Spring creek techical fishing

[Al Agnew]

Tom, Tom, and I pulled up in front of the palatial mansion at DePuy's Spring Creek and rang the doorbell, waiting for the elderly lady that always (eventually) opens the door and takes our money.  The weather forecast was for heavy rain and temps in the 40s, so we had opted to fish DePuy's instead of floating the Yellowstone again, because there are conveniently placed "warming huts" with wood stoves along their 1.5 miles of spring creek.  The fee was $80 per rod, which is their interim rate between the $40 winter fee and $120 summer fee.  And they don't take credit cards.

The spring creeks south of Livingston, Montana, are some of the more famous trout waters in the West.  First settled back in the 1870s, the two big springs, one on either side of the river, were highly valued properties because the "warm" water issuing from the springs didn't freeze in the depth of winter and furnished water for cattle year round, not to mention unfrozen drinking water for the settlers.  The water emerges at around 49 degrees, and the spring branches seldom rise above 60 degrees in the summer or drop below 45 degrees in the winter.  The spring creeks, which each flow about 60-80 cubic feet per second, probably always furnished excellent habitat both for year round resident trout and spawners coming up out of the Yellowstone, even back in the days when the only native trout was the Yellowstone cutthroat.  But it wasn't until the early 1960s that the spring creek owners began to offer fishing to visitors for a fee.  It apparently started with Nelson's Spring Creek, on the opposite side of the Yellowstone from DePuy's.  Famous author and fly fisherman Joe Brooks and his wife were friends with the owners of part of Nelson's, and convinced them that they could make money that way.  Brooks publicized the spring creek, and soon visitors were coming from all over the country to fish it.  The spring creek on the other side was owned by two different ranchers who cashed in on the bounty, and soon Armstrong's Spring Creek, which was the upper portion, and DePuy's, the lower portion, were as well-known as Nelson's.  By the 1980s these "three" spring creeks were fly fishing destinations in themselves.  Fished nearly every day of the year by anglers who may or may not have been proficient but at least had the money to pay for the privilege, as well as the money to hire guides who did know what they were doing, the creeks acquired the reputation of being highly technical waters, rewarding to the exacting angler but frustrating to the inexperienced.

We fished one of the creeks, as I remember Armstrong's, the first time I came to Montana to fly fish.  When Montana Tom, our guide, said that was on the agenda for the next day, I was freaked out.  I thought there was no way I had the experience to handle fishing that kind of water.  But Montana Tom talked me through the basics and I had a reasonably successful day.  Over the years we made our annual visit to the region to fish, Missouri Tom and I sometimes fished one of the creeks, at other times we skipped them because the fishing was good elsewhere.  But gradually I mastered the rudiments of the conventional ways of being successful on them, which invariably involved tiny (size 18-22) nymphs and dry flies and exacting presentations on very light tippet.  But one day, when we were on Armstrong's with Montana Tom and several other friends, the clouds rolled in during the afternoon and the wind picked up.  I'd had a very good morning nymphing a single run with small scud patterns, catching perhaps 25 trout.  But I'd worn out my chosen run, and was looking for some alternative.  Some of the less experienced guys had pretty much given up in that wind, and were sitting at a picnic table next to a wide, flat pool, watching the whitecaps on it.  I stopped to chat with them, and looking at those whitecaps, I remembered the many brown trout I'd seen cruising that pool in the morning when the water was calm.  Those flat pools are the most difficult spots to fish along the creek, because they are so slow that they are impossible to fish with nymphs, and the fish are really picky about taking dry flies; it takes a perfect presentation to fool one.

But, with that wave action, I wondered if the fish wouldn't be far less wary and discriminating.  After all, they were brown trout, who eat more than just miniscule bugs.  So I tied on a small Woolybugger and waded out into the pool, and in the next hour proceeded to catch at least 25 more trout.  Ever since, I've always hoped that when we visit one of the spring creeks, it will be cloudy and windy.

Well, yesterday was supposed to be both.  But when we got ready to fish, the clouds were there but it was almost dead calm.  We started in a stretch with a couple of riffles and runs.  The Toms began fishing the upper run, which was long enough to give them both room, and I walked down to the lower run, which was very short.  Actually, Montana Tom, who quit guiding to start a business improving and rehabilitating trout streams, had "designed" that little run, which, before he worked upon it, was a straight, very shallow stretch.  His company had given it a gentle curve, and excavated just a bit of depth below the riffle, and the dynamics of the creek had done the rest.  The riffle dropped into a 20 yard reach of moving water about three feet deep, just fast enough to keep the surface choppy, making it impossible to see if there were fish, but I knew they were there.

