Fishing Crane Creek sometime soon....

[Ik314]

Hello everyone, I have always been wanting to try crane creek. I have been there one time but i was misguided and didnt catch a fish all day. Could someone please give me some hints about what flies, where to go on the creek, and how to fish it if I were to try and fish it sometime in the next few weeks..Thanks in advance.

[timsfly]

Crane is great place to practice stealth and accuracy, I use a short 6' fly rod a 4 wt I find is best, most people go to crane and fish flies that are too small, I do best on #10 woolybuggers, #10 or #12 san juan worms in red, I have caught countless fish over there on just a # 10 hopper in the summer, you can catch them on small flies but they are more like brookies I fish for out west, unless you spook them they will try to eat almost any dry you can float over them, I have had good luck on glo-balls also when the water is up a little. I use 5X tippet most of the time, except when fishing drys, I will try 6X and that usually works, I have had to drop to 7X a few times, this winter I did this a few times and caught a few more fish, but I like 6X most of the time over there. Parachute adams have also produced a lot of fish for me on crane. In the summer I like ants, big ones # 10's and #8's work pretty good. I think you should fish crane like you squirrel hunt, move slowly looking ahead and watching for fishy looking areas and walking gently, I know the fish will spook if you walk to hard on the gravel, don't ever jump down off of a bank or slide down anywhere near where you want to fish. I usually walk down and then fish my way back up stream, good luck crane is a wonderful little creek.

[BMOE]

Use 6x tippet, size 12-14 red squirrel nymphs, Hares ears samesize, Zebra midges in olive, black size 18-22 under an indicator and fish the lower portion of the creek in the runs and riffles and tear them up. Works for me.