Small "Cricks"

David used to fish a small creek that meanders through several backyards of his hometown. Since it is all private property with virtually no public access it is nice that he knows all the residents on a certain stretch. We hiked the stream one day and sampled what the creek had to offer. It was true small stream fishing. We had a micro indicator with a tungsten bead head rainbow warrior suspended a foot or two below it. With this set-up we took turns flipping and swinging it into the many small plunge pools and pint sized runs the stream offered. Many times we would be rewarded with small but beautiful wild rainbows, progeny from stockers of days past. No cameras were brought, but here is a picture of me fishing the same stream on a different day trying not to snag my flies in a host of nasties.


We will be sure to return soon and document of few of its gems. More recently we headed one morning to a small lake that has a nice little feeder stream above. There were sporadic fish rising and there were midges about. We tried to suspend some nymphs under and indicator to avail. We moved over to where the stream enters and while waiting for my indicator to go under something caught my eye that was wiggling in the surface film. It was far enough away that to me it looked like a large beetle. A few minutes later I saw another one of these "beetles" wiggling on the surface. I knew it was highly unlikely that two similar sized beetles somehow got out onto the water and I decided to investigate. I saw another one within a rods length from me. I got the bug to climb onto the tip and seized the little devil. Low and behold it was a fairly large stonefly. The stream was washing them into the lake. For some strange reason the fish were not keying in on them though. I was surprised since they should have seemed like floating Big Macs to the fish.

Floating Big Mac

We decided to head up and fish the stream which turned out to be a good call. There were some very tricky areas to lay the flies down due to the overhanging trees. We found a rockstar hole and on the first cast David nailed a beautiful wild bow. We tied into several fish and had a great time. Thinking about it with hindsight we should have tried a stonefly, duh! Who knows, the fish may have been too small to suck one down. We will give it a try next time though. I really love small creeks. Usually the fish are small, but there are few to zero anglers sharing the water with you. It is also very challenging with the overhanging trees and brush but the fish are usually willing.