Gearin' up

Here at Neil Creek, we like to think of ourselves as facultative fly fishers. We do it 99% of the time, but we ain't above whizzin' hardware around when the mood strikes us.

After last nights inch and a half of rain, the mood struck.

A note on SouthEast AK's rainforest streams: The ground is so saturated around here that the creeks go up if a bear pees upstream. They do go back down quick, but they are moody, fickle little watersheds.

At any rate, last night's rain put most creeks in about quadruple flows, ending a reasonable hope of flyfishing today.

Dusted off the gear rod and went to fish pockets that weren't there 9 hours ago, and in all probability won't be there tomorrow, barring further rain.

The great thing about high water is that the fish seem very calm, almost serene. You find them in little side pockets off of the main torrent, like this one that came off of the low-water foot trail.



It is pretty cool to poke around in the streamside shrubbery when the water is way up...more like hunting than fishing, really. Shake a bush, see a coho dart out from under it. Slosh down the now-flooded trail and have fish v-wake out of your way.

The creeks are probably going to come back down this weekend and the gear rod will go back into the pile, but as the next of the fall lows moves in and the rain starts up again, it'll be back in the truck, ready to go.