We finally made it out camping, and it was, well, pretty good. I collected the Troutslayer from elementary school on the Friday at 3.45 and we made a beeline for Yellow River State Forest, two and a half hours to the north. It’s a lovely drive, first standard Iowa farmland, then after Strawberry Point you’re into the hilly and striking driftless on the River Bluffs Scenic Byway. You cross the Volga, the Turkey River with the trout rearing station, then as you near the Mississippi you cross the storied Bloody Run. You hit the Mississippi at Marquette (across the bridge from the much larger Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin) and drive north right along its western bank for a short while, then bend inland and climb out of the valley to eventually turn north and descend into the Paint Creek valley. Yellow River State Forest is usually crowded, but it’s about as close as Iowa gets to a reasonable facsimile of beauty, topography, something wild, and even decent hiking trails. There are two stocked trout streams, Paint Creek and its extremely popular tributary Little Paint Creek, which is basically Richmond Springs except perhaps a smidgeon less crowded and more scenic (though Richmond Springs is plenty pretty itself). We arrived in Little Paint Campground to find it ~80% full, which was the only real downside to things. But I can’t really complain – we got a walkup site with no hassle (though not my favourite one, which was occupied), and while we had plenty of neighbours, the campground is set up with generous space between the sites and the neighbours were all decent and well behaved. The weather was excellent, highs just around 70 and really crisp nights down in the 40s. Two life-affirming nights by the campfire with James toasting marshmallows and me reading John Gierach by headlamp. We had planned to fish both Saturday and Sunday, but ended up just spending Saturday at Hickory Creek. We visited Bear Creek in Fayette County on Sunday, but there were cars in the parking area (leading me to suspect strongly that it has been stocked since my last visit), then we went to STSNBN, but the water level was down to a trickle and we decided not to abuse the poor thing.
The first time I visited Hickory Creek the water was high and fairly turbid. It was a totally different look this time: much lower and absolutely crystal clear. Unfortunately, combined with a bright sunny day that made the outing at least initially more of a trout spooking trip than a trout fishing trip. When we descended from the road to the pool downstream from the bridge we were surprised to see literally dozens of trout swarming around, already spooked. It’s not a great pool, and I’m pretty sure the only thing that could have been going on was that they’d just been stocked. It’s another stream where there’s no real option but to fish downstream. But our shadows were constantly on the water, along with our rods’ shadows. And it was just spook, spook, spook.
Except for one spot that was mostly in shadow. I was mickeying about tying on a new fly and told James to fish across the stream to a pool above a sunken log. Next thing I knew I looked up and he had a fish on. He played it in without fuss and just like that, he’d caught his first ever brown trout.
James was fishing his Nissin Fine Mode as usual. I was fishing a Dragontail Tenkara Shadowfire 360. I didn’t have my Rhodo along because my cat ate one of the tip sections while it was drying (I’ve since received my second replacement tipset from Tenkara USA). We were both fishing olive plus size killer buggers, and that’s what James caught the trout on.
It picked up a bit further downstream. We went past where I’d stopped the last time, and the stream opened out a bit, with lots of vegetation banks.
I hooked two or three trout in some of the broader pools where we could sneak up a bit, but they all slipped off after only a few seconds.
Eventually we got to a difficult wading situation and were looking at a tiresome bushwhack on the banks if we wanted to continue all the way. It was lunchtime and I was staring down the possibility of my first washout since restarting fishing in April. It was a beautiful day for everything except fishing. So we had our lunch and started back up. At first I packed up both of our rods. We hadn’t been upstream from the bridge at all and I was thinking we’d just tromp back and spend the afternoon having a look up there. But as we got back into the densely populated trout area we came up to one of the really nice pools and the trout were back on station. And since we were behind them, they didn’t spook. Hmm. So my rod went back into action pretty quickly. And it only took a couple of casts to hook and land a little brown. Aaaaaaah. Better.
We moved up to a pool with around 15-20 trout, again back in the current and occasionally turning over to take something. We were able to stand in the stream, hide behind a bunch of long grass, and cast from behind them. I caught and landed one, James had a go for a while and had a few strikes but didn’t hook any. Then I tried again, hooked and lost a couple, and landed a second.
All of these were caught on the #12 olive plus size killer bugger. We moved up to a really nice plunge pool at the head of a long, deep run. I got a few looks in the lower part, but there was a trout actively on the prowl in the plunge pool. At this point, for no particular reason I can remember, I switched to a #14 Copper John, which promptly drew a strike, and I landed my fourth fish of the day.
Our final serious action was in one of the bend pools close to the bridge, where again we were able to sneak up behind a pod of 5-10 trout lying at depth and occasionally showing their flank to take something from near the bottom. I put a small split shot on the tippet to get the Copper John straight down to them. I hooked and lost one then landed another, the final fish of the day.
So, okay. A dramatic demonstration that fishing upstream works a whole lot better in spooky conditions. (Or probably all conditions.) You really don’t get to choose on most of these Iowa streams, though. The option to bypass the stream and walk downstream before beginning isn’t generally there – they are so choked with brambles and nettles and downed trees that the only option is usually to navigate along the banks, crisscrossing the stream with waders. At STSNBN and Hickory, fishing downstream is all you can really do. I suppose you could plow all the way downstream without fishing, wait a couple of hours for the pools to settle, and then fish your way back up. But I don’t generally have several hours to spend before getting started. Bear is an exception, as you can fish the entire nice section starting from the bottom.
Anyhow, we did still have some time left, so we went exploring upstream. The DNR marks far more water upstream as catchable than down, and there are more access points up the valley via stiles and another bridge. Talking to the people I met the first time I fished Hickory, there is definitely some good water upstream. It doesn’t appear to be anywhere near the downstream bridge, though. We walked a good way upstream and encountered very little holding water. It was mostly shallows. There was one deeper run which held small trout (which spooked, despite the upstream approach). But there was no hint of a decent pool and the stream was running very straight, away from the walls of the valley. Eventually we gave up. Some other day, I’ll take a more dedicated look.
Once James bagged his first brown trout, it was automatically a pretty good day. But it went from a day where half way through I was really looking at my first shutout to a not bad, six brown trout total outing.