Time: 10:30AM – 3:20PM

Location: National forest land

Beaver Creek 08/20/2024 Photo Album

Note: In order to protect small high country streams, I have chosen to change the name for a few. This particular creek happens to be one of them. Excessive exposure could lead to crowding and lower fish densities.

For my third consecutive day of fly fishing I chose a mountain stream that I have grown to love. I expected an excellent day, but fly fishing is always full of surprises.

Very Clear

Nice Early Chernobyl Ant Eater

I arrived at a small parking lot near the trailhead and quickly prepared to fish with my Sage R8 four weight selected as the fly rod of choice. The temperature was 66 degrees, and I chose to wear my waders, which was a big mistake. I hiked a reasonable distance and found myself next to the stream ready to cast by 10:30AM. I began with a hippie stomper solo, but it failed to generate interest, so I switched to a dry/dropper approach. I knotted a classic Chernobyl ant to my line and followed it with a beadhead hares ear nymph. These flies remained on my line until lunch, and I managed to land three decent brown trout including a fat thirteen inch bruiser that represented the best fish of the day. All three of the morning trout crushed the Chernobyl ant. The nymphs, which included a prince, where ignored and only served to be a nuisance, when they wrapped around the top fly while landing the fish.

Promising Area

Welcome to My Net

The remainder of the day was mostly an exercise in frustration. I progressed upstream through absolutely stunning water and scenery, and I managed to boost the fish count from three to nine. I covered over a mile of stream, and the afternoon featured an abundant quantity of fruitless casts. Since the nymphs were ignored, I cycled through a large number of double dry fly combinations. The hippie stomper was central to most of this time period and included a long period with a purple body stomper. The end position included a beige mini chubby, an olive stimulator, a size 14 olive body deer hair caddis, and a parachute green drake. At one point I reattached the Chernobyl ant in the end position, since it produced three fish in the morning, and it actually accounted for another decent twelve inch brown trout. The six landed fish were spread across a wide mix of the flies listed, as none seemed to be a consistent fish magnet except for the Chernobyl ant.

Who Designed This Pool?

Sole Rainbow on the Day

The deep clear pools were unproductive, and most of the afternoon fish materialized from runs along the bank or large exposed boulders. A few popped up from moderate riffles to eat, and the very lip of a few pools relinquished fish that grabbed one of the dries, just as they were about to accelerate. In fairness I also experienced around six temporary hookups and a couple foul hooked fish that refused the top fly and got snagged by the trailing fly as a result of my belated hook set.

What a Pool

The sky was cloudless and the sun beat down relentlessly. When I returned to the car after a sweaty hike, the temperature registered 90 degrees. Apparently both the angler and fish were in a heat induced torpor on August 20, 2024. For this reason, I am not writing off Beaver Creek. I will return once again, when the weather cools in September or October.

Fish Landed: 9