I planned a maximum three day, two night trip to visit some new streams, though I didn’t think I’d last the course (I didn’t). It was on the one hand an exercise in frustration, loss, and breakage. The fishing redeemed it a little. The night before the trip I ruined my Rhodo by 1) somehow putting the two tip sections into the wrong end of the third section; and 2) then trying to ram them further in, instead of pulling them out, jamming them permanently. Incredible stupidity. So a new tip set is on the way from Tenkara USA but the rod is currently out of action. So I fished with James’s Nissin Fine Mode Kosansui. At the end of the second day, the tip section got stuck. And so I broke the second section trying to free it. The only rod that functions out of five right now is my 400 cm Nissin Zerosum. On this same trip, I lost the tip plug for it, I assume when it caught while strapped to the pack and stepping under a log. I also lost my Flip Focals, I guess they must have fallen out at the campground. And to top it off there’s no sign of my iPhone charging cord. And in the middle a low tire warning light lit up in my week old 2014 Jeep. The idea was to relax. Get away. Enjoy. Didn’t much work.
Anyhow, the first day I headed to Little Turkey River. It’s long been on the list, as it’s one of the non-announced stocking streams and supposed to get relatively little fishing pressure. It was a disappointment, just not what I’ve been looking for.
There were two vehicles in the parking area when I arrived. On a Tuesday morning. So much for the pressure bit. I met one of the anglers where the path intersects the stream. He was busy cleaning fish. He was very friendly, a bait fisherman, and said he’d caught his limit of “eaters”. The other truck was his friend’s. I met the friend when I headed upstream. He was on his way back, carrying his chair and bait rig. I just said hello to him, but I assume he’d caught his limit too – they were on their way out. So the short stream I was about to fish had just been relieved of at least five, probably ten trout. Well, okay, no other plans, so I waddled forth.
It reminded me most of the brief glimpse I’d had of Ensign Hollow. Not least because of the plant growth.
Walking the banks, or even accessing the banks in most places, was pretty much impossible. Further, when you could spot the creek, it was one of these little trench-like ones three or four feet across. It was also badly off colour, though there’d been no rain for nearly a week. Obviously I have no idea what’s normal for the stream, but it was like fishing in milk.
There was also a mowed DNR track going the entire length of the fishable section. The narrow stream connected a series of wide stocking pools. There were pathways trampled to fishing positions on these. So that was really the only option. Walk the stocking track. Head into the bait fishing positions. Continue to the end.
Fishing with James’s Fine Mode Kosansui 320, I tried black woolly buggers, my squirmy wormy, and olive woolly buggers. I had two spangly black beadhead ones which got a few looks. I promptly lost both of them in trees. I used a beadhead spangly olive number 12 for the rest of the time. I saw very few fish. Eventually I caught a common shiner in nice inlet water at the head of a pool. I dragged the woolly bugger through each pool in turn, and on about the fourth I got an aggressive follow from a trout. I caught it on the next cast, a smallish rainbow.
After that I only saw one more trout, a larger one in a nice plunge pool that I had on the line for several seconds before it escaped. Before too long (sooner than I was expecting from the map) the mowed lane terminated at a rusty barbed wire fence. The fence extended across the stream, so it was pretty clear that the public easement was done. Bleah.
Mowed tracks and fishin’ holes. Not my scene. Admittedly, Bear Creek is like this to a degree. But it’s a wider stream with lots of decent water in between stocking holes and banks which, while not accessible overland, can be walked and waded along the stream. Maybe I caught Little Turkey River on a bad day. (Maybe I’m not skilled enough to adapt to the conditions.) But I’m not going to be in a hurry back. Final tally: two common shiners, a creek chub, and a rainbow.
After that it was only about 2 pm. I couldn’t think of anything else to do, so I headed up to Yellow River State Forest to camp at Little Paint Creek. The campground was freshly mowed and looked beautiful. There were only about six spots occupied, though there were quite a few people parked to fish.
The lovely spot by the stream I’d stayed at in April was vacant, so I set up there. I didn’t have anything better to do, so I geared up and fished for a while in Little Paint Creek. It must just have been stocked, because it was absolutely heaving with rainbows. They mostly ignored me. This (data points: two) seems to be what happens immediately after they go in. They organize themselves in pools but don’t really start feeding. I could see 10-20 fish in every deep pool but they mostly didn’t respond to anything I put past them or dangled in front of them or floated over top of them. There were hordes of spin and bait fishers, as well as lots of people with dogs who enjoyed watching their dogs frolic in pools. I kind of rolled with this, because you know what you’re getting at places like this and there’s no sense gripping the rod too tightly.
Little Paint is the kind of place where there are paths along the pools, with nice park benches installed, each bearing a plaque memorializing someone. It’s very nice, in its way. People sit on the benches and bait fish. Anyway, I caught one rainbow in the above pool right beside my campsite. I went up a ways and hooked but failed to land a few others. I saw maybe 20 fish for every one that was interested.
So the trip wasn’t off to the greatest start, but after the day fishers cleared out I was looking forward to an evening of relaxing in my camp chair and staring into the campfire after dark. The campground was nearly empty, and there was noone else in my little section along the stream. Until 7.30 pm. Then some man from Arizona pulled in, asked me whether the ones lacking a booking slip are available (yes), and pulled into the site next to mine. An empty campground with nearly 100 sites. And he starts setting up his tent trailer 20 feet from me. This trip was rapidly slipping into Not Meant To Be territory. The man wanted to chat. He seemed like a nice man. Maybe he wanted company. After he set up, he went to bed pretty quickly and didn’t make a peep. So I still got to sit by my fire and get my legs bitten off by mosquitos.