Time: 1:00PM – 3:30PM

Location: Clear Creek Canyon

Clear Creek 09/27/2025 Photo Album

What is it about Clear Creek that keeps pulling me back? The trout are small and fussy, and wading the rocks is like skating on marble. I suppose the redeeming quality that pulls me back is proximity. I can drive to the middle of the canyon in forty minutes, if traffic is normal. On an early fall Saturday in September the traffic was not normal. My Google maps app displayed three stretches of yellow and red highway. I was concerned that the bottleneck resulted from construction, but it was strictly attributable to volume. The canyon was alive with rock climbers, dog walkers, hikers, cyclists, leaf peepers and fishermen.

I arrived at a small parking lot at 12:45PM, and I immediately pulled on my waders and fit together my vintage Sage four weight. When I was ready, I hiked down to the creek and crossed to the bank across from the highway.

Nice Lighting

To begin I tied on an amber ice dub chubby Chernobyl, a beadhead hares ear and a salvation nymph. In the first thirty minutes I landed one small brown trout. I was disappointed with this result, so I replaced the hares ear with an olive perdigon in the top nymph position. This combination yielded another small brown trout, but the chubby was drawing interest in the form of refusals. The frequency of refusals was not that exciting, but it was still better than the avoidance of nymphs.

Prime Spot

I removed the dry/dropper and proceeded with a double dry approach. Initially I offered a peacock ice dub body hippie stomper and a size 16 light gray caddis. The caddis duped a fish, but the stomper attracted undue attention in the form of empty looks and refusals.

Love the Pattern

For the remainder of the afternoon I worked my way upstream to the next Peak to Plains bridge, and I increased the fish count to six. I cycled through the hippie stomper, a size 16 light gray deer hair caddis, a size 14 Jake’s gulp beetle, a parachute hopper, an olive stimulator, a Chernobyl ant and a size 14 olive deer hair caddis. The beetle was the only fly to account for multiple fish at two, and the stimulator notched one.

A Fish Emerged from Just Beyond the Wood Structure

It was a very lackluster day on Clear Creek on Saturday. I landed six small brown trout between six and nine inches in 2.5 hours of fishing, and it was a disappointment in my book. Only one other angler was in my zone, so that was a positive, and the return drive was devoid of stoppages. Of course, I was coming off three outstanding days of fishing from September 22 through 24, so Clear Creek was burdened with a tough comparison. I may not be able to fly fish again next week, so it was good to get on a stream.

Fish Landed: 6