Boulder Creek Fishing Report

Big water season is here. Runoff has started. Blaaah. The Big Thompson has breeched 300cfs two days ago, the Poudre is raging, South Boulder is over 250cfs and Clear Creek…well, a bit of an oxymoron. But good ol’ Boulder Creek is still holding her own! The only game in town, actually. The flows lower in the canyon and in town Boulder have been fairly steady the last few days at about 65 cubic feet per second. This means you will have to be a confident wader to fish the creek properly and need to be willing to remove your strike indicator and high-stick a pair of heavy nymphs.

Cody Burgdorff and I spent a few hours on Boulder Creek yesterday afternoon. The current was swift and a tad off-color…just the right concoction to scare away the feeble-kneed and fair-water types. We fished for almost four hours and never saw another fisherman. Excellent. Just the way we prefer it!

I fished a set of big Banksia Bugs on a 4x leader…and took plenty of fish. Cody used a variety of big nymphs, to include Girdle Bugs, Czech Nymphs and big Hair’s Ears. They all took trout—almost at will. There were size 18 Blue-Winged Olives hatching periodically all day, but it was the larger crane fly larvae and stonefly nymphs that the local browns were pouncing on. With the escalated flows and slightly dirty water, these juicy morsels get swept out from under their rocks. They are bigger and fatter than little BWO nymphs…easier to see.