6/17/2009
Rather than continuing up US 275 and turning north on 519th Avenue, I turned north on NE 14 and followed it to US 20. I turned north on the county road one mile east of the rearing station. Breaking habits has its consequences. I had triggered an inverse reality. On the creek, I was catching browns where I normally found rainbows. I was catching rainbows where I normally found browns.
My inattention to "the way that things have always been done" may have been a cause. However, in speaking with another angler shortly after arriving, I heard some rather bad news. The hatchery truck had just finished stocking the stream north of the bridge. They had stocked the stream up near the rearing station earlier. Newly stocked fish tend to panic, who wouldn't panic if they had been pumped into a truck then unceremoniously dumped into a stream; their panic tends to spread to the other fish in the stream. Not that Verdigre Creek is a particularly easy stream to fish, adding the mass panic of newly stocked fish just makes the task a little more difficult. Note to self, call the rearing station before coming up next time.
When the area is overgrown, I take one of two approaches. I either fish a really long rod or a really short rod. Earth shattering information, I can hear your inner voice making that statement right now. Since I've narrowed that down, I was going short in the morning. In both cases, though, I usually use a really short leader. Four feet was the starting point.
I added about a foot of 5x flourocarbon and tied on a size 18 foamulator. I find that the stimulator, and its variants, is a good fly to start with on the shallower sections of the stream. From this starting point you can add a BWO dropper if the Baetis are active, a caddis dropper if the caddis are active (if caddis are not emerging you can use this to great effect if the caddis are pupating), or a midge dropper if the midges are emerging. Of course, you can use one of the classic dropper configurations as well. I like the Barr's emerger series for baetis imitations, they work well for the entire lifecycle (except for the dun, of course). The overriding factor that I look for in baetis imitations is slim, the thinner the better. The Barr series work well, the Mercer Micro Mayfly works well (with a slimmer bead), and any of Charlie Craven's PTA series work very well. I like Charlie's jujubaetis. I substitute expoxy for the Knotsense, though. I find that the Knotsense will not fully cure unless you expose it to sunlight and that the epoxy is far more durable (one always seems to be tying these things in the dead of night in January when sunlight is at a premium).
I added a size 20 Jujubaetis as a dropper. There are a host of alternatives, though, for the dropper or for a second, or third (...), dropper. This photograph also illustrates why I've made the switch to epoxy on the Jujubaetis, you can see the Knotsense beginning to degrade on this dressing (tied less than six month ago).
The world is your oyster on the dropper. The smorgasbord at the creek is varied and verdant.
I worked my way upstream. The creek was well on its way to being a summer stream. Most of the good holes were shallower but they still held fish. The morning fish were all rainbows; all caught in holes that normally hold browns. Most were holdovers, the best fish of the day fell to the foamulator.
The alternate reality continued into the afternoon. Most of my "go to" places for browns were serving up 'bows. And the spots where I normally catch 'bows, well, you can finish the sentence. Next time, I'll take 275 and quit exploring.
I wish that the creek's level was an alternate reality. Unfortunately, it is all too real. Verdigre Creek seemed to be holding its own over the past couple of years. This year, though, it seems to be dwindling a little more quickly. The creek is down to 8/10's of a foot at the inlet to the weir. I was too depressed at that sight to get a reading from the exit, so I couldn't calculate the CFS.
The pools on both sides of the weir are silting over. There were several nice stands of vegitation in the stream on the upper and lower pools that provided some good hiding spots for the fish and nurseries for the insects. Those stands are gone.
I counted a few more center pivots on NE 14; I also spotted couple that were either new or that I had not noticed before on 519th Avenue. One was pumping water despite that fact that it was raining. It some sense, I wish that I were in an alternate reality.
Unfortunately, here in the shadow world (in the platonic, rather than gaming) sense, it's going to be a long irrigation season on Verdigre Creek.
My inattention to "the way that things have always been done" may have been a cause. However, in speaking with another angler shortly after arriving, I heard some rather bad news. The hatchery truck had just finished stocking the stream north of the bridge. They had stocked the stream up near the rearing station earlier. Newly stocked fish tend to panic, who wouldn't panic if they had been pumped into a truck then unceremoniously dumped into a stream; their panic tends to spread to the other fish in the stream. Not that Verdigre Creek is a particularly easy stream to fish, adding the mass panic of newly stocked fish just makes the task a little more difficult. Note to self, call the rearing station before coming up next time.
When the area is overgrown, I take one of two approaches. I either fish a really long rod or a really short rod. Earth shattering information, I can hear your inner voice making that statement right now. Since I've narrowed that down, I was going short in the morning. In both cases, though, I usually use a really short leader. Four feet was the starting point.
I added about a foot of 5x flourocarbon and tied on a size 18 foamulator. I find that the stimulator, and its variants, is a good fly to start with on the shallower sections of the stream. From this starting point you can add a BWO dropper if the Baetis are active, a caddis dropper if the caddis are active (if caddis are not emerging you can use this to great effect if the caddis are pupating), or a midge dropper if the midges are emerging. Of course, you can use one of the classic dropper configurations as well. I like the Barr's emerger series for baetis imitations, they work well for the entire lifecycle (except for the dun, of course). The overriding factor that I look for in baetis imitations is slim, the thinner the better. The Barr series work well, the Mercer Micro Mayfly works well (with a slimmer bead), and any of Charlie Craven's PTA series work very well. I like Charlie's jujubaetis. I substitute expoxy for the Knotsense, though. I find that the Knotsense will not fully cure unless you expose it to sunlight and that the epoxy is far more durable (one always seems to be tying these things in the dead of night in January when sunlight is at a premium).
I added a size 20 Jujubaetis as a dropper. There are a host of alternatives, though, for the dropper or for a second, or third (...), dropper. This photograph also illustrates why I've made the switch to epoxy on the Jujubaetis, you can see the Knotsense beginning to degrade on this dressing (tied less than six month ago).
The world is your oyster on the dropper. The smorgasbord at the creek is varied and verdant.
I worked my way upstream. The creek was well on its way to being a summer stream. Most of the good holes were shallower but they still held fish. The morning fish were all rainbows; all caught in holes that normally hold browns. Most were holdovers, the best fish of the day fell to the foamulator.
The alternate reality continued into the afternoon. Most of my "go to" places for browns were serving up 'bows. And the spots where I normally catch 'bows, well, you can finish the sentence. Next time, I'll take 275 and quit exploring.
I wish that the creek's level was an alternate reality. Unfortunately, it is all too real. Verdigre Creek seemed to be holding its own over the past couple of years. This year, though, it seems to be dwindling a little more quickly. The creek is down to 8/10's of a foot at the inlet to the weir. I was too depressed at that sight to get a reading from the exit, so I couldn't calculate the CFS.
The pools on both sides of the weir are silting over. There were several nice stands of vegitation in the stream on the upper and lower pools that provided some good hiding spots for the fish and nurseries for the insects. Those stands are gone.
I counted a few more center pivots on NE 14; I also spotted couple that were either new or that I had not noticed before on 519th Avenue. One was pumping water despite that fact that it was raining. It some sense, I wish that I were in an alternate reality.
Unfortunately, here in the shadow world (in the platonic, rather than gaming) sense, it's going to be a long irrigation season on Verdigre Creek.
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