The previous day had been lovely, but thunderstorms moved in and pounded the region in the middle of the night. They’d passed through by morning and the sun was poking through, but I was very worried that everywhere was going to be blown out. I had hoped to go to Hickory Creek, but it blows out really badly with any rain at all. I hmmed and hahed and in the end decided to check out home waters. I figured it if was shot, Grannis wasn’t far away and had a decent chance of being okay. Grannis is very crowded, but in 2015 I managed a decent weekday at it.
I slogged on down. It’s a little bit of a walk, but from what little commentary there is on Iowa trout streams, you’d think it was ten miles. It’s maybe half a mile, with a fairly steep, though short, hill as you drop into the valley. It’s funny what passes for a hike in Iowa.
When I arrived it was, well, not great looking. It was very turbid. However it wasn’t blown out. Water was only a bit highish, just off colour. It seemed worth a go. I started with the usual tandem nymph rig on the GM 39, but that accomplished nothing. I rigged a black slump buster on the TUSA Rhodo. When I switched to that, I started catching fish. I wasn’t expecting a banner day given the conditions. But it turned out pretty well.
The water was starting to warm up a bit, so the centrarchids were all present and accounted for. A size 12 slump buster is a bit of a mouthful for the smaller ones, but they did their best.
Pretty soon it was clear that it was going to be a good day. I got hits from stockers just about everywhere I fished. I suspect I was on the stream shortly after a stocking.
I covered all of the normal stocking water, then headed upstream. The nice pools there yielded well.
I had intended to go pretty far upstream and maybe explore a little further than I’d been. I got nervous, though, because there was some development going on along the banks. This was for sure above the public easement. In the past, there have been no signs and the stream is pretty closed in by bushes and high banks. I’ve never seen anyone and there’s been no hint anyone minds. But now there were new dirt roads built in the adjacent fields and when I got a little way up, to a deep pool that usually yields smallmouths, I saw that somebody had actually built a kind of manmade sand beach covering a large slope right down to the edge of the water. They’d put a picnic table and some chairs on it. This made me very nervous about trespassing, so I quit fishing and turned around.
I needn’t have worried. Later on I met the property owner. He was a fisherman, too. He said he used to commute from one of the eastern cities (might have been Waterloo) to fish, but he’d decided to buy a farm on a trout stream. First decent one he found was upstream on Bear, so he bought it. The sand “beach” was actually the sand he hoovered out from three beaver dams he took out. We talked for ages, a bit of a kindred spirit thing going on. He told me I was welcome to fish upstream whenever I wanted, he had no problem with it. That was excellent news. We introduced ourselves and shook hands.
I didn’t go any further upstream and ended up knocking off around 5 pm. Considering the thunderstorms, it was an excellent day with the streamer. Final totals were 19 rainbows, two brook trout, one smallmouth bass, four rock bass, two green sunfish, 35 creek chub, and eight common shiners.