Fishing with the boys – November Edition

Jonathan and his 30" inch female brown trout

Our fall tributary season has had a great start. Plenty of fish to go around and most importantly, plenty of water. It’s been years since I can remember having this quality of flow in our WNY tributaries and that has helped bring in a steady push of fish on a daily basis. And because of this, fish are most likely spread throughout the system, from top to bottom. And that should mean great fishing throughout the winter and into spring. 

Recently the boys and I headed out to one of our favorite WNY tributaries in search of large lake run trout. The salmon run has been pretty darn good up to this point, with plenty of spawned out and spawning fish still around. This means that any trout that have now entered the stream are on an egg diet, and we were ready to take full advantage!

30" inch male brown trout

The water was cold and at a good medium flow with still a hint of stain to it. Salmon reds littered the tail-outs of runs and pools, and even though we could not see any fish holding in and around them, we knew the trout where there.

Jonathan hooked up first in a long run with a chartreuse bead head olive woolly bugger. It was a large fish, and he struggled to gain control of it. I had to move a good bit downstream to eventually get the net under his first fish of the day, a gorgeous thirty inch female lake run brown trout.

Ethan gets ready to release my 1st steelhead

After Ethan worked through the run, I was able to step in and hook up next with a light pink sucker spawn/light pink bead combo. And after another ten minute battle, Jonathan slid the net under a large kyped out thirty inch male lake run brown trout.

We fished a bit more in that section before heading downstream, leaving without another hookup.

It was another half hour before we worked our way down to another location that always seems to hold fish, and in the past has produced well for me. Again, the boys drifted on through first, without a hook up. They continued to fish down in the tail-out and I took a turn in the pool. A few drifts later and I was into my second fish of the day. It was a smaller fish, but still managed to pull hard and take some line off the reel. A few minutes later, Ethan put the net under a very fresh lake run steelhead, my first of the fall.

Ethan and his 1st ever steelhead

By now Ethan was feeling a bit left out. He had yet to hook up with a fish and his feet were starting to get cold. As he took a break on the bank to try and warm up a little, I told him to stick with it and that the next pool would provide another opportunity for him to get into some fish.

About one hundred yards downstream, at the tail-out of a long slow pool, I put Ethan

Ethan and his last fish of the day

into position and over the next thirty minutes he hooked up with three fish and landed his first ever fall steelhead. All his fish took a chartreuse bead head olive woolly bugger with a bright yellow bead two inches up on the leader, dead drifted under an indicator. All that action seemed to warm him up enough to want to continue on to our next spot, where he promptly hooked up with and landed his second fish of the day, a beautiful female lake run brown trout – again, on the olive bugger/bead combo.

The hot fly of the day

All in all it was a great day of fishing. We each managed to get into a few fish and bring a few to the net. We are certainly blessed to have such an amazing fishery.