Bsc Questions

[Corb90]

It saddens me to say that I have had to take a small break from fly fishing. EMT school has taken up all of my spare time in the past few months but it is finally starting to taper off a bit and I am hoping to get back into it again. I fished ALOT at Blue Springs Creek back when I would go at least once a week with varying success. A. because it is only an hour away from my house (I live in St. Louis County) and B. because it is an amazing place to fish and made me a way better fisherman so that when I went to places like Meramec Springs I could cast with ease around all of the noobs and bobbers hanging from the trees. My question today is though, after reading many forums it seems that a successful fly for BSC is the ever trusty Wooly Bugger. I haven't used these much in spring creeks because I honestly don't know how to fish them. Dries and nymphs are easy. Put them at the top of some riffles, let them float through the pool, rinse and repeat. However streamers are a little trickier for me. How do you fish them in a tiny little stream like BSC? Strip them through pools or let them float? With it being so small, I tend to not have much line out and in my eyes, im confused on how effective a streamer can be, BUT I know I am wrong in this sense. Just looking for a little guidance on technique for when I hit it in the next few weeks. Any help is greatly appreciated even if its got nothing to do with streamer fishing.

Thanks Bros

[Gavin]

Dead drift under a bobber....or short fast strips...anything in-between.

[Al Agnew]

Just because it's a little bitty creek doesn't mean you HAVE to use little bitty flies. The woolybugger is an all purpose, imitate just about anything fly, and in smaller sizes is a loose imitation of lots of nymphs. So as Gavin said, dead drifting, even on the bottom, can be very effective at times, and you can do a "mostly" dead drift with some twitches now and then as it's drifting along the bottom...in other words, fish it as you would a nymph but with a little bit of action. Also as Gavin said, you CAN fish a wooly under an indicator, and even use it as the top fly in a two nymph system under an indicator. I've fished them that way where I make a cast up against a bank, twitch the two flies (wooly and a small nymph) out two or three feet from the bank, then let them sink and dead drift while watching the indicator. With the single wooly, when you come to a bit bigger pool where you can make a cast with more than ten feet of fly line out, then you can go more with Gavin's short, fast strips.

Thing about fishing Woolies and other streamers is you have to believe. They won't hit it all the time, but it's worth a good try just about anytime, and when you do catch some fish on it, they can be some of the bigger fish in the creek.

[chub minnow]

My 5 year old absolutely kills the trout on a #10 or #12 olive, beadhead bugger under a good ole' red and white bobber with his Lightning McQueen pole. I'm pretty sure you should have no problems with the fly rod, just drift it through the riffle right over the bottom. I don't know if they think it's a nymph, sculpin, or what, but they eat it pretty consistently.