Even in a drought, fly fishing can be fun with the right steps
My Friday fishing partner, Kim, and I decided a trip to Lime Creek to fly fish for brook trout would be fun. We had not fished it in a long time and thought it would be pretty, not crowded and an easy way to catch lots of fish on dry flies.
We were right on pretty and not crowded. After enduring the Old Lime Creek Road, from the north entrance, we arrived at our usual starting point. Before I regale you with our experience, I want to present a solution to speeders in, and around, Durango. Have the city and county road engineers design, and install roads similar to Lime Creek Road. I guarantee you traffic will slow to 10 miles an hour. Back to my story.
When we arrived at Lime Creek we found it to be at an all-time slow-moving low. It appeared to be about four inches deep. In my 31 years of fly fishing professionally, I failed to remember one critical item: Durango is in a record drought. Had I remembered the Animas is at an all-time low, along with its feeder streams, Kim and I would have made a better decision.
However, we were there. The decision was made to make the most of it, and put off driving Old Lime Creek Road as long as we could. We strung our rods up with a Royal Wulff on mine, and a Royal Coachman on Kim’s. As we stepped into the water we were reminded that brook trout in 4-inches of water see and hear everything. Since we did not have Harry Potter’s invisible cloak, adjustments on our part had to be made.
When in this situation, the first thing you should do is move away from the water. Truly, any movement in water that shallow will be seen and felt by the fish.
Once you step away from the stream, note where the sun is. If it is causing your shadow to move onto the water, you won’t be catching anything.
The next item that needs to be addressed is your tippet size. I normally use a 4X or 5X-tippet. However, I soon added three feet of 6X-tippet to my leader. If you are new to fly fishing, trust me when I tell you trout can see your tippet. The longer and finer it is when fishing small shallow streams the better chance you have of catching fish.
Lastly, you want your fly to land on the water as if it were a butterfly with sunburned feet. Any splash will send the trout into their hiding places. To avoid the splash, try stopping your rod a little sooner on the forward cast. Also, a gentle roll cast works well.
After Kim and I made these adjustments, I discovered Kim’s Royal Coachman was attracting more fish than my Royal Wulff. I, of course, did not have a Coachman and Kim was upstream and unable to loan me one. I switched to a foam ant when we found a small pool that had rising trout. Using the above techniques, and casting into the shade provided by the bushes, I managed to catch lots of very weary brook trout. Not as many as Kim with her Coachman, but a respectable number.
I won’t bore you with a very memorable drive out the south end of Old Lime Creek Road, taking about an hour and half. The time lapse did allow Kim and me to decide on a game plan for the next week, that would ease the pain of this weeks forgetfulness.
The next Friday we took our float tubes and went to Lake Capote. We remembered everything. There we lost count of the number of 8 and 9-inch smallmouth bass caught. I caught all of mine on a turquoise bass popper, while Kim used a variety of flies. We both caught several 14-inch trout, and I landed a large panfish. Again, mine on the popper, with Kim still using multiple flies.
For this day, leaders, presentations, shadows, or noise, did not make any difference. Proving, with or without forgetfulness, fly fishing has a way of always being fun.
* The Citizen’s annual Year in Review, featuring a look back at the top news and sports stories of 2025
