Deer Creek
On my way back to the Bay Area from Bogard Campground (see California Heritage Trout Challenge), I decided to fish Deer Creek, which parallels much of Highway 32 between Chico and its junction with Highway 36. I’d also passed it earlier in the season on my to and from Eagle Lake, and it looked like a good spot. I could find very little information online about the fishing in Deer Creek, so I had almost no idea what to expect. I only later learned about a detailed post from Keep Calm and Fly Fish. My total experience on Deer Creek is two hours, so I won’t go into as much detail here. I will say that after fishing it for a few hours, it’s definitely worth a stop, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to fish it.
River Access and Wading
At the eastern end of 32, the creek begins in a large meadow and in the Summer of 2023 there was sufficient water to make it look like a very enticing spot. Unfortunately, when I drove by, there were a lot of people in the meadow so I decided to keep going and fish a little lower. Heading west on 32, there are a number of turnouts and access points along the creek. I probably traveled five miles or so downstream (west) of the meadow before I pulled over and walked down to the river at a random spot.
It looks very much like a slightly smaller version of my home river, the Logan. It’s a freestone stream with clear water and lots of structure for fish. I used my typical dry-dropper setup with a mayfly attractor and generic prince nymph. This type of stream is what I’m most used to fishing, so I think I’m typically pretty good at reading the water and knowing where the fish are going to be. It didn’t take long before I brought a few fish to the net.
My first hour or so was quite good, and I probably hooked five fish or so. The wading was easy so I covered ground moving upstream. Virtually all the fish I caught were on the nymph, but that’s okay, it’s still fun. My biggest gripe is that I didn’t catch a fish more than about eight or nine inches. It sure felt like Deer Creek should support bigger fish, but even the deeper holes didn’t turn up anything bigger.
Things definitely slowed down by early afternoon as the weather got hotter. Having caught my share of seven inch fish, I packed it in. I liked Deer Creek. There were a few people here and there, but the crowds seemed pretty minimal, in that it was easy to find a stretch of river I could have to myself. It was also nice to just catch a bunch of fish, given how relatively few fish I’d caught during the entire trip. If only I could have landed something a little bit bigger…
This isn’t high water?