Fishing the Local Suburban Creek

The baby lady and I took out a mother and daughter team to Holmes Run last Friday. The plan was to throw late season terrestrials (insects that spend their entire life on land and inadvertently end up in the water-grasshoppers, crickets, beetles etc) to sunfish and bass.

The day could not have been nicer. Kirsi wore a beanie and a pajama suit that included covered feet. We met up in the parking lot around noon and headed down to the creek. After a few minutes of casting instruction we were sight casting to bluegill. The fish were tiny and eager to hit the foam ants but not big enough to get hooked.




Not long into fishing the first hole with a fallen tree did we see a big fish come out of the shadows. My first thought was it was a bass, however upon further examination it was a trout. The stream must have been recently stocked.

Mom cast to the fish and it swirled its tail around, circled to the fly, and took a sip but not enough to take the fly. The little bluegill were being dominant and forcing the trout out of the way. We cast at the fish several times until it decided it had enough and went back to the depths and shadows of the tree.

We moved down to the next hole and had several bites but no landed fish. This spot had been cleared out by tropical storm Lee and there was plenty of room to back cast where we had roll cast for the past several years. The entire section of woods was gone. Just a barren pile of rocks and sand.

We moved to the next hole and spotted the guy who sits on a rock and throws flies at the stockies all day. Doesn't look like fun to me but he must enjoy casting to the same 3 fish all day long in the same spot with out moving. 

This bend is my favorite hole on the stream. It has a cut bank, trough in the middle, and a rock wall with rhododendron like in the mountains.

We spotted one trout holding in the bottom but not interested in a terrestrial. I hadn't brought any streamers as I wanted them to learn to fish topwater on their first trip.

It wasn't long before these two trout swam in front of us. We watched them rather than cast to them.

 We bumped into TPFR Jarrod who had the day off from school and was casting. He said he talked to some guys who had been out all morning and following the stocking truck. Thus answering how long the trout had been in the water. I looked through his fly box and suggested a tiny bead head wooly bugger. He was wearing a fashionable pair of boots too.

These are the perfect type of boot to wear on this stream, no waders required. 

Jarrod hooked 3 trout and lost all of them.

We continued down past the shallow riffles, great water if there were wild trout but I doubt and stockie would tolerate that water. We came to the next big bend and fished for a while. This too was changed since the floods. One thing that was exposed was this thing:   Its either some sort of sewer top or a left over from the several hundred year old mill that once lined the stream.  




Before long our time was up and we had to start walking the trial back.

We fished the first hole on our way out. 

Everyone caught a nice bluegill on top water.

 We decided to end on a high note and headed back to our cars.

Posted in: Holmes Run, suburban, sunfish, trout