By Doug Dillingham
To loosely paraphrase the ancient Chinese philosopher Lao-tzu, “Give a man a brown trout and you feed him for a day. Teach him how to catch a brown trout on a fly rod andyou will have ruined him for a lifetime.”
Apparently, trout-obsessed fly-fishing bums aren’t anything new. I first suspected as much when legendary author Norman Maclean broached the subject in A River Runs Through It; speaking of his father, he recalled, “He told us about Christ’s disciples being fishermen, and we were left to assume that all great fishermen on the Sea of Galilee were fly fishermen and that John, the favorite, was a dry-fly fisherman.”
I’d wager that long before the disciples were “‘fishers of men,”‘ they were fly fishers of brown trout. My own brown trout wanderlust has taken me to some of Colorado’s finest Salmo trutta waters: the Gunnison, Taylor, South Platte, and Frying Pan Rivers, and Cebolla Creek, amongst others. Aah—you caught that. Cebolla Creek? Now, I’m not claiming that Cebolla Creek belongs on the list of Earth’s finest brown trout fisheries—New Zealand; Patagonia; White River, Arkansas; Silver Creek, Idaho; and others—but I am saying that, for an unfamous, semi-scrawny trout stream in a forgotten corner of Colorado, it’s a fair bit better than you might guess. The point I’m making is that if you enjoy tossing flies for brown trout—with an emphasis on both quality and quantity—in a breathtakingly beautiful small stream setting, you should probably introduce yourself to Cebolla Creek.
Cebolla Creek (pronounced suh-voy-a) derives its name from the Spanish word for “onion.” And indeed, wild onions grow liberally along the creek. Cebolla shouldn’t be confused with Cibola, the latter of which refers to one of the fabled Seven Cities of Gold sought by Spanish explorer Francisco Vásquez de Coronado. In his quest for Cibola, Coronado never found a city made of gold but did inadvertently become the first European to lay eyes on Rio Grande cutthroat trout. If you decide to explore Cebolla, you won’t find any Rio Grande cutts, but you will find something arguably more precious than gold: a mother lode of ravenous brown trout.
To reach Cebolla Creek—a tributary of the famed Gunnison River—from the town of Gunnison, head west on US Highway 50 for 9.5 miles to State Route 149. Turn left (south) and cross the bridge spanning the extreme eastern end of Blue Mesa Reservoir, then continue southward on SR 149 for 17 miles to County Road 27 at Powderhorn (which is basically a post office and some cabins); CR 27 runs southward alongside “Onion Creek” for several miles, including through four parcels of public land that offer access to stream reaches worth fishing. Eight miles from the turnoff onto CR 27, look for tiny Cebolla Creek Campground, where about 1 mile of public water is available. Farther south on CR 27, about 7 miles past the campground and 15 miles south of the SR 149 turnoff, Mason Family State Wildlife Area contains more than a mile of some of the busiest and most productive public water on Cebolla Creek. Continuing south for a couple of miles from Mason Family SWA (keep right after the road forks at Cathedral) is another 1-mile swath of public access well marked by signage. These three public accesses all contain trout-laden riffles and runs with some interspersed pocket water.
Finally, a lengthier stretch of public water is located 4 miles after the road (now called FR 788/CR 50) forks at Cathedral and begins slightly downstream of Cebolla Campground (not to be confused with the aforementioned Cebolla Creek Campground). Most of this 5-mile stretch is characterized by meandering, lethargic, willow-choked riffles and runs accentuated by thrilling bend pools and undercut banks. Within the heart of this stretch of Cebolla Creek—between Spruce Campground and Hidden Valley Campground—the valley tightens, creating a difficult-to-navigate mini-canyon with superb pocket water for anglers willing to dap and bow-and-arrow cast through this claustrophobic terra unfirma. This area is plagued by a vulgarity of blowdowns, making it unpleasant to negotiate with both foot and fly rod. The fly water upstream of the diminutive canyon (basically upstream of Hidden Valley Campground) is a willow-hidden meandering meadow section that is some of the best trout habitat on the entire creek. Even as Cebolla becomes a smaller trout stream nearer its headwaters, you can still find a rare bruiser brown up to 18 inches, especially where a bend pool creates an undercut bank. And as you continue to explore farther upriver, you’ll begin to find more and more brook trout cohabitating with their European kin.
