Another been a long time...

[Al Agnew]

I floated the creek once, probably close to 30 years ago.  It's a creek that's almost never floated, almost too small to float, and with poor access.  I won't name it--I won't even tell what watershed it's in.  But I had a chance to float it today, even though Mary thought I was nuts with the temps supposed to be close to 100 degrees.

That other time I floated it, I remember it being decent habitat.  It flows through huge gravel beds, and the gravel moves a lot in floods, and it's often a long way between good pools, but when you'd come to a pool deep enough to hold fish, they were there in good numbers with good size.  That one time before that I'd floated it I remember catching several smallmouth between 16 and 17 inches, and one that was over 20 inches.

There was a deep pool at the put-in, and there were several nice fish swimming around in it as I loaded the canoe.  I threw a topwater lure at them but nothing doing.  Toward the lower end of the pool I had a nice fish blow up on the topwater but not get hooked.  And then I was in shallow water, winding through the gravel, no habitat for decent fish.  There were a few pools a foot or two deep, and there were small smallies in them, but nothing of any size, and no pools that even looked like they could hold good fish.

You never know about creeks like this.  There could be nice fish hiding in obscure spots, so I kept fishing, trying various lures.  There wasn't really quite enough water to float--I could seldom float a riffle cleanly, but I didn't often have to get out, just scrape bottom constantly.  The only places that were real problems were where downed trees blocked the channel.  But there were a LOT of new downed trees.  The floods earlier this year had really done a number on this creek.  In the 8 miles or so I floated, there were hundreds of newly downed trees.  the cut banks, which were common on this creek, were ripped up and you could tell they had eroded a lot in the floods.

The fresh downed trees made fishing difficult.  They covered some of the deeper potholes.  And I've always noticed that fresh downed trees seldom seem to hold fish, anyway.  It could be that those potholes around the rootwads and under the limbs were new as well, and new cover never holds fish like established cover.

Once in a while I'd come upon a slightly deeper pool that looked like it had been there a while, and then I'd catch a few fish.  Nothing big at all.  For a while I was dropping Mitch's craw around the older logs and rootwads, and catching 10 inchers now and then.  But in the air-clear water, I was simply not seeing any good sized fish.

I floated for 5 hours and close to 5 miles before I finally came upon a pool that was actually better than that one at the put-in, and yes, there were a bunch of fish in it.  At that point, I'd caught about 25 smallmouth, nothing over 13 inches, but I caught a couple 15 inchers in that pool. Maybe things were looking up.

Well, there were other decent pools here and there for the last three miles, though there were still long stretches of marginal water.  But now every decent pool held fish, and they were eating the topwater.  In that last three miles I caught an even 50 bass, all but two were smallmouth, and I caught about 10 or 12 that were around 16 inches and one 18 incher.  So although the upper part of the float was disappointing thanks to the wrecked habitat, the lower end was almost as good as I remembered from that long ago trip.  The weather wasn't quite as horrific as Mary had feared; I only had to stop and dive into the water once.  There was a nice breeze all day long, and the water was cool.  

Maybe in a few years when all those new downed trees have been there for a while and the creek has stabilized, there will be better fishing in that upper portion.  Maybe then I'll float it again just to see.  Or maybe it would be worth it just for that lower three miles.  I'm glad I got back on the creek.

[Mitch f]

Great report! 

[BronzebackWarrior]

I love that sort of fishing clear water,  secluded earth , stealthy approaches