After a slow start to the year, there's nothing quite like the feeling of stepping up to a freshly uncovered freestone creek and making your first cast of the season. Early March in Colorado can be unpredictable, but when those small mountain creeks start shedding their winter ice, it's time to grab your tenkara rod and go find some wild brown trout.
That's exactly what this outing was about — shaking off the cabin fever and hitting a local freestone creek for the first real fishing session of 2025.
If you're new to fly fishing or tenkara, a freestone creek is a stream that's fed primarily by rainfall and snowmelt rather than a spring. These creeks tend to be rocky, fast-moving, and full of character. In Colorado, they're also home to some beautiful wild brown trout — fish that are born and raised in the stream, not stocked.
Freestone creeks are some of the most rewarding water to fish with tenkara because the tight quarters and short casting distances play perfectly to the method's strengths.
Keeping things simple is the name of the game with tenkara, and this setup was no exception:
Using barbless hooks is not only better for catch-and-release but also makes unhooking fish quick and easy — especially important when you're handling wild trout that you want to get back in the water fast.
Fishing small creeks in early March means dealing with cold water, cautious fish, and limited insect activity. Here are a few things that helped on this outing:
Tenkara was essentially designed for this kind of fishing. The fixed-line setup eliminates reel noise and tangles, and the long rod lets you reach over bankside brush and place your fly exactly where it needs to go. On a narrow freestone creek where every cast is 10–20 feet, you don't need a complicated rig — you need precision and stealth.
The DRAGONtail Mizuchi's zoom capability is especially handy here, letting you adjust your rod length on the fly as the creek opens up or tightens down.
After two slow months with limited fishing opportunities, landing a few wild brown trout on that first freestone outing was exactly the reset needed. There's something deeply satisfying about finding fish in a small, unassuming creek — it reminds you that you don't need big water or big gear to have a great day on the stream.
As spring progresses and more creeks open up across Colorado, the fishing will only get better from here.
Want to see the full outing and watch these wild browns come to the net? Check out the video above and follow along as the 2025 tenkara season gets underway.
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