Journey into Spring -- March 19, 2019

It has been wet. Clear Creek was running very high for awhile. I crank up my patience and wait. After what seems like forever I check the flow at Sugar Creek. It looks good on the USGS graphs. But when I get to the Deer Mill bridge it's still just high enough to make wading chancy. I give my casting arm a good workout and get some long casts out to some spots that produced last year. But who knows what the bottom looks like after the recent high flows. Still and all, it was an enjoyable explore in one of my favorite places.

Riding Out the Flood

I get to Clear Creek when the cold retreats for a few days. The warmer temps bring rain and I come in just after the rain quits.

I start upstream. The river is beautiful here, obviously scoured out by the recent spate.

This is what it looked like last year. Someone must have gone in and taken the wood out.

Now there are fishable runs on both banks.

I fished both sides, but I must have gotten there before the fish after the flood. This sand bank is still under construction. I waded it, but there are still soft spots.

I waded out and headed downstream past the bridge to the long slow bend I like to fish.

I rested a minute up on the berm of the old railroad tracks where the bridge abutments stand.

Looking down I could plainly see that the flood was indeed a flood, laying down an alluvial plain of sand far up into the woods.

When I climbed down to the water I saw that the long bend was still flooded. I waded in but the soft and yielding sand all along the bank forced me to retreat.

Farther downstream I was able to lay out some casts and get some swings in, but nothing came to the fly.

I climbed the bank into the dunes and hiked back to the truck through the woods. The high water mark was a good hundred yards from the stream.

So no fish at Clear Creek again. I did find one living thing in the river: a turtle that must have ridden out the flood.

For the past few days since I was there it has been in the teens during the day and single digits at night. I hope the turtle was able to ride out the cold, too.

Looking Forward to Winter

The temp was spiking in the upper fifties. Pretty good for December. So I decided to go to Sugar Creek, but when I checked stream flows online I discovered it was running very high and fast. My next best option was closer to home: Clear Creek.

Clear Creek was also high and fast but I knew I could access a good stretch without having to wade deep.

I hiked upstream to the old railroad abutments. The water was almost all the way to the treeline but it was only ankle deep.

I've had good fortune on this stretch, catching two of my best smallmouths here on successive casts. I was eager to get a fly into that deep flow.

I was able to get the fly close to the far bank, but the high water limited the room necessary for a real long cast. But then I got a bump just where the swing straightened out and the river narrowed. No hookup.

I fished on down past the many leaf stacks left by the high water.

At the farthest place downstream that I could make a good cast I turned around and went back upstream. I changed flies from a dark streamer to a white streamer and started downstream again.

At the spot where I had gotten some bumps I slowed down and did my best to cover the water well. I made several swings. Finally, on a slow strip, I felt a take. It was a fat little smallie, a bright spot in the drab day.

I especially enjoyed its eye, glowing like an ember.

I made more casts there, wondering if he was schooled up. If he was, he was the only fish willing to hit a fly. I fished on downstream, turned and made one more pass with a third fly, but the catching was over.

Everything went so well on this trip that I made an early resolution: to get to Clear Creek at least once a week all through the winter. I'm looking forward to it.

Clear Creek Redone

Time to see how Clear Creek is faring. It was surely not immune to the rains and high water of recent weeks.

The crossing at the rapids had a big tree in it last season but now it's gone.

Oh, there it is, down in the middle of the wide slow water.

The fisherman's trail on the other side isn't grown over yet. Wild flowers still display their bright colors in the carpet of green.

The fungi are having a good spring.

There used to be a fallen tree here, too. It seemed immovable through the two seasons I've fished here. Now it has disappeared into thin air.

Oh, here it is. It rolled up on top of two or three other trees already lodged against some standing trees.

I fish this section. This is where I've caught most of my smallmouth. Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems that the spate smoothed out all the potholes and runs and boulders. Maybe the smallies will still find some satisfactory lies. But they weren't there this time.

There's a new blow down. I wonder where it will end up.

I make my way down toward the island and the pretty little run.

Again, it might be my imagination, but it seems the run is diminished. It used to drop off of the gravel and rock bar into a long deep chute. Now it looks like the gravel and rocks have been pushed over into the chute.

It's the same on down where the stream makes a wide bend at the foot of the island. It used to sweep right to left making a fine current seam between the fast run on the right and the deep slower water on the left. Now it has been evened out. I'll reserve judgment on this change. I never caught anything here before. Maybe this change will change my luck, too.

Time to slog out.

I stopped at the wide slow stretch under the ridge and cast a little muddler to some little rises. My guess is chubs. They whacked the fly hard but they were too small to hook up.

We've had more rain since I was there. Maybe I'll find yet another stream when I go back again.