Montana Tom hooked a fish before I even got down to my spot, which was still in sight of the two Toms.  He hooked another before I got ready to actually cast.  I had decided to follow the conventional way of doing things, so I'd put on a size 18 beadhead Hare's Ear as my top nymph, and a size 20 little soft hackle that Missouri Tom had designed.  His last name being Manion, a friend of his had dubbed the fly the "Manionator".  I'd added one split shot, slightly smaller than BB size, about 10 inches above the top fly, and I opted to do tight line nymphing instead of using an indicator, because I figured the indicator might spook some of these wary fish.

I hooked a trout on the first drift.  Later, Missouri Tom told me that Montana Tom had said, "Al's already got one."  Two drifts later, I caught my second.  Montana Tom told Missouri Tom, "Al's got another one."  After my fourth fish before either of them had caught another, they were getting a little grumpy.  I ended up catching 12 fish standing in one spot, all of them rainbows, all between 14 and 17 inches long except for one hook-jawed male that was nearly 19 inches.  Then I lost the Manionator, and although I'd caught several on the Hare's Ear as well, I needed another Manionator, so I walked back up to Missouri Tom and "borrowed" another one.  I went back down and caught two more, but then the action in my chosen spot died.  By that time, Missouri Tom had finally caught a couple, and Montana Tom had caught a half dozen.  We fished for a bit longer, but then decided to move to another spot.  We got back in the truck and drove up the lanes along the creek.  At one spot, the lane crossed the creek through a large culvert, with an embankment forming a bit of a dam.  There were a couple hundred yards of wide, very slow water above it, along with a quiet backwater, and trout were rising steadily all through it, so we decided to stop and accept the challenge of trying to fool those flat water risers.

Except...I knew what was going to happen.  It was going to be tough to catch those fish with dry flies.  As usual, they were rising to tiny midges, too small to even imitate with a fly, little bugs about the size of the tiny ants that invade picnics but far more translucent.  So...I figured it was time to dig into the streamer box.  I walked downstream a hundred feet or so from where the two Toms were rigging up to fish dries, and told them I was going to go big or go home, I was going to give them meat and potatoes.  They knew me, and weren't a bit surprised.  Montana Tom told Missouri Tom, "Well, Tom, if he catches fish on those things and we don't, at least we can say we took the high road."

After about ten casts with one of my own squirrel strip streamers tied on a size 4 streamer hook, I stuck an 18 inch brown, and shouted up to them, "Yep, it works!"  A few casts later, the second brown struck, and I heard Montana Tom say, "Remember, Tom, we're taking the high road."

After that, it wasn't fast fishing but I kept getting strikes as I slowly waded downstream, missing a lot of the fish but catching one now and then.  The fishing got a little better as the wind picked up.  Meanwhile, the two Toms were failing at the dry fly fishing.  Finally, Missouri Tom said he was going to go on downstream into the fast water below and continue nymphing.  Montana Tom followed him.  I kept fishing the streamer. 

I reached the dead backwater just above the culvert, which was full of big heads rising steadily.  Most wouldn't take the streamer, but some would.  Oddly, they seemed to all be rainbows.  I caught several 15-16 inchers, then a beautiful 20 inch male, and right afterwards, the biggest trout I've ever caught in one of the spring creeks, a heavy 22 inch female rainbow.

Montana Tom came back about then, still wanting to catch some of those risers on dries.  Then the wind died, and the wide pool just above the culvert flattened.  I stood on a high bank on one side and watched these cruising fish coming up all over the 2-4 foot deep, sand and silt bottomed flat.  Tom tucked himself into the corner just above the culvert on the other side, and I began to sight-fish to all the trout I could reach with a long cast from that 5 foot high bank.  In the extremely clear, dead calm water, it was something like fishing for bonefish on shallow salt water flats.  Not every fish seemed to be susceptible to being attracted by the streamer, but maybe one in five were, and if I landed it a few feet away, the ones that were interested would immediately turn and charge it.  Some came from as far as ten feet away, forming big wakes.  Many of the chargers turned away at the last second, but enough didn't.  My only problem was that since I could see them coming, I often set the hook too soon.  But I continued to catch one now and then.  Meanwhile, Montana Tom had figured out a dry fly that worked, and was steadily hooking fish as well, though he had gone the conventional route with 7X tippet and was breaking some of them off.  I was using 4X with the streamer.

Missouri Tom texted and said he was having a great afternoon nymphing, so we were all three catching plenty of fish.  It was DePuy's Spring Creek at its best.  Among the three of us, we probably caught close to a hundred fish.  Finally, the wind picked up and ice pellets began to fall, and we went into a warming hut, built a fire in the wood stove, and warmed up a bit while drinking a beer.  We realized it was nearing 5 PM, and decided to call it a day.

Montana Tom said he was sure I caught the most and biggest fish on the streamer (though I doubt it, at least on numbers), but to "remember, Tom, we took the high road."  I countered, "Hey, I took the high road, too...you guys nymphed all morning with indicators, while I refused to resort to a bobber!"