February 1, 2017 – An Inauspicious Start to February – Valley Creek

Wild sucker fishing....

Oh, Valley Creek... Beautiful place, public access, and lovely, challenging wild fish so close to home.  I have a special place in my heart for you, but you can also be quite cruel to me sometimes.  I have caught some amazing fish in your crystal clear water, and I have caught the skunk by the tail too, and now I can say I even became a sucker angler.  When the creek is low and cold, it is not the place for leisurely fishing, and I just didn’t have it in me to creep and crawl while cleverly avoiding other fishermen today.  The sucker was a first here, though, and on the mouth no less…

I had the day off on Wednesday, so after doing some work at home and running around town until 11 or 11:30 AM, I went over to Valley in the park.  I have not fished this heavily pressured area since the covered bridge was repaired and the road re-opened, so I wanted to give it a shot, knowing full well that much of that stretch is shallow and clear.  I was hoping to find some rising fish and then target two or three deep holes if that did not pan out.  I figured on a windy Wednesday in February, I would not encounter many, if any, other fishermen, but there were at least two other guys, and both hit the winter holding holes I was hoping to hit before I got the chance.  I saw one flat pool loaded with suckers, with mostly small trout mixed in.  There was even a pig of a male mixed in with them, sometimes chasing the lot of them around the hole.  I briefly battled a smaller trout and quickly spooked that hole, so I moved on to the next target, which had a dude crouched nearby.  I jumped above him quite a bit, only to see him hoofing it above me now…  Oh, well, such is life on a popular urban stream, even in February, I suppose.  I found one run with rising fish and put them all down by hooking my backcast in some reeds and standing up too tall to retrieve my flies.  On to the next open hole, and I botched the hook set on two fish, turning one on a size 20 zebra midge, and finally nailing the white sucker shown above for all my hard work.  Time to go home.  Did I mention I have a conflicted relationship with Valley?

Oh, Valley Creek...