Time: 11:30AM – 3:00PM

Location: Clear Creek Canyon

Clear Creek 04/24/2021 Photo Album

I rated my time on Clear Creek on 04/10/2021 as a resounding success, and once again I was faced with the first nice spring day in two weeks on a Saturday, so I decided to push my luck and made the short trip to Clear Creek Canyon. On my previous trip I landed twelve trout, albeit small, in three hours of fly fishing, and compared to recent results on the nearby Front Range stream, this outcome was deemed relatively good.

The forecast for Saturday called for a high of around 62 degrees in Golden, but I delayed my departure until 10:30AM to ensure that the air had time to absorb the sun’s rays in the narrow canyon, before I made a first cast. The strategy paid off, and the temperature on the dashboard registered 50 degrees, as I pulled on my light down coat and assembled my Sage four weight in anticipation of a few hours of fishing on April 24.

Lots of Pockets in This Area

When I was geared up, I clambered down a short but steep rock bank, and I configured my line with a size 8 fat Albert, a beadhead hares ear, and an emerald caddis pupa. These flies proved unattractive to the canyon fish population, although the fat Albert introduced a disturbing trend, as three fish refused the large hopper pattern. During the remainder of my time on the creek, I was haunted by refusals to my large surface flies, and minimal response to the trailing subsurface nymphs failed to offset this frustrating condition.

Promising

For dry/dropper surface flies I deployed the fat Albert, a size 10 Chernobyl ant, a peacock hippie stomper, and a size 12 yellow stimulator. Only the Chernobyl ant produced a trout, but a size 16 gray deer hair caddis trailing the stimulator also yielded a fish. I landed six small brown trout during three plus hours of fishing, and each fish devoured a different fly. The four productive nymphs in the dry/dropper arrangement that yielded brown trout were a prince nymph, krystal stone, soft hackle emerger and sparkle wing RS2. A keen reader will note that I was never able to find a consistent producer during my time on Clear Creek.

Caddis Chomper

During the last half hour I noticed some rising trout, and this prompted me to try the double dry technique that frequently contributed to my success during 2020. The fish that nabbed the soft hackle emerger resulted from this tactic.

Monster on This Day

In summary, it was a frustrating day, and I never solved the riddle of Clear Creek. The dry flies were mostly refused, and action on the nymph droppers seemed like a random occurrence. Six trout in three hours of fishing represented an average catch rate, but the size of the fish was not an offsetting positive. Two of the landed browns were so small that they squeezed through the net opening, and I hate dealing with that nuisance situation. What would I do differently, if I revisit Clear Creek in the near future? I would probably experiment with a single dry such as a deer hair caddis, beetle or ant; and I would adopt the double dry earlier in the day. I would also focus exclusively on the water along the bank, and ignore midstream lies and fast water runs.

Fish Landed: 6

Looks Fantastic