Time: 5:30PM – 8:00PM

Location: O’Fallon Park Upstream

Fish Landed: 7

Bear Creek 07/01/2010 Photo Album

I needed to take Dan to the airport for his trip to China, so I planned to fish close to Denver when I returned. I wanted to take advantage of the long hours of daylight and perhaps hit some evening hatching activity. I used the time before driving Dan to the airport to gather my gear and tie five size 18 yellow body deer hair caddis. I felt these would more closely imitate the caddis that I captured on Bear Creek on Sunday evening.

I arrived at O’Fallon Park and began fishing at around 5:30. Another fisherman was already working the water just upstream of the parking lot at the end of the park. I hiked above him and entered the water near the picnic tables just as I had on Sunday. I tied on the yellow caddis and almost instantly had a momentary hookup with a small brown in a slot behind a rock.

Next I moved up to the nice deep bend run that goes against the Bear Creek Restaurant. Once again I had an audience. Initially an older gentleman from Texas observed. While he was watching a brown darted up and sucked in the caddis in the soft water on the left side above my position. I worked the deep center run and the seam along the far bank, but couldn’t entice any fish. I moved around the bend to the next nice pool and landed a small brown from the top of the riffle where it enters the pool. I continued working my way  upstream and caught one more trout before approaching the nice long pool where I’d done so well on Sunday afternoon.

Dark clouds threatened a storm on several occasions, but nothing ever materialized. It was a pleasant evening with temperatures in the 70’s. Seeing no fish rising in the long pool, I switched to a Chernobyl ant trailing a beadhead pheasant tail. This didn’t produce either, but when I moved above the long pool I caught two additional browns on the BHPT and photographed one. I went under the bridge and fished my way up quite a distance, but again no success.

I climbed up the short bank and hiked back down the road at around 7:30, then crossed the bridge and checked out the long pool hoping to see some caddis activity as dusk approached. Nothing was showing, so I continued down the path to the restaurant. A woman and two men were standing outside the restaurant posing for photos. They spotted me, and photographed me as I began fishing. On the third or fourth cast at the top of the riffle a nice brown darted up and smashed my yellow caddis. It immediately ripped out line as it dashed upstream then made a run back past me to the bottom of the pool while my spectators looked on. I dipped my net and landed a 12 inch brown. Where was the applause?

Next I moved up to the nice pool around the bend. I’d spotted a trout refusing my fly several times previously at the very tail of the pool. It was a tough lie with a protruding branch a couple feet above where I need to place the fly. My first couple casts went to the right, but on the third attempt I dropped the fly just above the trout and below the branch. Bam. The small brown jumped on the yellow caddis, and I landed my seventh fish of the evening. Next I cast up to the very top of the riffle. On perhaps the fifth drift a trout tipped up and took the caddis. I set the hook, and felt weight a bit heavier than normal for Bear Creek, but it quickly turned and slipped off the hook. I went downstream a bit and made some casts to no avail, but it was now getting dark, and I was getting hungry, so I called it a day and returned home.