Salmo trutta Shangri-la
Although Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) tried for years, and ultimately failed, to establish a self-sustaining population of rainbow trout, Cebolla Creek is now home almost exclusively to brown trout. The few rainbows in the creek are from private stockings on privately owned sections of the creek (the creek’s fee-fishing private waters can be booked through area fly shops). The average Cebolla brown measures about 10 inches, 15-inchers are plentiful, 18- to 20-inchers are present, and even larger specimens are not just the stuff of fly-fishing fairy tales. They really do exist. In fact, a few years ago a CPW electroshocking crew captured a 23-inch alligator-snouted, hulk-like beast of a brown trout that would even impress a fly-rodding New Zealander.
Brown trout, of course, aren’t native to the United States; they arrived in 1884, to be exact, when 4,900 brown trout fry were released into a tributary of Michigan’s Pere Marquette River. Browns are native throughout Europe, but were also historically present in unexpected outliers like Turkey, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran. Brown trout are even native to the headwaters of the two great rivers that flowed through the biblical Garden of Eden—the Tigris and the Euphrates. And today, brown trout are firmly established on every continent except Antarctica. In America, 40 of the 48 contiguous states have naturalized brown trout populations.
Cebolla Creek is not a viable wintertime fishery, so your first stab at duping its brown trout is normally a short window from about mid-April until mid-May or so, ending whenever the brown veil of runoff causes grouchy fish to sulk on the stream bottom with lockjaw. (Incidentally, even in the throes of runoff, a multiple-day period of cool and gloomy weather can clear the murk and drop the flow enough to create a brief window of fantastic fly fishing.) Nymphing slow, knee-deep or deeper pools is the ticket for consistent success during the pre-runoff window. The trout are loitering in the deepest pools they can find. The few waist-deep holes will be packed with herds of browns, jammed in there like revelers in Times Square on New Year’s Eve. Dredging a two-fly nymphing rig composed of a size 18 or 20 Zebra Midge (red, black, or olive) and a Barr’s BH BWO Emerger deep through a trout’s kitchen often results in a take. Don’t expect a miraculous 20-fish day early in the season, but if you find a fish or two in some trouty-looking water, keep working it, because there are likely several more mouths to feed in the area.
Summertime angling on Cebolla Creek begins immediately after the tyranny of runoff subsides, generally sometime in mid-June. Cebolla Creek often clears a couple of weeks earlier than other area rivers and creeks, making it a great option when other nearby trout streams still look like chocolate milk. Once the flow begins to recede and the roily, gruel-colored mess clears, a zoo’s worth of macroinvertebrates begins to hatch and take flight—Pale Morning Duns, caddisflies, various species of stoneflies, Green Drakes, dizzyingly dense hatches of Mahogany Duns (aka Red Quills), and the final early-season hatches of Blue-Winged Olives—ushering in the most phenomenal 10 weeks of dry-fly fishing of the year.
Cebolla Creek’s Green Drake emergence especially deserves a shout-out. While Drake hatches throughout the Gunnison Basin have been mysteriously dwindling in intensity since the 1980s, Cebolla Creek’s Drake hatch is still dependable (look for them in the late morning and early afternoon throughout July) and substantial enough to move fish. For Cebolla’s Drakes, I employ my favorite all-around Drake dry, a size 10 or 12 Furimsky’s BDE Green Drake (BDE stands for Best Dry Ever, and I think that descriptor may not even do the fly justice). Alternatively, throughout July and August, the Red Quill hatch can be so dense it might recall Old Testament bug swarms and create the appearance that every single brown trout in the entire creek is rising.
While nymphing still has its place, especially early mornings, summer is dry-fly season on Cebolla. And while matching the hatch is always a fun and productive way to fool fish, Cebolla Creek’s browns are gullible for attractor dries. Competently drift a Yellow Stimulator, Elk Hair Caddis, Parachute Adams, or Royal Wulff and a brown trout will likely smack the fly. But honestly, my nuclear option for summertime Cebolla brown trout is always a Chubby Chernobyl.
The Good, the Bad, and the Chubby
If you aren’t casting Chubbies, you should be. It is difficult to overstate the genius of the Chubby Chernobyl, a quintessentially Western fly pattern, and the innovative creation of an unknown mad fly-tying scientist at Idylwilde Flies in Portland, Oregon. The Chubby is a 2003 upgrade of the Chernobyl Ant, itself a high-achieving chunk of pretend protein, having won the prestigious Jackson Hole One Fly event in 1995. The original Chernobyl Ant is of Western origin as well, birthed on Utah’s Green River by an industrious pair of fly-fishing guides. The Chubby Chernobyl’s bold improvements include buoyant white poly yarn wings, synthetic dubbing (in addition to foam) for a body, and an alluring Krystal Flash tail. Splayed rubber legs complete the buggy vibe and trigger catcalls from Cebolla’s grabby browns. The Chubby floats like a pre-iceberg Titanic and can easily mule a heavily weighted nymph (or three) to a trout’s dining room.
