Creekin' Again

[Al Agnew]

So yesterday morning I went back to one of my favorite creeks, the one I'd reported on in the last post that seemed to have recovered from the huge flood last year, this time going to a different access farther upstream and wading downstream toward where I'd stopped the last time.  I even went upstream from that access for a bit, but the habitat was almost completely lacking.  I found one decent pool (by decent, about the size of the average double wide mobile home and 2-3 feet deep) and caught a nice 15 incher from it.  But as far as I could see upstream was nothing but tiny pools and bedrock bottom, so I turned around and went downstream.  At first the fishing remained slow.  There was one pool that used to be terrific, but it was pretty much gone.  The creek had rampaged out into a bottom field there, ripped up a bank and basically wiped out that pool.  The landowner had put some rip rap to stop the bank erosion, and there was a small but deep pool at the lower end of the rip rap, and there were some nice smallmouth in it.  I caught a couple 15-16 inchers.  Next pool downstream is a nice looking one for this creek, but seldom produces much for some reason.  It has filled in toward the middle portion but the upper end is still pretty fishy-looking, but I only caught a 10 incher there.  Next is another pool that looks good, even though it has filled in.  There used to be a big rock, about the size of a couple bathtubs, right in the middle of it, but it is totally buried in the gravel now.  Still, I caught a couple nice smallies, and a big hybrid (meanmouth), about 16 inches and football-shaped. 

After that is a long stretch of poor water, but I caught a few smallies and hybrids.  I was dismayed at the hybrids; this used to be pure smallmouth water, with the invasive spotted bass confined to the downstream stretch.  Then I came to another pool that used to be good, but it had filled in badly last year.  This year it was improved, and I caught several nice smallmouth and some more hybrids.  But then two disquieting things...at the lower end was a new "road" coming down to the creek, and evidence of a bulldozer using it (or making it).  And downstream, the creek appears to have been bulldozed.  And second, I could hear a bulldozer somewhere downstream.  There was one more good pool, and the bulldozer had piled up a little gravel dam at the bottom of it and made it deeper than it had been.  Downstream I could see a completely bulldozed channel, but that last pool was simply full of good fish.  I was catching 15-16 inchers one right after another down it.  They must have fled to it from the ripped up stream below.  It was a bunch of fun while it lasted.

I'd kinda planned to do a float trip today, but had too many other things to do this morning.  By the time I was done, it was too late to do a full day float on the stretch of river I had in mind.  So...how about more creekin'?  I had in mind a stretch of stream that I hadn't waded in about 10 years.  It had been pretty decent back then, though.  It's a little farther away, about a 40 minute drive.  

From the access, if you go one way it really looks good.  The other direction looks terrible; wide, flat, shallow gravelly bottom as far as you can see.  Maybe that keeps people from going that way.  I hoped the habitat would improve as I went.  I was planning a long wade, maybe three or four miles, and taking the whole afternoon to do it.  Surely I'd come to some good water...

Well, maybe I didn't need good water.  I was using my usual small walk the dog topwater, and every spot where a smallmouth could hide had one.  I caught a bunch of 10-11 inchers in those shallow flats.  And then I came to a little pool that was deeper, maybe 3-4 feet, and a big smallmouth blew up on the topwater.  A 17 incher!  I was happy.  And so it went.  There were simply smallmouth everywhere they could possibly be, and when I'd come to any spot that had at least 3 feet of depth, there would be a very good fish there.  I missed some of them, lost some, but ended up with 3 that were between 16 and 17 inches, 4 that were 17 or a bit over, and one that was better than 18 inches!  I waded a good 3.5 miles, and had counted 65 fish by the time I turned around.  I decided to do what I'd done the other day, put on my twin spin and fish the best spots with it on the long walk back to the truck, and once again it really produced, including two of those 17 inchers.  Final tally for 3.5 miles of creek and about 7 hours of fishing...84 bass (two of them were largemouth, the rest smallmouth).  Sometimes it's like shooting fish in a barrel. 

The habitat improved a bit as I went, but was never all that good.  And...here's an interesting thing.  There was otter poop everywhere.  You'd think that the otters would have cleaned this creek out, given the lack of habitat.  But the otter poop was mainly crawdad parts.  Maybe there are so many crawdads the otters haven't bothered to catch the smallmouth yet.