Whoa There!

That's what I thought to myself as I got up a small hill to look at Boulder Creek. She is running very fast, and even a little off color. The fishing was going to be tough, and the wading impossible. It's up around almost 200 cfs through town, which is really high for the little creek. So as it seemed to me, we had three options. Czech Nymphing, Streamers, or head home. Well, heading home wasn't on the menu, we were here to catch fish and that's what we were going to do. Czech Nymphing requires a very sensitive touch, and with all the debris from trees floating around... well there was no need for that. That left streamers. Big, shiny, bright streamers. Like what? Like the Coffee Sparkle Minnow. If you don't know what that is, here is a picture:

Nice and big, with so much shine it could blind a horse. Wait, that's not the saying. Oh well. So the Caffeine named fly was sent into the water with a splash. After a few hard strips to get the fly wet and sinking, because the tail likes to float for the first cast, we were all set to go. The first deep hole I tried fishing proved fish-less, probably because there were dogs swimming right upstream. The hole should have been perfect for streamers, deep and slow. Here is a picture so you.... well, get the picture.

So although it should have been good, no fish were found. I moved up to the next pool, slightly shallower and clear enough that you could spot fish with polarized sunnys. So I put in a few cast before I got my first taker. The thing about fishing Boulder Creek with streamers is that the fish don't have big enough mouths to hold the fly. Because of this, you catch less fish than you normally would, but you have a better chance at catching a big fish. I got a lot of strikes, but the fish would only nip at the tail, not grab the whole fly. It's also hard to set the hook mid-strip, which I'm sure doesn't help. So after the fish realized lunch was an impostor, they stopped feeding. To the next hole then. This is my personal favorite stretch for streamers, slow, medium depth, and long enough to get a great drift. So I put my first cast in. There was a follower, but he decided not to commit. I put the next cast under the large tree in some shade. I couldn't see the fly, but the hole still looked good enough to try. The cast went in. Strip, strip, strip, strip, strip, Bam! Fish on! I fought the fish for quite a while (it was light tippet and the current was strong). I finally put the fish in my net, and like I said earlier, streamers give you a chance at finding bigger fish. Well, this was no exception. This 16 inch brown was what I found in my net in the hole pictured below it:

For only fishing those three pools, it was a great day out there. Go catch some fish, and maybe even land a lunker! In other news, my custom flies and creations will be for sale on the blog soon. Would anyone be interested in that? I'll talk about it in more detail later.