Bear Creek Fall Notes

An unexpected and very welcome change in family schedule & plans allowed me to head out to Bear Creek  for bit more than a half day. I fished with my Iwana 12ft from about 10am to 3pm and it was a gorgeous Fall day on the Front Range. It was sunny and pretty mild if you stayed in the sun. I was not the only one who liked the sun, the trout were much more cooperative in sections of the river exposed to the sun. I forgot to bring my thermometer for the water, but to me it felt freezing, lol.

The action was pretty steady, I caught mostly browns with a few bows mixed in, the largest fish was just under 14", the smallest was a dink of maybe 3", pretty fish nevertheless.

Another day I barely changed flies unless I had to due to the tree fish breaking me off. I started out with a black size 16 Charlie Boy and a mercury RS2 as a dropper. Both fell victim to the tree fish, so I tied on a new CDC & Snowshoe (like CDC & Elk but Elk hair was replaced by Snowshoe Hare) that I was experimenting with. Most fish fell for the mercury RS2 but some still came quiet willingly to the surface and took the dry. I really didn't expect any risers though, I only tied the dry on in lieu of a strike indicator (I still need some visual help to detect underwater strikes).

Interesting that today, even with much if not all of the foliage gone, the tree fish were seriously teasing me all day long. For the first time I thought that a shorter rod would be handy. . A 10 or 10.5 footer might have been ideal today. Let's see of Daniel (of TenkaraUSA) will offer one soon.

River Notes:
flow: 18cfs
temp. air: 53-70 during my time on river, sunny, windy gusts
temp. water: really cold, my guess mid 40ies.