I got up at 6.30 and out of the campground at 7.40. Irritatingly, the Jeep I’ve had for a week lit up with a low tire notice when I started it up in the morning. I didn’t bring my tire pump, but none of them were noticeably down, so I decided to just keep an eye on it. I found Hickory Creek without any fuss. It was a mostly overcast day to start with, and the valley was full of planted fields. As I geared up, I discovered my Flip Focals were missing from the front of my hat. No idea what happened. I was wearing the hat with them attached by the fire the night before. Maybe they fell off when I put it in the Jeep before turning in. It’s possible they’re lurking somewhere in the Jeep, otherwise they’re lying on the ground at Little Paint. So I had to face a day with no knot assistance. It was actually all right for the first half of the day. I have a decent amount of muscle memory built up for clinch knots. It got worse when the sun came out after a few hours. I just couldn’t see the line. One thing I learned is that it helps a LOT to pinch the first loop before you wrap the line – it keeps the loop large and easy to thread.
First impressions were that the water here was also quite turbid, though nowhere near as bad as the day before, and there was a LOT of water in this stream. It had a very strong flow.
The DNR map indicated a bit of catchable water downstream but far more upstream. Downstream looked a bit more walkable and more inviting, so I waddled off in that direction.
Again, I fished James’s Nissin Fine Mode 320 all day (until I broke it). Up close, the water looked really nice. Deep pools and some nice runs and riffles in between. It was much more my kind of stream. To begin with I had a now fairly familiar sense of dislocation and uncertainty on new water. No idea what was going to work, no idea really what was in the stream. My squirmy wormy, after being so sought after at Bear Creek, was ignored at Little Turkey River. I tried it again here, with zero result. Then I mostly swapped around a variety of woolly buggers. I had on a number ten black one, probably the fourth or fifth pattern I’d tried at the first major pool, when without any preamble I had a fish on the line. It fought fairly hard but eventually came into the net without too much fuss. I was pleased to discover it was a nice brown.
I only (semi-)regularly catch browns at STSNBN. The only other one I’d caught was a tiny one early on at Little Paint Creek. Cheered up (always a relief to get skunking out of the way – hasn’t happened yet, knock wood), I started working my way downstream. It was nice water, a succession of good pools still in sight of the bridge. Once the stream entered the trees it stopped bending around so much and ran straight. The pools were more spaced, but there were multiple deep runs and good holding water in between. The fishing wasn’t high volume – I had to work for every fish – but it was decent, and each fish typically took 5-10 minutes of cat and mouse before striking. I settled into regular store bought olive woolly buggers which were effective for the rest of the day.
At the next pool I caught a brook trout. My general impression was that there were far fewer fish apparent for the quality of the water than in regularly stocked streams. But almost all of the really tingly pools and runs yielded at least one fish, even if I failed to land them.
It was fun fishing. Each pool presented its own problem, and pretty much every one offered up a fish (in rare cases, two or three) to tangle with.
For a while, it looked like it was going to be nearly all smallish browns, which was fine with me.
A ways downstream, however, I saw a silver flash behind the fly. Browns are very distinctive when they run at a streamer, big yellow or golden flashes. I was pretty sure this was a rainbow, and sure enough it was, larger than the run of browns.
I then caught three rainbow in a row, then it switched back to browns and stayed there.
I’d walked far further than the catchable water indicated on the DNR map, and there were still regular trout. I started to get worried about where the public easement ended as I didn’t want to trespass. As is often the case, there were no signs. So far I’ve only encountered two situations: no signs or indications of any kind and barriers across the stream. The barriers are pretty unequivocal. The lack of anything is ambiguous. How do you know when to stop? Does not posting private property signs indicate general comfort with people fishing (I wouldn’t make that assumption in general)? Do easements continue past the catchable waters on the map? I dunno. But when I came to a track crosssing the stream between fields I decided to turn around.
The final totals were 8 browns, 3 rainbows, and a brook trout. It was notable as the most browns in a day (previous high was 3), the first time I’ve caught all three species in the same day, and the first time I’ve caught all three species from one stream. When I got back up near the bridge I found a man fly fishing. He also had a light spinning rig in a holster. I told him he was the first fly fisherman I’d run into since starting fishing in Iowa. He was very friendly, said he’d grown up in the valley, and gave me a lot of advice on the Yellow River, which he said holds huge fish. I asked about the downstream easement. He knew who the landowners were, and said that he didn’t know if there was a formal easement all the way but that nobody minded if people fished it and it was okay to do so all the way down to where it runs into the Yellow. That was very good to hear. When I got up to the Jeep another man drove up. I was thinking “So much for out of the way” but both guys expressed surprise that there were other people here, as they said they usually had the stream to themselves. This guy was also very friendly. He used jigs on a light spinning rod. He turned out to be from North Liberty, right beside where I live, but had grown up in Allamakee County. He was very interested in my tenkara gear. I told him he could get an okay starter rod for less than $100, and if it could throw around a weighted woolly bugger it would work fine to chuck his jigs. He also had advice about areas upstream.
After telling him good luck I tried to decide what to do. It was 3 pm and I was tired and hot. I’d intended to try upstream but I was thinking I could either go relax in camp at Backbone or…go home and relax in my house. I took James’s rod down while I was pondering. The tip section was stuck. Now, I know what to do with a stuck tip. Except I didn’t do it. I fiddled with it, and broke the second section. sigh. A decent day comes crumbling down. So that was that. All I had left in action was a 400 cm rod. Then I discovered I’d lost its tip plug at some point during the day. It rides on the side of the BW pack and it must have come off when I dodged under a fallen tree. Frustration level was back to High again. I still thought about going to Backbone because I’m really keen to do a hardcore solo trip to STSNBN. When I got to the decision point at Strawberry Point, though, I just kept driving south towards home.
Carnage on the equipment, carnage on the fly box, kind of a grim trip, but Hickory Creek was a winner. I have a lot more water to explore there. It’s further from my house than the Fayette County haunts (about two hours versus 1.5) but I’ll definitely be getting to know it.