Closing Time

[WestCentralFisher]

These types of creeks go through a similar rhythm every year. In April and May, amidst high water events, you can catch some smallmouth bass, but it's tough and you have to pick your spots when the water isn't too muddy and/or high enough to be outright dangerous. Then sometime in June, the water drops, and with a few exceptions through July, the fishing is easy. It's not that you kill it every trip, but it's never particularly challenging, and occasionally you do have one of those days that in time turn into gold-plated memories. The ones where you do really get a follow nearly every cast, and where you see fit to stop counting after the first dozen or so smallmouth or caught and released. 

And then one day you show up in August. The water is low and clear. The fishing isn't exactly slow but it's not the same. You actually, the horror, have to try if you want to catch fish. That happened about a month ago. But I came back yesterday anyway. 

It was the perfect picture of a smallmouth stream in early fall. Crystal clear water, leaves dotting the surface. There was one other truck at the access, a floater who couldn't have been having an easy time with maybe 40 or 50 cubic feet per second of water flowing over the wide stream bed. Gone were the smallmouth from the quick riffles and the shallow heads of pools. But in the pools themselves, there they were. They weren't exactly actively feeding, but certainly not in the state a shade or two above suspended animation they'll be in about a month.

The fishing itself was not a particularly dramatic affair. I had to work a little, but after some missed strikes, I managed to hook and land enough smallmouth bass to be thoroughly happy. None I'd call large, or even the nebulous zone I'd call "good sized " but even the 10-12 inchers fought hard in the cool water. 

I've no doubt I could fish the creek for several more weeks and do well enough; if I was persistent enough, I could likely fish through the warm days in winter with some degree of success. And I might do just that. But it occurred to me that this was probably the last trip where it would still feel somewhat feel like a summer creek; the last trip with shorts and without waders. It's been a fun season on this creek, and I hate to see it go, but hiking in the hills above it after I got done fishing and seeing the start of the fall colors, I was reminded other seasons have their allure as well.