I bet that thousands of people drive by Indian Creek Reservoir every day and don’t know what it is.
It
is the small reservoir that marks the halfway point between Boise and Mountain
Home, and over time anglers have written it off as a bad fishery. We got
a tip earlier in the day that it was fishing well right now and, knowing
ourselves well enough to determine that we would have trouble sleeping if we
didn’t check it out, we took off after work.
Ryan Spillers is my top
choice to fly fish with in any given place or situation. He fully understands
that fishing can be phenomenal or a bust and is 100% okay with whatever the
outcome. It is also nice that he has been fly fishing practically his
whole life, and together there is very little we can’t figure out.
Float tubes were pumped,
flippers were on, and rods were rigged with our favorite top water bass fly. I
had to use one of the Pink Poppers from the shop, while Ryan went with his own
pattern, the Spillers Diver.
I hit the water first, heading to
the rock bluff on the west side of the reservoir; however, before I could reach
my destination I had my popper in the water and was carelessly kicking and
releasing line when SPLASH, my popper was hit! Immediately I set the
hook, bringing in a ten-inch largemouth that put up the fight of its life!
Off in the distance I
could hear the echoes of whooping and hollering as Ryan proceeded to nail one
fish after another. We met up with each other in the middle of the
reservoir where the plant life was sticking out of the water creating a perfect
habitat for bass. And it wasn’t even fair. No matter where we placed our flies
they were massacred by the nearest bass.
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| The Lab Rat version of the Spillers Diver |
The fishing was so good we
decided to play a game… CAN THEY CATCH IT? We casted our fly as far
as we could, stuck our fly rods in our armpits and, with both hands, retrieved
our flies as fast as we could. Bass were flying out of the water after my
rocketing popper and, believe it or not, they caught it!
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| Ryan Spillers bringing in his 50,000th bass |
We stayed until we couldn’t see any longer and the temperature had
noticeably dropped. Cold and dark, we headed out to the nearby gas station and
picked up some delicious hot chocolate for the drive home.
The video below is fly fishing Indian Creek Reservoir with my wife, Gracy.
