The Jamesinator is off to the UK with his mother for a month. I should do any number of things, not least some actual research. Or work on the house. I know myself well enough to be fairly confident that I will basically fish until my arm falls off. Self knowledge is at least a partial salve for the stresses of life. I think. Anyway, this trip saw me plunge back into intense solo fishing. I missed James badly, and I think he also acts as a major check on my more obsessive instincts. He’s obsessive himself, but the trips are basically calibrated to safely accommodate the obsessiveness of an eight year old. Without him, I just go and don’t stop.
There were a couple of worries. First, there were thunderstorms across the area on Thursday, and Fayette County was forecast to get more precipitation than the Iowa City area. So the state of the streams was a concern. Second, while the summer continues to be wetter than normal, some serious heat has finally arrived. Around home, Saturday was forecast as a high of 91 but with a heat index of 103. It was a bit better in the area of the streams, high of 88 and heat index of 97, but still pretty brutal. But I was absolutely pining to get back on the water, so I decided to take lots of fluids and hopefully make myself bail if it got too ridiculous. I chose Bear because it has generally held up best when the water is high.
I got up at 6 and managed to get on the water by 8.30. There was nobody else in the parking lot when I arrived just after 8. Given the forecast heat and the lack of summer stocking I was hoping there wouldn’t be crowds, even on a summer Saturday.
The water turned out to be very low, slightly lower than I’ve seen it previously. It was somewhat off colour in the morning, though this was only noticeable in the deep pools. By the late afternoon, after a baking day, it had cleared considerably.
The first surprise was at the first stop, the first downstream stocking pool. A large tree had keeled over and fallen directly into the heart of the pool. This blocked out a lot of the prime water and also impeded flow, rendering the upstream part still and foamy.
There were a couple of trout in the fast water near the head but I didn’t get any strikes. I moved down to the next access point and the pool where James caught his first trout. It was slow going there, but eventually I hooked into the first fish of the day, a nice sized (by my standards of experience) smallmouth bass.
A rainbow followed soon after.
I fished exclusively with my Rhodo, mostly fully extended. In a few spots, especially the tree-covered upstream pools, I zoomed it down. I tried a few things, but it became evident early on that #12 olive woolly buggers were going to get the most attention. I thought I’d be fine, as I had four store-bought ones along. I wasn’t fine.
Things picked up for a while after that. In the main downstream stocked section I caught five rainbows in the morning.
The second rainbow was notable because it occurred to me to start finally thinking about the accurate sizes of the fish I’ve been catching. I carry a light tape measure but I can never get organized to use it when a fish arrives. I always feel it would take too much time faffing around and compromise the survivability of the fish. This time I decided to do the standard fall back and photograph it against my rod. Only takes a couple of seconds straight from the net (if the trout cooperates) and then straight back into the water. So the news turns out to be that I’ve probably been underestimating the size of the fish. Rainbow number two was fairly average for what I’ve been catching – I’d call it “medium”. The Rhodo pictured above measures 13″ from the butt (excluding the tip plug) to the first zoom point (hard to see on the dashed-down photo, but a little bit in from the right side of the picture). The trout is lying obliquely with its tail cocked, but straightened up and with the tail fins straightened, it would be nudging that distance, so this is something like a 12.5″ fish. From this I’m going to estimate that 12″ is around the average of the Bear stockers. 10″ is probably the low end. And I’ve caught much larger fish, probably around 14″. I’m pretty sure based on this that the original brown trout I caught back in early May at STSNBN really were fairly large, something like 12″ and 14″. Anyway, where feasible I’m going to photograph more against the rod and I might make a few small measurement markings on the rod.
I caught the five trout from a fairly short stream segment. Many of the spots that yielded earlier for James and I showed nothing. There are lots of variables, including the heat and weather, but I think it’s pretty clear the trout population is starting to dwindle. I didn’t catch any from the three lowest decent pools, including the lower pool in the open valley stretch. As I moved downstream, however, the rock bass became very common. We’ve usually caught a small number, but I ended up with 17 on this day.
I decided, given I had extra time on a solo affair, to fish downstream from the bottom pool all the way to the lower farmer’s field. I bypassed this section when I walked down to the field previously, because it was slow and apparently very deep. However with the water level so low I figured it was safe to wade and see what was what. The stream immediately slowed down to a series of very long, very deep, very slow pools, some of them almost like little lakes. I knew it was back to normal downstream of the lower field, so I suspected some beavers were getting into action in between. I didn’t see any trout in the series of pools beneath the lower pool, but there were swarms of chub, lots of shiners, and more rock bass than I was used to seeing. Then I caught something else.
It looked a bit like a rock bass or a bluegill, but souped up. The iridescent blue streaks on the face sort of leapt out, as well as the pale leading edges of all but the pectoral fins. I could only guess what it was during the day, but at home a look at Peterson nailed it down as a green sunfish. This species is on the DNR list for Bear, so I’m pretty sure that’s it. The black spot on the gill cover with a shading of orange/yellow is also consistent.
All of these bass-family (Centrarchidae) critters fight like crazy, even though the ones I encounter are mostly midgets. They don’t have the power of a trout (though pound for pound they likely would) but they zip around like mad when they’re on the line. If I was fishing for them as the main target (still want to check out spots on Coralville Reservoir close to my house) they’d be great fun with a really light rod.
