Rock Creek fishing report early May 2011

I've been back up the crick for 3 days now and have fished every day, every chance I get. I have had one beautiful sunny day, in the 60's and one miserable day (not for fishing).
I'm going against some of the other local advice I am seeing on other reports.

On the warmer sunny day I saw it pop big time around noon. There were Skwala's, March Browns and Blue Wings all going at once. I saw no need for any nymphing and they didn't give a shit about a streamer (which I threw a lot). Heads up everywhere until about 3 or 4 pm, the real key was focusing on specific fish to see which type of bug they were eating. Good drifts were the key. On the warmer sunny days nymphing and streamers will be your game early and late. Once the hatch gets going its all dries.

Now the crap day....streamer heaven. I carried my dry fly / nymph rod and never even wet the line, there was no need. They were tuned into streamers. I'm sure they would have eaten a nymph but why nymph when they are eating meat right? Olive has been my go to and swinging produces tons of hits (very little landed by me but only because I suck at swinging streamers). Short slow strips landed me a ton of fish. The weather was cold and the wind was nasty, so the hatch was not all that. Like I said I'm sure I could have stuck a few on nymphs but would much rather chuck streamers. If I had hooked all my takes it was an easy 20+ fish day.

Today looks like it could be decent fishing with a high of 50 and partly cloudy. Thursday is looking sunny and warm again so get on the water by 11.

I'm up the crick fishing hard...runoff is coming any day now.

Fall 2009

All right I'm not going to sugar coat the Fall 2009 trip...it was slightly a shit show. Melissa decided to sit this one out and it was a good move on her part. When you put 5 guys in an unfinished basement with a ton of work to do its going to be messy. By this time my basement had been given the nickname of "the slave cave." When you sleep, eat and work in a basement non stop while you are there the name just kind of comes. Joe made his first trip to the crick and what a maiden voyage it was. I can't say this to many times...thank god for Ed and Kyle. I'll let the pictures tell the rest of the story.

Every time I head to our house on the crick I get pretty excited when I hit the 7 mile drive along the river to the house. The best part is you never know just exactly what kind of scene you are going to roll up on in the neighbors yard. Jed always has some surprises. It was fall so this time it was dead animals and wood.

Also Jed's sweet rig! Not many people have the courage to take Rock Creek on in this thing.

And of course a little socializing and a beer with Jed is mandatory.

I think the "slave cave" was starting to get to Ed at this point. I mean it wasn't the most glamorous work conditions. We spent a lot of time just staring at the ceiling and thinking about what to do next.

Dishes were done in the bathroom. It didn't take us long to figure out we could do them in the shower to. Do the dishes then hop in and clean yourself. Again not very glamorous.

We got to spend some time laughing with the tenants from upstairs.

Sleeping: also not glamorous like I said. Here is where the slave cave can really get to you.

Kyle, Jed and Ed try and save this bear with some tricky surgery....

It didn't make it. (I just have to point out how psyched Jed is in this pic).

A Rock Crick traffic jam on the way to fishing.

And a little fishing always clears your head from the basement.

Here is how we left it for the winter.

Thanks to everyone for a pretty memorable week. I don't think any of us with forget that trip...it was pretty classic. It's coming together up here.

We will bring you up to date with some pics of where we are at now.

Spring 2009 Remodel

Just to bring everyone up to speed we will do a quick recap of the 2009 spring trip which was our first trip to our house up Rock Crick:

We arrived late around 2 am but still rallied to have a few celebratory cocktails

We learned a valuable home ownership lesson. When a house sits vacant for 3 years stuff breaks.

And when you turn on the old oven and it smells like urine (we nicknamed it the piss oven) you buy a new one

We painted

And partied

And danced?

And we all did what we could to stay warm

Swept the chimney

Burnt stuff

And tried to figure out what to do with this freaking basement

We will bring you up to speed on what we decided to do in the basement and where we are at. All I can tell you is we are still working on it, but we are getting close to it being "liveable." Thanks once again to everyone for your help thus far.

How's the House?

Every time I bump into someone they all ask me: "How's the house going up Rock Creek?"

So Melissa and I decided to start this blog to keep you all informed on everything going on up Rock Creek.

Now you will all be up to speed with how the fishing is, how the remodel is going, what Jed has been up to lately and who knows what else.

As of right now we are about a week or two away from being there full time. The basement is almost liveable (for our standards). We are just waiting for the shower and kitchen to be finished so we can eat and be clean after working 10+ hour days. Most importantly though; the salmon flies should be popping any day now! That means that I will be heading to Rock Creek any day now as well.

We will keep you updated.