A Bolt of Wildness: First Trip to Clear Creek

The temperature breaks 75 degrees for the first time this year. Seems like a good day for a Clear Creek scout. There are five cars at the parking area. I figure they're on the bluff trail downstream so I head upstream.

If there are any fish about they might like this bead head bugger as much as I do.

The Log Jam Run gets some attention. The water is still up a bit but going down.

I strike out on the deer trails that parallel the stream. I want to get even farther than the last time I was here in December.

I cross to the left bank as I've done before. This time I discover that the bank soon gives way to a rocky bluff. It finally blocks me and I have to enter the creek and try to wade my way farther upstream.

The water deepens. My feet are already wet from my blown out waders. When the current laps at the leak in the crotch I decide to opt for maintaining some degree of dryness and turn back downstream. Next time I'll stay on the right bank. I want to see what's around that bend up there.

A movement on the bank catches my eye: a mink intent on its business, rolling along with its bobbing gait. It sees me and pops into its den halfway down the bank before I can get a closer shot.

I fish my way downstream past the Gates of Moria and back to the Log Jam Run. So much prime water but no fish to be found.

I give the run a go again then switch to another white bugger with a titanium bead and rake the bottom for as far as I can reach.

I climb the bank and drop the bugger deep into a slowly revolving eddy.

A good scout. One of these days there will be fish again. In the meantime I'll settle for the glimpse of that mink, a bolt of wildness lighting up the day.

The Fate of Skeptics

Clear Creek. A new boot scraper at the trailhead.

I go to see what's upstream. I make my way to some old bridge abutments.

The current is slow and deep.

I swing a newly-tied fly. A woolly bugger with lots of flash.

A spicebush swallowtail keeps pace with me as I fish.

The bugger gets some rises and follows. A pumpkinseed nabs it.

Then a flash and a grab. A smallmouth. Still a baby but bigger than the last one.

I fish my way downstream. Good-looking water. Should be big smallmouth in there. But there aren't.

Back at the riffle I wade out and around.

I find a rock firmly captured by sycamore roots.

I cross over to the fishermen's trail.

On the gravel bar I see something white and round. At first I think it's a geode.

No, it's what's left of a young raccoon.

I get ready to fish the riffles and runs ahead.

I switch to another new tie. I've seen small sunfish on their nests. They flash orange as they dart through the current.

I'm fishing through the riffles. I'm looking for geodes. I come to this deep slot. The fly swings behind the submerged rocks. I'm reaching down to pick up a rock. All hell breaks loose.

It's a smallmouth. Has to be. It's big and strong and in a hurry to get downstream. It breaks me off and is gone. Just like that.

Earlier I was fishing with a 2X tippet. That would have handled him, I think. Then I switched to 4X. Why?

Because I was catching small fish. And as much as I wanted to believe that there were big smallmouth in this stream, I was still, somewhere deep down, a skeptic. The fate of skeptics is to be unprepared when the impossible happens.

You gotta believe.

I fish on down to the tailout and pool. More sunfish.

A chub.

I turn back upstream and hike out.

I'm a skeptic no more.