spring creeks are those low gradient streams that often come full blown from underground springs
they often have a rich abundance of food and trout that are more selective and spookier than trout
in ordinary meadow streams the one kind of small stream where you really have to
change your game is in a spring creek and you can tell i'm standing in a spring creek
because you can see the crystal clear water and the aquatic vegetation behind me so these fish
are very well fed there's a lot of food in spring creeks they're very productive most of the bugs
are going to be small so you really can't get away with just slapping a big old dry fly out there in
a spring creek gonna have to go to smaller flies finer leaders smaller nymphs and just totally
change your game when you're fishing a small spring creek finally if you're fishing the western
united states where irrigation is common don't overlook irrigation ditches often these water
courses pull trout from the main river and some of them also have small springs flowing into them
trout in these places are often hard to catch but during grasshopper season when irrigation is at
its peak you may discover trout in unlikely and overlooked places when we return we'll find out
what kind of tackle and cast you'll need to take advantage of the many delights of small streams
the good news is that you probably already have the tackle you need to fish most small streams
there's a tendency to want a short tiny rod for small streams
but a longer rod is often desirable something between eight and nine feet long
so a lot of people think you need a super short rod to fish small streams but that's usually
not the case in a mountain stream like this you want to hold lots of line off the water you want
basically just part of your leader in the fly on the water and with a super short rod you
just can't hold that much line off the water so a longer rod sometimes helps there's nothing wrong
with scaling down your tackle though and some people just like the idea of using a smaller
rod for these mostly smaller fish if you really get down into the weeds in tiny brushy streams
a rod from six to seven and a half feet might give you a bit more room to cast
but think about it you're only getting about a foot of extra room for casting with a shorter rod
if you're gonna do this kind of stuff you need to modify your tackle a little bit
um modern most modern fly rods are optimized to cast about 35 feet of line the problem is in small
streams you're often casting just a few feet of line so one of the ways you can do this is you
can get a rod that has more of a full flex action that's optimized to cast shorter lengths of line
like this super fine the other thing you can do is you can use a fiberglass rod fiberglass by nature
or bamboo fly rods are slower action they'll bend more at short casts and they'll be able
to throw those short lines plus they roll cast better and a third option if you don't want to
get another rod just for small streams is to over line your normal fly rod by one or two line sizes
so if you have a four weight rod and you want to fish really small streams then put a five
or six weight line on it that'll make the rod bend more it'll roll cast easier and it'll be
much better in small streams the rod size you choose knowing that you might have to over line
it should reflect the flies you use typically on small streams we use flies that are surprisingly
large because the fish are hungry and often not selective plus it's nice to fish a fly you can see
dry flies in sizes 10 through 14 are pretty standard with nymphs in the same sizes
so four and five weight lines are perfect you can go lighter if you want to use a smaller rod or as
heavy as the six weight if that's all you have but i would not go any heavier than a six lines
and leaders for small streams couldn't be easier you need a floating line and a seven and a half
foot 4x leader for nearly every small stream you fish most of this fishing is dry dropper or dry
fly fishing and often your line doesn't even touch the water even if it does the water's so shallow
so a sinking line would only get you into trouble keep it simple leaders for this kind of fishing
should be standard nylon tapered leaders anywhere from seven and a half feet long
to nine feet long you can use longer leaders if you like and sometimes you need them in the flat
meadow streams but for the most part because both casts and drifts will be short a shorter leader
turns over better and even with a short leader you won't put your fly line over the fish
so for small mountain streams like this there's no better tool than a tenkara rod it's very
simple fly fishing it has no reel you tie the line to the end of the round it has no fly line
what you have is a piece of level line that's about one and a half times the length of the
rod and it's highly visible it's highly visible monofilament and then on the end you just have
four feet of 5x tip it that's all you need one of the biggest advantages of a tank car rod is
that you have no fly line so you can keep that light line in the air you keep all your line off
the water just a little bit of your tippet and you get really great drag-free floats
the roll cast will become your best friend on small streams because it has no back cast
and slower rods or over lined rods roll casts better than stiffer ones
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