The weather this weekend cancelled yet another camping trip, as it’s 93 today and that’s not a good number to be trying to fish. However I dashed out to Bear Creek on a solo run, mostly because I was desperate to try out my Plus Size Killer Buggers.
I had the valley to myself all day, and while it was murderously hot, it was also very quiet and a joy to experience. The odd airplane was the only intrusion.
The water was fairly low, but not nearly as low as it’s been in late summer, and mostly clear. The deepest pools were fairly turbid. These were really decent conditions for the time of year. Stocking of Bear is supposed to resume in September, so I had half a hope I’d hit it just right, but it was clear on the walk in that no stocking truck had been down the trail. The trout population is hanging in there. The big stocking pools are empty but the in between holding water still has a few fish. One thing that seems to be real is that the rainbows have faded in colour as the summer has gone on. There are a few that remain well camouflaged with dark backs, but the majority are very pale and they are easy to spot in low clear water. It seems to me that they’ve gotten more and more pale as time has gone on as I don’t remember anything like this when I was catching 15-25 a day after the last stocking. I could be wrong, but they are on balance the least marked rainbow I’ve seen at this point.
So, the main point of interest for the day was to stream test the plus size olive killer buggers I described in a previous post. I was determined to stick with them and do my best to get a real sense of their efficacy. It turned out not to require any real determination. Everything in the stream attacked them. They are at least as effective as olive woolly buggers.
I fished my Rhodo fully extended as usual, caught 69 fish on the day, and only stopped using the plus size killer buggers when I ran out of them. I only had enough yarn for three and lost two (after making several heroic efforts to retrieve various snags) and a fish ripped the marabou out of the third. They are clearly every bit as good as woolly buggers, possibly even a bit more generally useful, as I was catching greater numbers of centrarchids than I normally do with woolly buggers. So: I like big, elongate killer buggers. I wouldn’t of course claim credit for anything really new. I haven’t seen anyone mentioning fishing them in this size and shape (they kind of look like torpedoes in the fly box) but aside from the dimensions, the weighted underbody, and the krystal flash, they’re just a straight up killer bugger. I’m likely going to experiment with different colours of Shetland Spindrift. The only limit is pairing it up with available shades of marabou.
Once they ran out I switched to a self-tied number 12 black woolly bugger. I’ve found black to be clearly inferior to olive for the rainbows in this stream on past occasions, but there was no sign of it today. I kept catching fish at about the same pace.
Beyond proof of concept of the big killer buggers, the other thing that emerged from this trip is that there is a whole lot of Bear Creek upstream that I’d not previously visited. I finally had time to go beyond the upstream beaver dam. It didn’t immediately look promising, but I soon came to another absolute beauty pool along the base of some cliffs. This was followed by several more long, deep, and productive pools.
As is common, it seemed that at some point the marked DNR segment had to have run out, but there was no indication of where or that anyone minded. These big pools were absolutely full of centrarchids and it was a lot of fun with the crazy little things zipping around. I caught the two largest smallmouth I’ve landed so far and the highest number of rock bass and green sunfish in a day.
Eventually the stream narrowed considerably and there was no clear sign of any more deep pools in the short run. There is probably more to discover, but it was late and hot and it had already been a fine day. The final totals were 18 rock bass, 3 common shiners, 8 smallmouth bass, 17 creek chub, 17 green sunfish, and 6 rainbow trout.
