Creek Update . (Long )

It’s been two a quarter days since the front dropped 1.2” of rain and swelled the creeks around here .
Although, I usually stay away from parks on weekends, I wanted to check out the creek above and below a local reservoir that’s fishable.
The park on the upper end was packed with hikers and picnickers. The locals love this place . But most don’t fish it .
First stop , the upper end where I fished last week . The water was up , stained , and moving double what it was last week . But I felt like I could still manage to fish it if I moved around and found areas with some slack areas or where the current would swirl and flow back upstream.
I was right ! I ended up catching 3 nice crappies and a smaller one , a super nice shoal bass and a hand size redbreast.
I hated to leave them biting , but I needed to check out the lower section below the dam .

The water below the dam was also running fast and high , but the water was as clear as a mountain stream . I wasn’t sure if I could catch anything it was run in so fast . I started casting downstream and slowly twitching my micro jig upstream along the edge of the bank .
My first fish was a nice stream bass , I believe is a largemouth. At first I thought it was a spot , but the jawline goes back to the eye . I also caught another nice crappie .
I’ve never caught crappie out of this creek before .
To top it off I caught three nice shellcracker before heading to the next spot .
The next spot was the creek below an old mill pond dam .
When I got there , it was full of picnickers and woods walkers .
And the water was muddy , and it was way too fast to fish .
I didn’t even get out of the car . Wished I’d stayed at the last spot .
It turned out to be a good couple of hours of creek fishing.

Equipment used was a 5’ St Croix Premier ULM with a Carbon X reel and Daiwa J Braid with a 3# Floroclear leader and a 5’6” St Croix Trout series ULF and a Carbon x reel with Jbraid and 3# leader . On the trout series , I lost a jig and when I broke off , I lost my leader and tied directly to the braid . Even in the super clear water , the fish didn’t seem to mind . I caught all of the shellcrackers with a direct tie . I don’t think I would have landed a lot of these fish on the 2# test I usually fish with . Several had to be lifted up the bank .

Good job and pics. Thanks for sharing

Creek pictures .
Upper end

Lower end .
Looks like a mountain trout stream .

Great post and pics!

Definitely a great day for quality fish. Maybe keep a few of those crappie and redear for a meal next time. Some good eating there. Those creek pics are awesome, I see multiple spots I'd be throwing to. We got rain forecasted for entire week so some spots here will look like that soon, I hope. Congrats on your fine fishing day.

I plan on fishing this creek more this year . Especially the upper end .
I need to keep an eye on it and learn how much rain makes it unfishable and how long it takes for it to go back down after a certain amount of rainfall.
If it were to get a half inch now , it’d probably be hard to fish .
We’re not due any rain until next week .

This part of the creek is located in a city park that’s used heavily by people hiking the trails mostly or walking their dogs . There were as many people with dogs the other day than without .
I did find a difference trail leading to a lower section of the creek that was easier for an older person to hike to the creek . The upper trail had the drainage from a pond running down the middle of it and had sections with slimy rocks and tight areas where I had to hold onto small trees to get through on a dry section about a foot wide .
I wish I could find other accessible areas of the creek above and below here . Around a couple of miles from my house a main road runs over it , but it’s private property on both sides of the bridge . It stays pretty stained around there .
I may go back today and see what another 24 hours has affected the water level. Less people today also.

I went back to the upper section of the creek today for a little over an hour of actual fishing.
The water level seem to have dropped some but it remained fairly stained .
I took my 5’6” St Croix Avid ULF paired with a Shimano Soare XR500spg spooled with Daiwa J braid X8 and 3# Floroclear leader .
I used a 4mm hook size 10 lil nasty micro jigs .
The fish ran smaller today except for one fair size Crappie .
Ten crappies total , one small redbreast and a small bluegill .
A lot less people, but I did see one other guy fishing .

Your fish have great colors.

Drove over a bridge just north of where I’ve been fishing today , after over an inch of rain in about 8 hours last night , most within a couple of hours time .
The water was muddy red and looked like Olympic style rapids .
Going to be awhile before it’ll be fishable again.

Beautiful spot. I could just sit and listen to it for a while after I’d fished it some. Helps keep the blood pressure down?

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Originally Posted by skeetbum

Beautiful spot. I could just sit and listen to it for a while after I’d fished it some. Helps keep the blood pressure down?

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I love the sound too , but it keeps me on my toes .
The area I fish has a couple of busy trails running parallel to the creek . One upper , one lower .
Because of the running water , I’m constantly checking behind me while I’m fishing .
Had one guy who was jogging on the lower trail , holler at me , “ catching any?” I about jumped in the creek. Completely surprised me .
He was less than 10’ from me .

My nerves are like that lately too. Almost went off on customers that walked up alongside of me while the RPM on the truck was up and I couldn’t hear them. Scary.