Bamboozle

The creek today was running clear and fast, not overly high but certainly plenty of flow. Fished well in the late morning when the sun was out and then slowed down after lunchtime when clouds came over. Soft hackle dries and one on a bright green foam hopper.

Thinking of coming down during the week next week but wondering if CC is getting the same rain we're getting further north. Don't really want to go whitewater rafting...

What's the creek looking like today (7/7)? Fishable by Sunday?

My good friend Ray Krouscup -- known here as Ray from Crane or rfc -- passed away earlier this week. Ray was strong medicine and it was impossible to be neutral about him. He rubbed a few folks the wrong way from time to time, but it was always in the context of caring deeply about protecting and preserving Crane Creek. He almost always had a 357 by his side, but inside he was a teddy-bear who shared with all of us an awesome reverence for Crane Creek. I will be sad next time I am down fishing knowing that Ray's not going to appear on the horizon with a new fly-rod -- or handgun -- for me to try out. RIP Ray.

I would only say that typically these fish in shallower water will rise to a dry fly. There's really no more lovely way to catch a trout. I think it was Ted Leeson who wrote that for some fly fishing becomes something like a religion and like all religions its meaning derives from a central miracle: the rise of a trout to a dry fly. So before I brought out the San Juan worms, Wooly Buggers and other such power-bait flies I might give it a try with a lot of stealth and some elk hair caddis, royal coachman, orange humpy. You might find, like I have, that you'd as soon catch some medium sized CC fish on a dry as more or larger fish on San Juans and Wooly Buggers. No insult meant to other religions (or not much)...but I think you should at least give my creed a try. Ok, open the flood gates of opprobrium. (But don't bother telling me I'm an unforgivable and unrepentant snob. I already know that...)

I differ a bit in that I find the fish to be quite line shy. Typically I also find that they will spook to water you move by walking, shadows, fly hitting water too hard etc. Good news is that in shallower water these fish are not super choosy about flies and will take dries pretty readily. Please fish barbless and try to keep fish in water when you land them. The more fish who don't get injured the more fish for all of us to catch.

Oh yeah yeah my brain must have been in neutral. Not the first time...

Doesn't matter much in the greater scheme of things but I am not following your geography -- where does the RR cross the creek upstream from City Park?

Good points and concerns. I don't recall any of us actually getting into the creek during one of these clean-ups. Too cold and no-one's wearing waders. One of the great things about doing your cleaning up as part of this effort is that MDC co-operates to have the trash hauled away...including tires. Last year we pulled out about 20 tires from the new MDC land just opposite the ball fields. Usually the focus is on getting trash etc to prevent it eventually washing in to the creek. Obviously it's a never-ending task but what's the alternative?

Water levels are up from last year's lows but are still not "high." I have found fishing to be spotty at best with dry flies.

The annual Crane Creek Clean Up will happen again this year on the morning of Super Bowl Sunday, February 3rd. Sponsored by, among others, one the regional Trout Unlimited chapters. We will meet at 8:00am at the Wire Road area north of town near the railroad bridge for coffee/donuts and then we decide where to go from there. A great opportunity to meet fellow Crane Creek obsessives, to give something back to the creek we all love and burn off some calories before all the beer and chips later in the day... If at any time later in the year anyone complains about trash on Crane Creek on this forum and you weren't at the clean up I will let you have it with both barrels!

Sorry I didn't attach the image. I typically see redds in Dec-Jan time frame. But I have not seen as many this year as in a "normal" year, whatever that means these days. This was taken on lower CC.

I have been away from CC for a few weeks. When I was last down I didn't see any redds, despite my post last October! This weekend I saw several. I won't start an argument but I for one am trying to stay out of the creek to prevent damage to redds visible and invisible (older redds where eggs have been laid and hatched eventually get covered with moss again...) I am also not fishing now because the breeding fish are vulnerable. For those who are not familiar with what redds look like here's a picture of two redds I took on Saturday.

I caught a nice ~ 12" fish yesterday on CC with eggs coming out of her! I haven't seen any redds yet but if anything it looks like the spawn may be earlier than normal. This will undoubtedly bring up the annual discussion about fishing during the spawn. I'll proactively cast my vote that we should refrain from fishing Crane Creek from Mid-November until Mid-February. No matter how careful we are to avoid redds the fact remains that the adult fish are more vulnerable in any number of ways during this time and deserve to be left alone to propagate the resource that we enjoy the other 9 months of the year. In other news recent heavy rains have brought creek levels up dramatically.

There's usually a big clean up on Super Bowl Sunday. This in fact is where I met Ray! Last year we pulled out maybe 15-20 tires and oodles of smaller litter from the property MDC bought. And the thing is anything you pick up in the park is a piece of trash that won't eventually flow down to Lower Wire Road. So it's preventative clean up.