Backyard Sunfish

Morgan Creek Sunfish

Morgan Creek winds around our southern Orange County subdivision on its way to the Cape Fear River. It’s a tiny creek, and this time of year, a deep pool doesn’t wet my knees and it’s rarely more than 15 feet wide. In places you can literally jump across. In the summer, it dries up to a trickle in good years, and in drought years, goes completely dry. Somehow, however, fish manage to survive and spread throughout the creek. In years past, I’ve actually stocked a few hybrid sunfish, but I’ve not found that this changes the long-term population.

Today, I grabbed my most delicate rod (a Sage TXL 00-weight) stuffed a few things in my pocket and hopped on the bike. In less than 5 minutes, I stepped into the water, very cool as it splashed on my legs. There were fish in the first good pool, but the sun was high on the water and the fish could see me and that was the end of that. I wandered along the trail, down the creek, and soon caught three small sunnies in a long, flat run that’s always a good one. Even a little fish will bend the 00-weight 🙂 . Near the head of the run, it’s almost knee deep, but tails out to less than a foot deep below that. The water is too cool for dries, so I used a Syl’s Nymph (peacock herl, wrapped in copper, with partridge hackle).

It’s not “big game” but it’s always fun to fish the back yard…

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