Time: 10:00AM – 3:30PM

Location: Began at the end of the trail and ended where the Walker Loop Trail moves away from the fisherman path.

Fish Landed: 23

South Boulder Creek 08/06/2014 Photo Album

I managed to get caught up at work, and that left me with a three day window for fishing prior to our scheduled trip to Olympic National Park. I hoped that my new fishing friend, Danny Ryan, could accompany me on a three day trip; however, I discovered that he had plans for Wednesday evening and was unable to join me until Thursday morning. A successful fly fisherman needs to be flexible, so I pondered my options and decided to return to South Boulder Creek on Wednesday for a day trip. I had a fair amount of success on my previous trip on August 2, and the flows remained at a nice level of 115 cfs. This is higher than ideal, but still allows decent movement. Most of the other rivers within a day of Denver continued to run high from the slug of rain received during the week of July 28.

I gathered my fishing gear and departed the house by 8AM, and that enabled me to begin fishing at 10AM after negotiating fairly heavy traffic. I hiked to the end of the trail on the north side of the stream, and considered crossing to explore virgin territory, but thought better of it when I realized it was already 10AM. I tucked my spare reel containing my five weight sink tip line in my wader pocket just in case, but I began fishing with the Loomis five weight strung with a floating line. The weather was cool and cloudy initially but quickly warmed up as the sun burned through the thin haze.

I elected to begin fishing with the size 12 gray stimulator that produced for me on Saturday, and this served me well in the first hour or two as I landed six fish including a brown trout on my second cast with a downstream drift through a long run of medium depth. I was gloating a bit as I approached a very nice place where there was a deep riffle and run directly above me along the south side of the creek, and a nice wide pool on the other side of the main center current. The pool fanned out where another secondary current moved from the bank back to the deep run in the center of the stream.

First Rainbow Landed on South Boulder Creek

Unfortunately just as I was certain I would increase my fish count in this juicy stretch of water, I experienced refusals to the stimulator as I cast above and across from my position. Remember my comment about being flexible and no constants in fly fishing? I shifted to the pool area, and here with the aid of my polarized glasses, I could see two decent rainbow trout rise and inspect the fly, but they refused to take it. I decided to focus on the fish in this area longer, so I swapped the stimulator for a size 16 gray deer hair caddis, and this did not even provoke a refusal. I noticed one mayfly in the air, so I removed the caddis and knotted on a cinnamon comparadun, but this was ignored as well. Maybe the color was off. I exchanged the cinnamon comparadun for a light gray version, and this got refused once or twice.

Before forsaking the attractive water I decided to make a last ditch effort with a green drake comparadun. I rested the pool area and returned to the riffle and run above me and suddenly a gorgeous rainbow appeared from the seam along the main current and inhaled my offering. With this boost in confidence I turned my attention once again to the two rainbows in the pool, but they were too cautious, and I eventually moved on and congratulated them.

I moved upstream and continued fishing the green drake and added three more fish to my count before I encountered another fisherman at around 12:15PM. I thought I’d waded far enough from the parking lot to avoid fishing competition, but apparently others had the same idea. In fact, after I waded across the stream and climbed the bank to the path, I bumped into another fisherman accompanied by a small dog. He asked where I was fishing, and I told him from the end of the path to below the other fisherman in the stream.

I walked through an open area with a sparse growth of trees, and found a nice spot on a log next to the stream where I ate my lunch. Upon completing my lunch I waded into the stream, but I quickly discovered the same fisherman that I’d encountered in the stream had now moved rather quickly to just below my re-entry point. Once again I returned to the path and hiked a decent distance and then crossed to the opposite side and resumed fishing. Shortly, however, I discovered the fisherman with a dog had apparently done a U-turn after learning that I’d already covered the lower water.

Fortunately the fisherman with the dog moved on before I approached too closely, so I continued wading along the left bank and fished through much of the water that I covered on Saturday, but on this day I did much better. The green drake continued to perform in outstanding fashion. Trout numbers 11-13 came from a nice wide riffle that fanned into a pool along the north bank, and all three slurped the green drake confidently as I executed nice downstream drifts over the length of the pool.

Green Drake Was Productive

It was during this time frame that I made a high backcast and hooked a bare pine tree limb that forced me to break off my initial green drake comparadun. I found a refurbished fly in my fly box that was made with a body of gray sparkle yarn, and it did not have the maroon ribbing that I was fond of using on flies I tied more recently. I was reluctant to use this fly, but decided to give it a test, and I was pleased with the results. It performed beautifully as I landed 14-20 before it broke off on a rainbow that may have been my best fish of the day. I drifted the mutant comparadun downstream tight to the north bank, and as I lifted to recast just before it approached some overhanging limbs, the fish grabbed the fly. I was rather disappointed to lose both the fish and the productive fly.

My Kind of Water Ahead

Numbers 14, 15, and 16 were all very nice fish by South Boulder Creek standards with each falling in the 12-13 inch range. One was a brown and the nicest brown of the day so I photographed it. When I lost the comparadun to the bank dwelling rainbow, I replaced it with a similar sized comparadun, but with a lighter green body. This fly produced three small fish, but I did not have the same confidence in this fly as I did in the previous two because of the lighter body color.

Nice South Boulder Creek Brown Trout

By 3:30 the shadows were extending across a third of the stream and the comparadun was not producing to the extent that it did earlier. In addition the approaching water was not as attractive, so I quit and hiked back to the parking lot.

Largest Fish of the Day Took Green Drake

Wednesday August 6 was a fun day on Boulder Creek and probably my best day ever on this local stream both in terms of size and quantity of fish. Best of all, I discovered that my green drake comparaduns were productive, but there are no constants in fly fishing, so I won’t bank on that level of success again during 2014.