Depending on size and color, a Chubby Chernobyl can convincingly parrot a Golden Stonefly, Skwala, Salmonfly, grasshopper, and other assorted terrestrials, while also moonlighting as a legit attractor pattern. Chubbies are most frequently unleashed on big, brawling rivers because of the mostly true notion that big flies attract big fish. But surprisingly, even a gaudy King Kong–size, vague-representation-of-nothing Chubby Chernobyl typically doesn’t scare the bejesus out of small or medium-size trout, thus making it tempting trout candy for svelte (like Cebolla Creek) and plus-size trout streams alike. A rowdy and ravenous boss brown trout hell-bent on mugging and wolfing down a Chubby and a bloodshot-eyed, slobbering, tongue-hanging-out, girl-crazy whitetail buck are the same species of easy marks. The Chubby Chernobyl earns my vote for Canton or Cooperstown—or even the Heisman Trophy of flies, if such an award existed—and is not only the most fun way to woo a willing summertime riser but also a lethal weapon if you desire to count coup on Cebolla’s biggest browns.
Throughout the summer, virtually any swath of public water on Cebolla Creek is worthy of a dead-drifted fly, but my personal favorite is the aforementioned Mason Family SWA. The wildlife area contains over a mile of uber-productive fly water. Several campsites are tucked into the trees on the property, meaning you’d better arrive at daybreak if you desire virgin water during the warm tourist months. While these browns often slash at dries on the surface in the wee morning hours, sometimes nymphing is required for the first couple of hours until the water warms. Fortunately, Mason Family SWA has some deeper water for both nymphing and dry/dropper rigs. A size 14 Yellow Stimulator alone or a Royal Chubby Chernobyl toting any variety of weighted Pheasant Tail Nymph are my favorite summertime offerings here. Brown trout up to 18 inches (and occasionally larger) can be corralled in the state wildlife area, and the naivety of these brown trout in regard to dry flies is breathtaking.
The bull elk’s bugle announces the arrival of autumn in the Colorado Rockies. In September and October, rise rings frequent the warmer afternoon hours, while Cebolla Creek’s trout still feast subtly subsurface during the cooler hours. Midges, Blue-Winged Olives, and waning caddisfly hatches tease trout, and fly fishers should more exactly mimic these bugs, rather than rely on generalities. After all, fly fatigue—the idea that a trout that sees fake flies drift overhead all summer long is eventually going to wise up—is a real thing. For autumn nymphing, I like the aforementioned Zebra Midge and Barr’s BH BWO Emerger in addition to size 16 and 18 BH Soft Hackle Pheasant Tails, BH Prince Nymphs, and Frenchies. Roy Palm’s Special Emerger, Furimsky’s BDE BWO, and Furimsky’s Fluttering Foam Caddis are good bets to swindle willing risers.
Another solid technique for Cebolla in the fall, and to a lesser degree throughout the summer, is to slow-roll a smallish streamer along the banks of bend pools, through deep pocket water, and anywhere else where you find semi-slothful deep water. My streamer of choice for Cebolla Creek is almost always a Hot Head Pine Squirrel Leech in brown or black, or less often a Thin Mint Bugger. Worthwhile autumn fishing on Cebolla can last into early November under Indian summer conditions. But when winter finally makes its presence felt, it does so with all the subtlety of a punch in the face. You can still eke out a few fish after the snow flies, but you’re likely better off heading for tailwaters like the not-too-distant Taylor or Uncompahgre Rivers.
Speaking of other fly waters nearby, there are several worthwhile and varied options where you can wet a line once you’ve conquered Cebolla Creek. The Lake Fork of the Gunnison River is a tremendous trout stream located along SR 149 just a few miles past the CR 27 turnoff for Cebolla Creek. The Lake Fork is well known locally for its hard-fighting rainbow trout and cuttbows (although it has loads of brown trout as well), and once in a blue moon you can even find a trout north of the magical 20-inch mark in this exceptional tributary of the Gunnison River.
