North Bear and South Bear creeks in Winneshiek County join and become Bear Creek (duh), which goes into Allamakee County, where it flows into Waterloo creek shortly before Waterloo creek enters the Upper Iowa River. A few miles upstream from its mouth on Waterloo, Bear Creek flowed through (what used to be ) a Girl Scout camp, called Tahigwa.
This year, the DNR purchased the 316 acre former campsite, and it is NOW Tahigwa Wildlife Management Area, and State Park (if you believe the sign on the gate.)
The land east of Bear Creek is posted (currently) as a Wildlife Refuge. This side is near the old lodge, and (presumably) will be (is?) the state park. The land west of Bear Creek is marked as a WMA.
I went there twice this week, and found the creek FULL of little (stream raised?) rainbows, that eagerly took dry flies, as there were large numbers of midges rising. I also caught a 12 brook trout (male, with teeth and a kype). The new DNR trout guide says that there are "wild brown trouts" and that there is NO stocking; which is Weird, since the rainbows and brook trout i caught were NOT browns. It LOOKS like it should be GREAT brown trout water, and i was disappointed that i didn't catch any, but i only fished two spots, for a total of about an hour.
It's a currently a GREAT place to catch little rainbows, and i like it!
The only problem is that, judging from the footprints, it's going to be pretty popular
No comments:
Post a Comment