Tex Hex

A little Pflugerville hexagenia action from my front yard.



Recently purchased a new DPS, still trying to learn macro. Too exposed and not enough detail. Now to figure out where he came from so I can toss big mayflies to hungry bass.

Gibson Jack Creek

I swear I wrote about this one already...... but am not finding it in my ramblings. This little creek is just a few minutes south of the Johnny Creek area, between Johnny Creek and Mink Creek. It is on public land up top and moves into private lands as it comes down the canyon. There are also a lot more houses up the canyon then when I was younger.

There is a nice parking lot and hiking/biking trail head where the road ends and some nice water in this immediate vicinity. The trail head fairly well is the forest service boundary. We used to paintball in the meadows and woods about 1/4 mile up from the traihead, and the area gets a bit of mountain bike use as it provides trails into the Mink Creek and City Creek drainages.

The creek is born of numerous springs in various locations in the headwaters of the north and south branches of the creek. With the added development up the canyon in the last few years I am unsure if the creek makes it to the Portnuef river or if it is disconnected during irrigation season, I suspect disconnected.

The creek has a wild native population of yellowstone cutthroats in surprising numbers but don't expect anything too huge.

Next Creek in the Pocatello Area

The next creek north of Goodenough Creek on the west side of Marsh Valley is Bell Marsh Creek. It is smaller than Goodenough Creek. Both Goodenough and Bell Marsh have resident populations of cutthroat and are some of the better small creeks in the area. IDF&G inventories put healthy populations of pure strain yellowstone cutthroat in both of these creek in decent numbers.

Access to Bell Marsh creek is more limited than Goodenough and requires some traversal of two track and possibly permission from land owners. The most direct route involves cutting across from Green Rd, the same road that can provide access to Goodenough creek.

Both creeks are disconnected from Marsh creek in the summer due to irrigation.

Some related reading from IDF&G.

Creek of the day: Pocatello Creek

From the east side of Pocatello it flows out of the mountains up around Moonlight Mine down into town. Many prime stretches run through ranchettes, farms and other private property. Years and years of grazing have left the banks impacted in this area and there are irrigation draw downs in the summer.

This creek has potential but I have never fished it. There ought to be some fish in there, but where the creek is on public land it is quite small and access to the lower stretches may be restricted. It is also detached from the river being diverted into a canal at Hiline Road.

Recent (last few years) IDF&G surveys for Yellowstone Cutthroat trout populations in the Portnuef sub basin do not show any cutthroat in the creek.

Cutthroat on TV

Courtesy of PBS and MSU. Discussing the comeback of native trout populations.

See:http://www.montana.edu/cpa/news/nwview.php?article=8666

Pocatello area creeks continued

If you are looking for a nice Pocatello area creek within about a 30 minute drive of home (assuming home is Pocatello) consider Goodenough Creek. Goodenough Creek is on the west side of Marsh Valley, flowing down a canyon that separates Old Tom and Scout mountains.

The creek runs though a little canyon and is shaded by pines through most of its course. It is one of the larger creeks in the area about 12 feet wide and a foot deep around the campground and has the potential for some nice fish. It is known to hold cutthroat and produced for me the last time I was there.

There is a forest service campground on the creek at the top of Green road, that doesn't see a whole lot of use, but has some nice campsites.

creepy crawlies, things that bite and things that sting

To interrupt my normally scheduled programing, a quick rant on venomous beasties in Texas.

Back in Idaho the list of things that would bite and were poisonous was pretty short (in ascending order of severity):

mosquitoes (not really poisonous but hey)

ticks

bees

wasps

hobo spiders

black widow spiders

rattle snakes

Here in Texas that list is about an order of magnitude bigger:

mosquitoes

ticks

chiggers

centipedes

bees

wasps

scorpions

black ants

fire ants (damn little beasties that inspired this rant)

big ugly spiders

black widow spiders

brown recluse spiders

water moccasin

cotton mouth

copper head

rattle snake

and I am sure I missing hundreds of other venomous bugs and a couple more snakes down here.

I write this as I have been spending a chunk of time eradicating the fire ants from my yard with the hopes that it will become a safe place for my kids to play. I have been bitten by exactly 1 fire ant................. a little tiny thing, teeny really. But the bite hurts, and then swells and then itches like crazy. Oh, not only do they bite, they also sting with their tails and inject some type of acidic venom. They swarm in mass. Who designed these things?

I can not imagine running afoul of a big mound of these nasties. I have been walking about the lawn spot treating the mounds and yesterday spread a broadcast treatment. I guess running into a mound while mowing the lawn is not a fun experience.

I hope to have some Texas fishing content up soon, looking at buying a sit on top kayak and becoming a bass fisherman. I may have to take up noodlin or jugging....................... ;) No cutthroat for at least 10 hours in any direction but there are some trout nearby. I will have to go hit the waters and report.