First Freestone Creek of 2025: Tenkara Fishing for Wild Brown Trout in Colorado

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.

What Is a Freestone Creek?

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.

The Gear Setup

Keeping things simple is the name of the game with tenkara, and this setup was no exception:

• Rod: DRAGONtail Mizuchi ZX340 — a versatile zoom rod that handles small creek work beautifully
• Line: 5–7 feet of level line, keeping things tight and controlled in close quarters
• Tippet: 4x nylon and 5x fluorocarbon, depending on the fly and presentation
• Flies (all size 16, barbless):
  • Hi-Vis Parachute Black/Purple Ant
  • Pink Tag / Pink Bead on a jig hook
  • Green Perdigon on a jig hook

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.

Early Season Strategy

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:

• Go small and subtle. Size 16 flies are a great starting point when fish aren't keyed in on a specific hatch. The perdigon and jig-hook nymphs get down quickly in the water column where cold-weather trout tend to hold.
• Use a hi-vis dry as an indicator. The parachute ant pattern serves double duty — it can catch fish on its own, or you can use it as a visual anchor while drifting a dropper nymph underneath.
• Fish slow and tight. Early season trout aren't going to chase. Short, precise drifts right through their holding water are key. This is where tenkara really shines — you can keep your line off the water and get a perfect drag-free drift even in tricky currents.
• Stay stealthy. Small creeks mean the fish can see and hear you. Move slowly, stay low, and approach pools from downstream whenever possible.

Why Tenkara Works So Well on Small Creeks

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.

A Promising Start to the Season

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.