A Complete Guide to Summer Creek Wade Fishing

When my Crickhopper landed near a downed tree in the eddy formed by the obstruction, I pretty much new it would get blasted. The only questions were whether the fish would connect on the initial strike and whether that fish would be a spotted bass, a rock bass, a redbreast sunfish or something else. I also knew that if I didn’t connect, the next piece of cover or cut in the bank would provide a similar opportunity.

Mid-summer heat creates undeniable challenges for many types of fishing. Fish in reservoirs, lakes and big rivers tend to turn fussier than normal and do more feeding after hours. Meanwhile, the same waters get far busier with pleasure boaters, and at times being out on more open water simply isn’t that comfortable.

That’s when I like to hit creeks and small rivers with lightweight fishing tackle and a wet-wading approach. The fishing action can be hotter than the weather, and standing knee-deep in a creek, often in the shade of the streamside forest, is more pleasant than roasting on a boat deck. I also enjoy the variety factor with fish species and the simplicity of the tackle and the total approach.

I live in North Georgia, so much of my creek fishing is in Southern Appalachia or the Piedmont, but similar opportunities exist throughout Appalachia, the Mid-South, the Midwest, parts of the West, and more.

Several streams near me are trout waters, and I fish those a lot, too, but summer approaches to those are different stories. The creeks I’m talking about are flowing streams that generally alternate between shoals and pools and that contain various black bass species, rock bass, warmouths, redbreast, green sunfish, bluegills and much more. Specific species and the exact character of the waterways vary by region and often stream by stream, but the overall approach and prospects for success with multiple species remain similar.

If you’re unsure where to try, look at national forests or state forests, city, state and county parks, wildlife management areas that have creeks running through them and city greenways. Also search online for float trip access points as the same places where someone can launch a canoe or kayak are often good places to wade into a stream and begin working. Google Maps is a great aid. The satellite view often shows a stream section’s character and helps you determine access points and the “street view” feature often provides an even better look at things like parking options, the slope to the water and whether there is a foot trail to the water.

If a smaller stream doesn’t have much deep water or has a trail beside it, you might be able to work as long a section of stream as you’d want to fish anyway. In larger streams, shoals provide plenty of room to fish for a long time without having to travel far.

Because anglers are so tuned into larger waters and boats or to targeted efforts for a specific species, many great fishing spots for this approach get surprisingly little attention from anglers. So don’t assume the fishing isn’t good just because no one else is fishing! Just yesterday, I waded a stream section through a park in a popular tourist town, catching five species of fish, and I had the stream to myself!

One of the best things about this approach is the simplicity. Because there’s no need to launch a boat or gather a bunch of gear, you can step in a creek and fish for 45 minutes, or fish all day. I typically carry a single medium-light or ultralight rod and reel, a small lure selection and a few assorted items like phone, keys and a drink.

Some anglers like to keep a second rod handy, whether as a backup, for the sake of a little different action or to have a couple of lure types rigged all the time. They either find places to set the second one down or they affix it to a backpack or to themselves in some other way. I like to have my hands free, to travel light and simply to be extra mobile, so I gladly sacrifice the benefits of the second rod.

For the shortest simplest trips, I might have all my lures in a single stowable box in a shirt pocket or in a little fishing wallet that clips to my belt. More often, I wear a vest or a small backpack. That allows me to carry a couple little lure boxes, along with soft plastic packets and terminal gear, and to put my keys, phone and spare camera batteries in a sealed plastic bag. Because I’m usually shooting photos or videos when I fish, the backpack is also handy for carrying stuff associated with that. I also generally carry hemostats, clipped my shirt or a belt loop, for unhooking fish, and a set of nail clippers in my pocket for clipping old knots.

I don’t mess with waders this time of year.  Standing in the stream is part of the appeal, and I don’t like walking in waders any more than I need to. I do wear wading shoes, but in truth old tennis shoes work fine.

I generally carry a modest selection of small topwater lures and subsurface hard baits, including crankbaits and minnow baits, along with small soft plastic lures that imitate crawfish, baitfish and other common forage critters for stream fish.

If I could have only a single lure for this style fishing, it would be a Rebel Crickhopper, which is technically a crankbait and can be swam beneath the surface but also can be worked on top to very naturally imitate the behavior of a terrestrial insect (or another critter) that finds itself errantly afloat. It’s small enough to appeal to a huge variety of fish species.

Along with standard Crickhoppers, I usually also carry at least one Bighopper, which is a larger version of the Crickhopper, and a Crickhopper Popper, which has a popper face and is strictly a topwater lure. Other topwaters I might have along include a Teeny Pop-R and a Heddon Tiny Torpedo.

For subsurface approaches, I almost always have a selection of Rebel Crawfish, especially the Teeny Wee-Craw, Deep Teeny Wee-Craw and Middle Wee-Craw models in natural colors like Stream Crawfish, Ditch Brown and the new Matte Series colors. Everything eats small crawfish, and Rebel Crawfish offer cast-and-crank effectiveness whether I’m grinding it across shallow gravel or swimming it in a deep run. It also handles current nicely and is a great lure for covering water.

Creek fish also eat a lot of minnows of various sorts, so I like to have a minnow-profile lure in my hard bait selection, and my favorite is the Tracdown Ghost Minnow. It has a narrow profile and quick action, and it’s weighted to sink, allowing me to work a nice range of depths. The extra weight also makes it easy to cast and keeps it running true in the current.

For soft-plastics, my go-to baits for the past year or so have been the new Rebel LIVEflex series baits, which are small and shaped to match natural forage and feature extreme toughness, buoyancy and a strong scent attractant. Each has virtues, but the ones I’ve turn to the most for stream fishing are the Creek Craw, Shore Shiner and Creek Creature.

I also usually carry a package or two of Bobby Garland Itty Bit Mayflies or Itty Bit Slab Hunt’Rs, some Itty Bit Jigheads and a few small pear-shaped Thill Fantastic Foam Floats. When I’m mostly catching panfish or getting too much hit and miss, I’ll switch to a tandem rig of Itty Bit baits or a single jig fished under a float, often igniting extra fast action!