Time: 12:00PM – 2:30PM

Location: City of Boulder

Boulder Creek 11/20/2017 Photo Album

The mild fall weather continued in November 2017, and I could not resist the temptation to cast some flies. On Thursday November 16 I enjoyed three hours on Boulder Creek within the City of Boulder, so I decided to make another trip to the university town a mere thirty minutes from my home. The flows were decent, and the creek seemed more conducive to cold weather fishing, even though a high in the low sixties is hardly indicative of winter conditions.

I arrived at the parking lot near Boulder Creek by 11:45, and after I downed my small lunch, I pulled on my waders and assembled my Orvis Access four weight and meandered across the park grass to Boulder Creek. I knotted a size 10 black Chernobyl ant to my line as the top indicator fly, and beneath it on a two foot dropper I added a beadhead hares ear nymph and a salvation nymph. These were the same subsurface offerings that delivered six fish to my net on November 16.

Salvation Nymph on the Point

A Good Place to Begin

Over the next 2.5 hours I worked my way upstream with these three flies, and I enticed five brown trout to nab the nymphs during this venture. Two favored the hares ear and three snatched the salvation. Although my catch rate was comparable to my previous visit, I felt as though I never settled into a rhythm. One of the difficulties was the low position of the sun in the southern sky. This circumstance created a variety of lighting challenges including glare, shadows and an alternating combination of both. To combat the lighting complication, I shifted from one side of the creek to the other frequently, and perhaps the repeated movement disturbed the fish.

As Good As It Gets

The temperature did indeed reach the mid-sixties, and I was quite comfortable as I wore my light fleece throughout my time on the stream. I covered the exact same section of the creek that entertained me on the previous Thursday, and by 2:30 I grew weary of the lighting conditions and decided to call it a day.

Although for me 2.5 hours is a relatively brief fishing experience, I was satisfied to land five small brown trout on November 20. I covered a significant amount of water, but the weather was unusually mild for late November, and any fishing success this late in the season is greatly appreciated. The weather for the remainder of the week is forecast to be favorable, so a few more trips and reports may be forthcoming.

Fish Landed: 5