All fishermen have one. An unnamed stream that certainly has a name, we just won’t divulge what it is. It’s usually a small stream that has big fish, lots of fish, or a combination of the two. We love to fish it and perhaps we’d gladly take our close friends fishing there, but it’s usually smart to keep things quiet beyond that.
My unnamed creek is one that’s super close to home, flows through my small town of 60 or so residents, and surprisingly, hardly ever gets fished. I’ve fished it five times this spring and haven’t run into the slightest hint of another angler (yes, I’m knocking on wood now).
It’s a relatively small stream that flows through a meadowy area within a large valley. Further up, the stream drains the face of a large mountain range, and is small, steep and fast there. The upper reaches contain rainbow and brook trout, while most of the fish living in the stream’s lower reaches are brown trout, with rainbows hanging around during their spawning run.
One of the things that make my unnamed creek so much fun to fish is its open area for flycasting, the snake-like pattern that it follows while cutting back and forth through the meadow, and the deep undercut banks just below shallow riffles, most of which hold cooperative brown trout.
I used to take a quick approach, moving swiftly upstream and fishing each pool quickly before moving on to the next. More recently, I’ve been taking things a lot slower and trying to catch multiple fish in each pool.
A large part of the allure to fishing here is the creek’s small size. Less than half a mile away, I can catch similar fish in a larger creek, which I often do, but it isn’t quite the same. Something has to be said for catching fish in a small stream. I can drive over the hill and fish the river just 5 miles away and catch larger fish, but again, it’s not the same. The other larger waters hold lots of fish, but also hold anglers. They’re great to fish most of the time, but often the most important part of fishing for me is getting away from people, reflecting, and catching a few small trout.
There are a lot of reasons I love my unnamed creek. It’s a great place to sneak away and cast flies during a stressful day. It doesn’t hold huge fish, but they’re big enough for me, and the fishing is usually fast. I don’t run into other anglers, and if I do see someone else there in the future, I’ll know that they’re probably there searching for the same thing I am. I won’t take the creek’s name to my grave, but you’ll at least have to spend a day fishing with me to find out where it is!
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