Not So Small Water

**Lone Wulff** · 10-01-2011, 12:49 PM

Boy, the weather people have really been getting it wrong lately. I had been hearing for days that the bad weather was behind us and it would be sunny going forward. However, every day was more of the same with periods of torrential downpour. I inquired at a local outdoor sporting goods store if they had heard how the streams were holding up. They said they were fine, so I went. Besides, Sunday was going to be the best day yet – sunny and in the mid 80s. No rain this time. Really.

I was in the mood for some really small water and a particularly scenic creek had been haunting me all week. It had been a couple of years since I was there last. I headed out early on Sunday morning. About half way to the mountains it started raining. As I neared my destination it stopped, but the streams lower down in the drainage were very muddy. The tributaries were only slightly clearer. I would be fishing a tributary to a tributary.

Visibility in my targeted creek wasn’t bad – about 12 inches. I don’t mind fishing in the rain and I don’t mind muddy water. It’s the raging currents that come with excessive precipitation that I don’t care for. Today, this creek had about 3 times the volume of water it normally carries. And it was moving.

No water type produced consistently. Occasionally one would come from a small, calm pocket midstream.

Occasionally, one would come from the shallow fast water.

Most came on the dropper, but every now and then, one would take the dry. Early on, all of them were browns.

I was unable to pattern their behavior and had to work for each fish. One thing was for sure though; they weren’t in the slower runs, along the banks, or in the quiet water at the heads of pools adjacent to the current.

Eventually the action stopped. I went a long time without a strike. I decided to give one last pool a try. If I didn’t catch anything here I would call it quits. If I did, I would continue fishing. I pulled two rainbows out of the pool – the first ones of the day. I was relieved - I didn’t have to call it a day. I fished onward.

The water continued to clear, but the flow remained fast and high. Once I got into the rainbows the action picked up. I pulled three fish out of one run including a rare double that contained both the largest and smallest fish of the day. The small one took the dropper while the large one nailed the dry.

I lost an even nicer one that jumped and threw the hook. It was about 9 inches and had some bulk to it – a nice fish for this usually small stream.

A couple more scenic pools and a few more fish (it looks like something chomped on the tail of this one) and I called it a day.