THe Little Brown Creeks

When people come to my neck of the woods to fish, they usually busy themselves on the big rivers. The Hoh, Queets, and Quinault offer steady flows and the hatchery plants in the Humptulips, Hoh, and Wynoochee concentrate the steelheaders. I find that for stream angling this time of year, nothing beats the small water. 

I fish the Quinault for summer steelhead from June on, but I save the Queets, Clearwater, Humptulips, and Hoh for later in the year when more wild summer runs and sea-run cutthroat move in. This time of year I focus on the cedar creeks. The small independents that drain the foothills and cedar swamps. The brown, dertius filled water is much richer than the clear snowfed streams that play tributary to our larger rivers. The  brown water and tight brush offer good cover for fish and I have taken monster trout from streams small enough to jump across. 

Some of the larger of these systems actually hold great populations of resident cutthroat year round, and the smaller ones usually have a beaver pond or two that make exploring them worth while. You won’t find numbers, but the coloration of the fish more than makes up for it. The Cedar stain turns the fish a glowing golden yellow, heavily spotted and with bright crimson splashes, they are my favorite piece of natural art in my locale.

I don’t sweat technique to much on these streams. Fish wet flies down and dries up, hit cut banks and log jams, never pass up a beaver pond and above all have fun. I usually carry five flies. The Royal Coachman dry, the Elk Hair caddis, the Spruce, A small muddler minnow and the Partidge and Orange. I never have anything more than a floating line, double taper because roll casting is essential, and the smallest rod I have. 

The deadliest technique is to dead drift a muddler tied on a heavy wire hook up in a cutbank. I caught my largest cutthroat of the year this past summer with this technique. A heavy shoulder 22 incher. 

You probably noticed I haven’t named a creek. That’s because all the streams I fish regularly where ones that I found myself. These fish are much more special because I discovered them without intel or suggestions from others. I think you will enjoy your small creek more if it doesn’t have a name on the map and you never see anyone else there. Especially when we are talking about smaller fish, and few of them, discovery is half the excitement at least.