I basically haven’t fished during the pandemic. I think I went out twice in May and June of 2020, and that was it. I don’t know why. It’s been a strange year of sheltering, my son doing 100% online school, and endless Zoom meetings. Same for many people, I guess. Since I almost never see another person on the streams I fish, it’s not as if I couldn’t have safely gone out. Well, anyway. I went back out yesterday.
At first, I was determined to fish new water. So I went to the Maquoketa River at the 400th St. bridge, just north of Backbone State Park. I’d fished the Maquoketa a little bit further downstream, where I emerged at the mouth of Richmond Springs and went upstream for a while. Hadn’t seemed like much then. Didn’t seem like much now. The water level was low and very clear. I saw a few trout and had one strike, but it was mostly dead. The thing that doesn’t sell me about the stream, at least in this stretch, is that it’s mostly a sand bottom with relatively little structure. It just didn’t seem to be happening, so I packed up pretty quickly and went to Bear.
There was one vehicle in the parking lot. That used to put me off, but mostly I find you usually don’t even see the other angler. That was the case today. I ended up by the usual downstream starting pool. The water level was again very low and the water clear. I think I must have hit it on stocking day. There were fresh truck tracks. The fish were all piled up in the stocking pools and it was kind of feast and famine. When they first go in, they’ve never actually been in a stream before, and they take a while to figure it out and spread out. What happened was typical – I fished a few different things and settled on small olive streamers, first a #12 woolly bugger and when I lost that, #12 slumpbusters. Each cast would be chased by three or four trout, but they were skittish about striking. I caught two at the first pool, but could see more than 20.
At the next deep pool downstream, it was just dense with fish. I rapidly caught another dozen. I dunno. I guess it was fun. Hauling out generic stocker rainbows. I guess it’s better than not hauling out generic stocker rainbows.
I’ve stopped manically photographing every fish, and if possible I just keep them in the water and remove the hook.
Bear is a bit constrained now. Last year the landowner blocked off downstream access at the end of the stocked section. You used to be able to walk down to the confluence of Bear and Brush, but now there’s a fence across the track and a rope strung across the stream. Which doesn’t leave much room for misinterpretation.
I fished the entire length of the stocked section for the first time in two years. Some pools have been removed by floods. I have to say, my heart wasn’t fully into it. I’ve done nothing during the pandemic, and I felt shockingly out of shape. And kind of old. And I got sunburned. It was the same all the way up. The stocking pools were just stuffed with trout. I didn’t see a brookie anywhere, all 10-11″ rainbows.
The huge pool at the top was similar. I couldn’t really even be bothered, caught a couple and moved on. Venturing upstream at least broke the monotony. There were some trout, but I started catching other things as well.
It’s private land, but I met the landowner a couple of years ago and he said it was all right to fish. However before I got too far I saw that he’d built a cabin or something similar, brand new on the creek bank. I could hear people. And I wasn’t, you know, going to walk right into their privacy. I was tired anyway.
It was a lovely day, I’ll say that. About 60F and sunny, and it was nice to be on the water again.
The final tally was 22 stocker rainbows, 15 creek chub, four common shiner, three smallmouth bass, and two rock bass. I think I could have pretty easily caught at least double the number of rainbows if I’d been obsessive about it, but I was kind of like “They’re not doing me any harm, so…”