This section only yielded fish near the heads of the big pools. The pools themselves looked nearly stagnant and warm. I didn’t see any fish in them except for some large schools of big white suckers, not even chub or shiners. Eventually the banks opened out again and the stream narrowed to a tiny width but with some decent flow. Beneath this in a large shallows I spotted a big fish lying in the open. I thought it might be a sucker but as I got close on the opposite bank, somehow without spooking it, it was clearly a big trout. My woolly bugger didn’t spook it, but it didn’t interest it, either, cast across and in front and twitched past. Eventually I started dropping it close in front and letting it sink on a dead drift. I finally got it placed so that it fluttered down right in front of its snout and it finally decided it was worth opening its mouth. Then I started to panic, because this was a large fish. Based on the calibration of measurements/guestimates above, this was around 15-16″. This is larger than the normal stocking size, but there it was, and it was the largest trout I’ve had on the line in my resumed career, so I guess the odd bigger one gets dumped in. It was definitely a rainbow. It was on the line for about five seconds, then tossed the hook. Oh well. This was the only trout that I saw downstream from the bottom stocking pool.
Shortly after that my guess about the flow turned out to be correct: a well maintained beaver dam. It gave me a jolt of nostalgia, as I haven’t seen a beaver dam in the “wild” since my early 20s in western Canada. I saw a beaver swimming in one of the pools just above it.
The pool right behind the dam was less turbid than the previous ones, a nice dark green colour. It had at least two schools of large white suckers patrolling, but also lots of rock bass and shiners.
Below the dam, the stream reverted to its normal character. There was a pretty nice pool on the bend before the section that runs straight down the far side of the farmer’s field that I fished on an earlier trip. I knew that section was a shallow chubfest and didn’t really want to press further on this trip as I wanted to have a go at the rainbows upstream. This nice pool was the decider. It was excellent holding water, but no sign of trout, just big chub and shiners. When beefy chub are occupying the prime water, it seems to be a good indication that the trout are elsewhere, or at least not feeding. From there I climbed up into the field and walked the lane back to the starting area.
Coming back up through the lower pools yielded a couple of fish, but not many.
By this point it was 3 pm and the heat of the day had descended. I was making myself drink water regularly, but I was starting to get beat down. Slogging steps, suspicion of sunburn despite attempts to be good about spraying more screen on, headache, feeling like I was starting to broil. The inaccessible segment joining the lower and upper stocked stretches was blissfully in shade, and that made an incredible difference. I sat down and guzzled another half litre of water and revivified. The straight section was good for some nice chub holes last time with James, but the low water level left it mostly with swarms of minnows this time.
I moved to the upstream section, ignoring the water downstream from the first upstream stocking pool. Again, walking over in the sun was murder, but the stocked section itself was in shade. My impression here, once again, was that the accessible pools were basically shot. There were fresh ATV tracks and fresh footprints, so people had been there earlier in the day although I didn’t see anybody. However, there are some really good pools in between that require either bushwhacking (pretty much impossible with the level the plants have now grown to) or wading, and these still held lots of fish. So the trout parade recommenced.
And then it came skidding to a halt. I lost the fourth of my olive woolly buggers after a failed strike, caught in one of the #(*&$#*&%_*# trees that canopy this stretch of stream. Black woolly buggers drew half-interested follows, but no strikes. I sat down and pondered my fly boxes, not that there’s a lot to ponder yet, for something to help close out the day. I have been meaning to expand my streamers/minnows arsenal with muddler minnows, Mickey Finns, and black nose daces, using store bought ones to begin then transitioning into self-tied, as is my general plan. But I had basically forgotten. I noticed a lot of sculpin in the stream this time, so that’s maybe why the olive buggers were working so well. A muddler might work too. But that didn’t help right now. In the end, all I could think of beyond trying some nymphing was the venerable Squirmy Wormy. I know there’s some controversy about whether San Juan Worms and Squirmy Wormies are “real” fly fishing and whatnot. I don’t have any time for it. I don’t know that there are aquatic worms that look like that (there are supposed to be, but I’ve never seen any in the streams). But I do know that people fish a whole bunch of “attractor” patterns that don’t obviously resemble natural trout food and nobody thinks that isn’t “real” fly fishing. Squirmy Wormies are basically attractors, is my view. And, it turns out, pretty darned good ones. I tossed a weighted squirmy wormy in and the water almost frothed.
I finished out at the last tree-covered pool where I lost one rainbow after a lengthy fight, then caught a final one so as not to end the day on a note of irritation. I then waded downstream from that point all the way to the first upstream stocking pool. This took me around the big inaccessible bend, but there is no decent holding water on it, so it can safely be ignored in future. I didn’t catch a single additional fish and should probably have packed it in earlier. The lower part was back in sunshine and it felt like harmful radiation by this point. I’d run out of water and visions of the cold orange Gatorade in the cooler in my Jeep started taking hold.
The final totals were 15 rainbow trout, 1 brook trout, 32 creek chub, 17 rock bass, 34 common shiners, 3 smallmouth bass, and 5 green sunfish. It was as bad an idea to fish in that heat as common sense would have predicted but I don’t regret it. The takehomes: the trout population is getting winnowed (I actually caught one more than James and I did nine days ago, but that was likely because I went at it with a certain compulsion) but still holding up well enough to make it worthwhile, weeks after stocking ended; trout really like squirmy wormies; my first seven species day; green sunfish are strikingly pretty little fish; I really need to bulk up my buggers/muddlers/streamers selection. All in all, an awesome day on the water, with good numbers of trout and lots of little points of interest.