The Birth of the Suburban Blue Line

Let's just say that time hasn't really been on my side lately.  With all the real life shit that needs to get done on the weekends, sometimes you just don't have the time to drive 3 hours round trip to fish (and usually not catch) for a couple brief hours and get home in time to get some more real-life shit done before you have to drag your spiteful ass back to work on Monday.  After reading some cool articles out in the interwebs about fishing blue line mountain creeks and driving past some trickle streams on my soul-crushing commute, a thought was born.  A few hours of poking around and looking at some maps of the area, I decided there were just too many of these little squiggly blue lines close to home to not give them a try and my suburban blue-lining mission was ready for lift-off. 

The next weekend I grabbed my map, jumped in the car, and in 10 quick minutes I was parked on the side of the road scoping out my first creek; a glowing orange and green nuclear-looking ditch with clear, flowing water that showed me every ripple and pool. 

Time to throw a dry/dropper rig on the South Fork Rod Co. Classic 2wt and get to work.  I had parked upstream so, I got a good look at all the fishy lookin' runs and pools on my walk down stream to about as far as I felt comfortable walking before things started to get real No Trespassing like.  After about half an hour of nothing but walking the banks and picking my flies outta the trees without a single strike or putting eyes on any fish, I was starting to smell a skunk. Fuck it, at least I was out of the house and slingin' flies.  Sometimes (ok a lot of times for me, after driving 50miles one-way) that how it goes and you have to keep reminding yourself of those little happy thoughts and keep on slogging.  I was all about some positive psychological affirmation when I rounded a bend, took a step too close to the water's edge and spooked several dozen fish into hauling ass up the creek a ways.  Damn..... this power of positive thinking shit really works!!  Ok, so I scared the hell out of every fish for 100 yards upstream but I had found the little bastards (and I knew where not to drop my fat feet next time).

Work a few bends, lose a nymph in a tree, change rigs, run into a couple deer hunters out scouting, and Eureka! my Klinkhammer gets smashed and makes a bee-line for the bottom of a pool and the tree roots therein.  A little pull to seat the hook and back him off the roots before the grin sets in, the waft of skunk catches the next breeze outta town, and this little guy has the tip of my rod jumping up and down.

 

 

 

Sure, it's no Brook Trout and it didn't take long to figure out that the water in this creek wasn't gonna be cold enough for trout anyway; but it was a fish, there were many more of 'em in this ditch, and I proved my theory that I was gonna be able to fish the myriad of little feeder creeks less than 15 minutes from my house and at least once in a while, not go home with nothing to show for it but some lost flies and briar cuts on my arms.  I walked the rest of the creek back to my car, caught a few more of these feisty little fellas and went home to look at my map and plot next week's expedition....