, one of over a dozen in less the three hours of fishing.

As if often the case, it takes a while to find un-posted areas to fish, and parking is often an entirely new challenge once you do.  I did some recon on this creek before, so I had taken care of the first part.  I eventually found parking that was a bit of a walk away from the access point, but it was legal.  I love getting the funny looks when I am all Orvis-ed up walking along a main street in a city and carrying a fly rod!  It's a bonus to see the blue tarpaulin of a former homeless resident of the creek as I descend into the valley too...

Not the prettiest hole, but it yielded my first fish .

Despite not being the prettiest place on earth, I quickly found a pair of deep holes, which were pretty stained from the run-off of a nearby highway but looked very promising.  The water temp was a good 57 degrees in an un-shaded, shallow area, so the fish were very active when hooked, some taking multiple leaps and runs.  On my 8 foot 3 weight rod, they were a lot of fun.  Even though the water was stained, my first fish had no problem finding a size 16 mayfly nymph.  I had no idea what kind of habitat was upstream, so I spent some time on this first hole trying to get another.  One decent fish chased a black bugger, but I missed the hookset.  Still, I would have been happy landing one and seeing another if the rest of the creek didn’t prove to be so fertile.

"Swimming" a scud or a soft hackle worked very well.

I continued to work upstream and found some more boggy deep holes, closer to the habitat of a true spring creek.  I decided to tie on a scud and a zebra midge dropper because I figured I could gently “swim” a scud back down to me.  That approach ended up working with a variety of flies.  I caught well over a dozen fish and dropped one or two more.  No hatching activity, but I did get fish to eat a caddis pupae in the film, the midge, several on the scud, and even a few on a soft hackle March Brown (also gently “swimming” it an inch at a time in quiet holes).  By approaching slowly and kneeling a few times, I was able to get multiple fish out of at least three deep, flat holes.

I think this was the first of the morning on a nymph.

I had to quit by noon and go to work, so I ended at a good spot, leaving a bit more water to discover next time, especially if I am up to traversing a highway culvert (I am, though probably not in the rain with stained water).  I walked a bit downstream from my drop in point to take a look around, but I didn’t see much life, and I appeared to be getting much closer to posted land.  These adventures always have the potential to disappoint, and I only had a small window of time in which to execute the plan, so I was very content to catch so many wild fish in such an unlikely spot.

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