Spring Creek Fishing Tactics
Spring creek fishing is where you'll find the greatest trout fishing challenges.
Spring creeks are natural tributaries to many of the major western trout rivers. Typically no more than 20 feet wide and often only 10 or 12, they wander through the valley floors in long smooth glides, rarely becoming rapid. Because they carry little rain run-off, spring creeks remain crystal clear even at times when the mountain brooks boil with silt and the larger rivers swell and become cloudy.
That clarity is exactly what makes spring creek fishing the most precise and challenging trout fishing there is. You can learn more about what puts trout down in one afternoon on a spring creek than you will ever learn on a large steam where a sloppy cast may scare one trout but a long drift is likely to carry your fly quietly over another.
Spring Creek Fishing - Stealth Required
Because spring creeks are shallow with few holes larger than a table top, and have little cover along the banks, the trout can see you before you see them. Slap your line on the water once and you not only put down the fish you were casting to, you put down everything in sight.
Since their source is underground and their total length seldom very considerable, spring creeks remain cold throughout the summer months and many good-sized trout move up into them from the larger streams. Because they pass through grassy meadows and are thickly crowded with watercress and other aquatic weeds which provide choice feed for nymphs, spring creeks carry an amazing amount of insect life and the fly hatches carry on consistently throughout the summer.
Before you begin fishing, stretch your fly line to get rid of any kinks which might have formed from the line being left wound on the reel overnight. Uncoil a 9-foot leader with a 6X tippet and scrub the coils out of it with a piece of rubber inner tubing. Finally, tie on a No. 18 Blue Dun.
Then begin your stalk. Quietly move up the little stream. Keep the sun in your face and your shadow behind you. Walk quietly in gravelly places. There is less vibration there. Look for the dimples of a rising trout.
Noisy wading, sloppy casting, a shadow falling on the water, these things put fish down as much as 50 feet ahead. Fishing these creeks calls for the utmost in stream side stealth.
Precise casting is a prerequisite, but this does not mean that long stylish casts are always the ones that work. Because of the close quarters and tight weed beds it is often impossible to cast at a fish from any great distance. The more necessary skill is an ability to put the fly in a precise position from a close distance.
Spring Creek Fishing - A Rewarding Challenge
The challenge is rewarding. Instead of watching the water ahead for rising fish alone, search diligently for the more effective way of getting a fly to them without disturbance. In the long run this diligence pays off. Once you are proficient at making a quiet and precise presentation to a wary trout in clear and shallow water, you are learning methods which will increase your success on larger waters.
While ten inches is probably the average size for most trout in the spring creeks, cutthroats of three pounds and more are often found in these feed-rich little hideaways. The bigger fish generally spend the day in the shade of the weed beds, in small cutbacks under the banks and even in musk. rat holes. Late in the afternoon when the heaviest hatches of the day come on, the big fellows slide out to dine and often are found in water so shallow that their dorsal fins are barely under the surface.
And there's one outstanding truth about spring creeks; they're consistent. The well established bottom, stable flow, cool temperatures and heavy weed growth combine to produce phenomenal fly hatches all summer long. And all summer long the trout are consistent in their willingness to take a properly presented artificial.
