Iowa Driftless Region January 2021 Fly Fishing - North Bear Creek

 

After a solid twenty four Zoom Meetings this week, it made a ton of sense to take Friday off, and make a day trip up to The Driftless Region for some peace and quiet, river style.  There’s nothing quite like winter fly fishing.  A beautiful blanket of white covering the timber next to the water is an amazing backdrop. Especially while standing in the cold water in January, listening to the water flow by.  It doesn’t hurt that where I chose to fish, North Bear Creek near Highlandville, IA has no cell phone coverage.  

 

North Bear Creek, Iowa Driftless Region

 

This little piece of water is where North Bear Creek & South Bear Creek run together.  It’s also super easy to get to, and has fantastic water access via several very well maintained parking lots.  I left my house in West Des Moines at 5:00 AM. Three and a half hours from my house, and a large chunk of an audio book later, it was time to put on my waders.  Winter fishing requires some layering.  It was about 12 degrees when I got out of the Jeep.  I wore two layers under my waders, and had three layers up top.  Plenty of warmth for this adventure.

 

North Bear Creek, The Driftless Region Iowa

 

Today, I was fishing my favorite setup for The Driftless Region, El Jefe in 4 Weight.  I fished a 5X leader and 6X Tippet.  Today, I was going to fish a couple of midges under an indicator, a pretty typical setup for winter fishing.  In the winter, I like to go really small on fly selection.  I fished a black tungsten bead head zebra midge up top in size 16, and a size 22 red zebra midge down below.  The size 16 black zebra midge is a little larger than I would normally use, but I wanted to try this set up.  I tied it with a rather large tungsten bead head with the hope that I wouldn’t need additional split shot to get the flies down.  Mission accomplished.  If you can get the bead head right on your top fly and avoid the split shot, the rig is so much simpler.  

 

Red Zebra Midge Size 22, Tied by Jeff Ditsworth

 

Since it was still pretty cold, and the sun was not out, the fishing started out slow.  I was able to get into some small browns about 45 minutes in.  These browns were very active, and I was happy to find them.  You all know what it’s like to make sure there is no skunk around, right?   

 

 

Today, I would only hook into a couple of solid fish, and the brown below is one of them.  This one absolutely clobbered the small red midge.  Sometimes when you nymph fish in the winter, it’s almost impossible to detect a strike.  Not this time, I’ll bet the indicator moved three feet when this one hit.  He took me up stream thirty or forty feet and then allowed me to get him in the net.  This fish had incredible colors.

 

 

 

 

After feeling extremely pleased with myself after that last brown, I worked my way up to the next hole.  While standing knee deep in the water, I swear I felt water coming into my left leg right above my wading boot.  Not a lot, maybe a drip or two.  Was this really happening?  Were my legs just cold?  Was my mind making this up?  I chose to tell my mind it wasn’t happening, and continued to fish.  Either way, I’m pretty sure it was only a couple of drips or my imagination, because the sensation stopped.  Clearly, I need to check my waders because getting up this early to make a day trip could be severely spoiled with leaky waders.  

 

Jeff Ditsworth, Owner of Pescador on the Fly Exploring The Driftless Region

 

All in, today was an incredible success.  I spent ZERO time on email, I spent ZERO time on Zoom calls, I landed twelve or thirteen brown trout, and I got to completely zone out from the world and recharge.  There are amazing places to fish all over the country, I hope you all find some time soon to get out there, it’s worth it!  Until next time my friends, tight lines!

Jeff