The Ramblings of a Fly Fisherman

Clear Creek and Tenkara


I took the Tenkara rods out this past weekend and tried my luck on Clear Creek.  I also decided to play around with the new GoPro camera that I picked up off Amazon just to see how much fun it might be to start documenting my fly fishing trips via video.  Needless to say, it was fun. 
 
 


Maybe you don’t want to necessarily record your trips in HD, however; it will always be a good idea to keep a running log of your experience.  Keeping track of the day you were there, weather conditions, water temperature, flow rate, what flies you used, your line configuration, etc…  will really pave the way to becoming an expert on that water.  Imagine fishing this year, but having a resource at your fingertips that recounts what was attempted on that river during the same conditions last year.  What worked well?  What didn’t work at all?  While your buddies are digging through their fly boxes guessing, you would already be a step ahead and midway through your fifth cast.

Fly Fishing Clear Creek – 4/21/2013


Clear Creek is running beautifully right now.  The water is a bit low, but that fact is giving the average angler access to many areas not typically available.  This area is becoming my testing ground for my new Tenkara rods as the terrain and shallow runs appear to be custom tailored for this method of fishing.  So far, I have been very happy with the results.  Today, Alyssa and I caught about 12 fish on beaded pheasant tails in sizes ranging from 8 to 13 inches.  I can already tell that Alyssa is going to prefer Tenkara over western fly fishing as the ease of casting really allowed her to focus her efforts on landing fish rather than fiddling with her gear.  I did spend some time using some of the more traditional kebari flies, but due to my lack of confidence in them at this point, I found myself gravitating to my go to dry-dropper configuration (small caddis/pheasant tail) which was really easy to cast with the Ayu II and produced great results throughout the day.