Farther along SR 149 toward Lake City are a trio of smaller streams: the upper Lake Fork of the Gunnison River, Henson Creek, and Big Blue Creek. While you might theoretically hook into a big trout on the upper Lake Fork, these smallish trout streams mostly offer fantastic vistas, great dry-fly fishing, and relatively small trout. The upper Lake Fork offers the grand slam with rainbow trout up to 15 inches (especially down low immediately upstream of Lake San Cristobal), small browns and brookies in its middle reaches, and cutthroat trout in its headwaters. Big Blue Creek has small, wild rainbow and brook trout, while Henson Creek contains mainly small browns and brookies until you get into its headwaters, where you can find small cutthroat trout. Deer Lakes (four small reservoirs), near Slumgullion Pass on SR 149, offer still-water angling for stocked rainbow trout and a few wild brookies. This is a very popular destination with vacationing anglers staying in or near Lake City.
Author, editor, conservationist, and noted brown troutaphile Kirk Deeter is fond of saying, “The sun never sets on the empire of the brown trout.” He’s right. Salmo trutta have been introduced to every corner of the globe. They are ubiquitous, and the planet features thousands of waters where you can chase browns, but as far as small streams go, I’ve yet to discover one that I’m fonder of than this little trout stream with wild onions sprouting on its banks.
Doug Dillingham is a freelance outdoor writer and the author of Fly Fishing the Gunnison Country, available at www.GunnisonFlyFish.com. He lives in Ohio City, Colorado.
Royal Chubby Chernobyl
Hook: TMC 2302, sizes 6‒8
Thread: White UNI-Thread, size 6/0
Back: Tan or brown 2 mm sheet foam
Wing: White poly yarn
Body: Peacock and red Ice Dub
Legs: Brown Spanflex or similar
Tail: Peacock Krystal Flash
Yellow Stimulator
Hook: TMC 200R, sizes 6‒16
Thread: Orange UNI-Thread, size 8/0
Tail/wing: Light elk hair
Abdomen: Yellow Antron dubbing
Thorax: Light orange Antron dubbing
Body hackle: Brown rooster neck hackle, sized to hook gap
Ribbing: Fine copper wire or tying thread
Head hackle: Grizzly rooster neck hackle, sized about the same as or slightly larger than the body hackle
Cebolla Creek
NOTEBOOK
When: Best mid-May‒mid-October; usually unfishable for a couple of weeks during runoff in late May–early June.
Where: South of Powderhorn in southwestern CO, between Gunnison and Lake City.
Headquarters: Gunnison and Lake City provide options for lodging and other services/amenities (no services/amenities in Powderhorn). Camping is available at Mason Family SWA and several campgrounds along Cebolla Creek.
Access: Small-stream walk-and-wade fishing; CR 27 parallels Cebolla Creek for much of its length. The stream is popular with local guide services, and pay-fishing access to private sections is available through area fly shops.
Appropriate gear: 4- to 5-wt. rods, floating lines, 4X‒5X tippets.
Useful fly patterns: Chubby Chernobyl, Micro Chubby Chernobyl, Yellow Stimulator, Furimsky’s BDE BWO, Furimsky’s BDE Green Drake, Furimsky’s Fluttering Foam Caddis, Parachute Adams, Barr’s BH BWO Emerger, Zebra Midge, BH Soft Hackle Pheasant Tail Nymph, BH Flashback Pheasant Tail Nymph, Hot Head Pine Squirrel Leech, Thin Mint Bugger.
Necessary accessories: Hip waders and wading boots (wet-wading is enjoyable in warm months), wide-brimmed hat, sunscreen, insect repellent, polarized sunglasses, drinking water, snacks, day pack or sling pack, small or medium landing net.
Nonresident license: $17.64/1 day, plus $7.05/each additional day; $33.53/5 days; $102.40/annual, plus $10.59/habitat stamp.
Fly shops/guides: Gunnison: High Mountain Drifters Fly Shop in Gene Taylor’s Sporting Goods, (970) 641-1845, www.highmtndrifters.com; Gunnison River Fly Shop, (970) 641-2930, www.gunnisonflyshop.com. Almont: Willowfly Anglers, (970) 641-1303, www.3riversresort.com/fishing; Almont Anglers, (970) 641-7404, www.almontanglers.com; AEI Guide and Outfitter, (970) 641-4708, www.aeiguideandoutfitter.com. Crested Butte: Dragonfly Anglers, (970) 349-1228, www.dragonflyanglers.com; Crested Butte Angler, (970) 349-1568, www.crestedbutteangler.com; Irwin Guides, (970) 349-5430, www.irwinguides.com. Lake City: The Sportsman Fly Shop, (970) 944-2526, www.lakecitysportsman.com; Dan’s Fly Shop, (970) 944-2281, www.dansflyshop.com.
Books/maps: Fly Fishing the Gunnison Country by Doug Dillingham. Colorado Atlas & Gazetteer by DeLorme.
