Its fitting the first blog post be written about Fish Creek, it’s a special place that I’ve enjoyed for the past 20 years or so. Great memories of time on the water wrestling the once great browns and rainbows that grew fast, fat and feisty….. now, only ghosts of a time that’s past in a shadowed hull of a once great fishery. The eulogy for Fish Creek will be written as a tale of cold water and oxygen, weeds and illegal stocking…. Too much of latters and surely not enough of the formers. Once, fat trout pushing the upper limits of the 20” range and beyond ruled the Kingdom of Creek and flourished in a time of plenty. Now skinny salmonids are not only scarce but relegated to small pockets of habitable water of the right temperature and oxygen levels. Suppressed from food sources by hordes of invasive and stunted starving bluegill. The trout we see now are relegated to the skinny dumb young fish stocked right from the hatchery truck, rarely do many trout hold over, those that do are skinny, emaciated and frankly I’m shocked even a few survive into fall.
In a way I was going out to Fish Creek that evening with a predetermination, an expectation of declaring the fishery dead and to lay to rest the longings and hope for days gone.
Over the next few hours, emotions ran the rollercoaster of highs; hope and excitement and the lows of stark realization of what was actually taking place in the waning days of the fishery. However, the real reason I was there was that evening, was for the hunt.
The hunt for a Tiger.
When we learned the ND Game & Fish was going to stock Tiger trout in a few lakes for a period of time to test them out we were both overjoyed and perplexed. Tiger trout are a fantastic fish that grow fast and fight hard and are absolutely beautiful, especially in the late season colors. The perplexed frustration was that, frankly it was a great idea 15 years too late. Now only a few lakes around can support them, and that fact is socially debatable and scientifically doubtful. But for the past two seasons they stocked Tigers in Fish Creek and Hooker Lake, and this year they threw them in Moon Lake near Valley City as well. But not many of us has ever landed a Tiger trout in North Dakota, this was my quest. Now last year, things didn’t go well at all. The initial stocking of Tigers in Fish Creek were met with an army of cormorants and I nor anyone else I know landed one all year, and the nail in the coffin was the end of fall sampling done by the Game & Fish that did not produce a single tiger trout. My efforts to make it to Hooker Lake seem to be thwarted all year by life and weather and well everything in between. So, this year I made it a point to take advantage of our June evenings and hopefully find a Tiger or two before the weeds and heat took over.
The evening was a typical June evening at Fish Creek and the fishing started out as expected… a bucketmouth first cast off the boat ramp, and as I traversed the snaking riverbed was constantly inundated by the bluegill charging out from the encroaching weed beds.
The plan was to locate fish with electronics and I suspected the trout would be as deep as they could be until the evening. Sure enough I found them down in 17 feet of water both on the bottom of the riverbed and above deeper water. I targeted them with sinking lines and, as expected, didn’t pick much up save for a bump or two. Everything was as expected for sure.
As the evening wore on, I just felt that special body of water start to release her secrets like it has for decades, the slight cooling of the air, the ever so subtle drop of the breeze, and the shades of pinkish violet started to drape across the horizon to the southeast. I knew the magic hour was approaching.
As if on cue, the plops of bluegill popping through the surface film was slowly replaced at first by the slipping fins of trout effortlessly feeding on those unfortunate invertebrates caught still in the tension of the water's surface. Then those takes began to be more aggressive and more frequent. The rising trout had surfaced in mass to feed on the bounty that had been provided. I felt with the size structure and proximity to the spring stocking and the propensity that all these trout were stockers I opted for the 5 wt and a floating line however a 4 wt would have sufficed and a 3 wt would have been a blast. In the past situations at the “crik” I’ve done best with size 14 and 16 partridge soft-hackle flys, or even small tannish humpys in 14-18. But tonight, I felt the soft hackle was the right move… being I was empty in the humpy bin, probably the right choice. When these trout rise its usually in a pattern of some sorts, and by watching its easy to decern the rhythm. In the earliest days of my fly-fishing journey, I would cast directly on the rise but with experience one can determine the direction and interval of the trout’s rise, measure out a timing that feels right and cast just in front of the pattern. Usually this works with great success and this evening was no different. Fish after fish fell for the soft-hackle and with each tug the feisty stockers frustration was met with a yelp of glee from the man behind the fly rod. There wasn’t much variation in size or color to these new residents of Fish Creek but there where fun in the moment for sure. It almost felt as if the old girl had come alive a bit and maybe just maybe there was hope.
Soon into the cavalcade into the net I encountered a sign of life carried over through the winter. My old friend Sal, Salmo Trutta to be exact. At first, I thought I’d caught a nice Brown Trout akin to the days of yore. But in thinking about it I couldn’t recall when the last time Browns had been stocked in Fish Creek. My research after, confirmed that the last time was spring of 2022. So, this 2 ½ year old brown lay in the basket for a quick pick and the realization set in that this was a skinny emaciated trout that in the two years since being put into this body of water it really has not flourished at all, in fact, it’s barely survived… much like the Browns I caught the past fall. The reminder of the real status of the lake was revealed yet again. So off back to the feed went Sal and the hunt for what I was after was on renewed.
Watching the fish rise in the fading sun it was soon easy to tell the rainbows glistening as they broke the barrier of the water and flew into the air but I also noticed some darker shades to some of those rising trout and started concentrating on those. It didn’t take long before I hooked into one just ahead of its previous rise, it fought with the feisty intensity of confused anger and let free from the water and touched the air above in leaps hoping to flee. As I brought the small bodied trout into the next it was me who let out a shriek of excitement as the swirling vermiculation appeared in front of me.
I had one, the elusive Tiger Trout, the object of thoughts and discussion and hopes and dreams for so long had finally found its way to the safety of the net at my flippered feet. Now the level of excitement was surely not matched by the size of this fish, it was in fact rather small 8-9 inches maybe 10 in the retellings, but what it lacked in size it made up for in the sheer joy that, at least this one had survived and was something of a success, if to no one else but me. After a few quick pictures and letting it recover safe in my net that I held in the water as to keep the fish there as well, I softly let the prized salmonoid slip gracefully through my fingers and back to the grand cathedral of the lake from which it came.
After the Tiger I almost didn’t care to put too much more effort into fishing, but did, and enjoyed the beautiful June evening on the water. The trout continued to rise and leap and casting in the pattern produced a plethora of additional rainbows and one more Tiger that put on quite the aerobatic show. It was a great evening for sure. I slowly trolled back toward the middle bowl and was able to take in all the visual amazement that Fish Creek has to offer. It really is a special place in North Dakota, a gem it seems, at the perfect location for the setting sun to cast a flowing haze of purplish pinks across the backdrop of the rolling hills beyond the dam. At the same time the setting sun over the hills and trees to the west cast shades of orange not yet defined by man. I miss my old friend and remind myself even for what it is, it’s worth the drive out every now and then.
I drove away from Fish Creek once again pleased with an evening of fishing but not without even more so understanding of what the lake is, a shell of what it once was and will never be again. The science and sentiment are both squarely against the possibility of any rejuvenation that could happen, if any even possibly exist. So, for now, we leave Fish creek for what it is, and I encourage you to get on out there and enjoy it for what it is, a beautiful scenic secret hidden among the rolling hills of Morton County. Who knows maybe you’ll even end up face to face with a Tiger.
You just never know what you’re going to find on your next adventure in Fishkota Country.