Time: 12:00PM – 4:00PM

Location: MM266.5 in Clear Creek Canyon

Fish Landed: 4

Clear Creek 10/31/2013 Photo Album

Jane and I purchased a 157 piece bag of assorted candy to disperse to trick or treaters on Halloween 2013. We agreed to turn off the lights and head out to dinner once the candy was gone. What time would you guess we departed for Wahoo’s for some delicious Mr. Lee’s pork tostadas?

Most normal people are not thinking of fly fishing on Halloween, but I’m probably not a normal person. The weather forecast called for temperatures in the high 50’s in Denver and I was in a good position to take a day off work, and Jane and I reached a decision not to purchase a second house in Eagle Ranch, so I decided to make a short return trip to Clear Creek Canyon where I experienced decent success catching small brown trout on October 10. I knew the air temperature would be quite chilly in the tight canyon in the morning so I took my time getting ready and departed at 11:15. As I drove west on I70 and then crossed to route 58 in Golden I noticed quite a bit of wind that caused the leaves that remained on trees to flutter and swayed the tall grass and branches. The dashboard thermometer dropped to 42 degrees as I progressed west in the canyon and I looked for a stretch of water that was exposed to the sun.

By mile marker 166.5 I discovered a nice stretch where the stream flowed on the north side of the highway and the south wall of the canyon was lower thus allowing sunshine to stream into the streambed below. I parked in a pullout on the south side of the road and prepared to fish by adding several layers of warm clothes. As the sun was out when I began, I elected to wear my wide brimmed cowboy hat, but I would have preferred the warmth of my ski hat. I dropped my reel containing my sink tip line in my backpack as I planned to include some streamer fishing in my afternoon casting, and once I was prepared to begin fishing I returned to the driver’s seat in the Santa Fe and ate my lunch as it was now close to noon.

After lunch I carefully crossed the highway and found an angled path down the steep bank to the stream below. I noticed another fisherman in the next pullout east of my location, and once I descended to the creek and looked downstream, I noticed him fifty yards below me. To allow the other fisherman more space I walked upstream a bit to a nice area where Clear Creek spread out and created some nice deep pools along the edge. I had my 5 weight Loomis so I tied on a Chernobyl ant and beadhead hares ear and began prospecting the water. Since during the previous trip I had the most success along the bank, I continued with this strategy, but did cast to some juicy midstream locations on the rare occasions when they presented themselves.

I fished for a half hour or so through some juicy pockets and pools along the left bank with no success, although I kicked four or five nice fish out from lies tight to streamside boulders. These fish were on average larger than the fish I landed on my previous visit on October 10. After covering the nice water up to the head of the pool I encountered a wide shallow riffle stretch so I crossed to the north bank and began prospecting the attracive locations on the side of the creek away from the highway. I normally like this strategy as I believe most fishermen do not take the trouble to cross and therefore the fish are less pressured.

For the next two hours I worked my way upstream and landed three brown trout roughly 10-11 inches long. Two of the fish slowly rose and sipped the Chernobyl ant and one grabbed the hares ear nymph in front of a submerged boulder. In addition I hooked two rainbows I did not land and toward the end of this period at around 2:30, I hooked a brown on the hares ear as I lifted to recast, but this fish also managed to shake loose from the hook point. During this time some clouds moved in and blocked the sun and the wind began to gust to the point that I had to stop fishing and turn my back several times. The combination of the wind chill and the icy water temperature caused me to stop several times and attempt to warm my hands and feet by standing out of the water and thrusting my hands in my pockets. I had my sungloves on and when I landed a couple fish they got wet and the cooling effect of the evaporation during the wind gusts caused my fingers to curl and lose feeling.

First Brown Gobbled Chernobyl Ant

By 2:30 I’d reached a point where the stream narrowed between vertical rock walls and I wasn’t prepared for difficult rock climbing or challenging wading so I retraced my path and crossed back to the south bank at a wide shallow spot. I carefully climbed the steep bank on my numb feet and returned to the car where I exchanged my wide brimmed hat for a ski hat and pulled out my neoprene fishing gloves to replace my sungloves. Once my fingers regained feeling I swapped the reel with the tapered leader for my sink tip line and clipped the tapered leader back to a length of four feet. The leader at this point was probably 0X but supposedly fish are not leader shy when chasing a streamer so I knotted on an olive woolly bugger with a black tail to the thick leader and then crimped a split shot just above the eye of the fly.

I crossed the highway and walked downstream to a point where the stream narrowed to a white water chute and descended here to work my way back upstream with the woolly bugger.I experimented with different approaches including upstream dead drift, across stream while allowing the fly to sweep down and across, and finally I’d cast directly across and then begin sporadically stripping line. The woolly bugger exhibited great movement as it dipped up and down due to the split shot near the eye of the hook, and the soft marabou and hackle undulated in the current like a live source of food.

I covered quite a bit of water in this manner until I approached a spot where the main current angled against the far bank and the flow scoured out a nice deep pocket in front of me. I cast along the current seam and allowed the bugger to tumble downstream on the sinking line. Next I cast to the very top of the pocket and after allowing the streamer to sink, I began to strip it across the five foot midsection of the pool and as I lifted the fly to recast, I noticed a small brown following. This continued until on the fourth pass through the pool I felt a bump so the brown had apparently grabbed the tail of the bugger. Finally on drift number five I’d tormented the brown into attacking the woolly bugger and I set the hook and stripped in a nine inch brown trout.

This small success renewed my enthusiasm for stripping the streamer so I proceeded upstream working all the likely water that might hold cantankerous trout that might strike out at the invading woolly bugger. Unfortunately after another half hour of fishing I hadn’t aroused any additional action and I was once again suffering cold hands and feet so I reeled up the line, climbed the steep bank and called it a day. Although four fish does not seem like a successful outing, I regard it as a significant achievement due to the adverse conditions. I tested out my long dormant sinking line and managed to land a trout. In addition I landed two trout on a Chernobyl ant, a large dry fly, on October 31. Surface action late in October is something to appreciate. Had I worn my ski hat and neoprene gloves from the start, I feel that I could have weathered the wind and cold better and perhaps picked up a few more fish.

I glanced at the thermometer in the Santa Fe as I began my drive back to Denver and noted that the air temperature had risen to 49 degrees. Once within the city of Denver it topped out at 54. Jane had already come home from work when I arrived and we prepared for the onslaught of trick or treaters. The first costumed kid rang the doorbell at 5:30 and we distributed 140 goodies by 6:45. I was feeling quite hungry by this point, so I suggested to Jane that we leave at 7PM even if there was remaining candy in the bowl. There was no need for this contingency plan as the candy disappeared by 6:55 and we were on our way to Wahoo’s.

We are teaching our children greed at an early age. I’m not sure whether chocolate Easter egg hunts or begging for Halloween candy take the prize as the most despicable holiday acts of greed. At one point the doorbell rang and I answered and was faced with a small group of princesses, butterflies, Draculas and Spidermen. However I noticed an adult woman standing off to the left side of the group so after reaching out the candy bowl so the youngsters could claim their booty, I mentioned that the adult “appeared to be a bit old to be trick or treating”. She replied that she was representing her “little one” and nodded toward the crowd on the sidewalk. To this I responded, “Can your little one eat candy?” She nodded briefly and made a hasty retreat down the steps to join her group.

Like other holidays, Halloween has morphed into a money making event for the costume and candy industries. How much candy can one child or family consume?