Fall tributary season - edition 1

As of writing this blog post, the WNY fall salmon and trout run is now in full swing.

We are off to a great start this year. The boys and I have already taken several trips to our local WNY tributary and have all found a little success in landing a few fish.

September 30^th - Our first outing was intended to be more of a scouting mission. Our goal was to look at the condition of the creek at various locations and even spend some time walking in to find the many recent changes that always happen over the course of the summer.

Jonathan with a large female king

Our first stop was at a bridge that was less than a mile from Lake Ontario. It also marks the first good fly fishable water. Here we found a few cars in the parking lot, and one salmon swimming nervously under the bridge.

Ethan with his 1st king of the year.

Our next stop, which was the second bridge up from the first, revealed just how far along the run had progressed in that last week of September. A good half dozen cars lined either side of the street leading right up to the bridge. On our walk up to the bridge, we saw an anger fishing to four or five salmon that were holing in a run on the upstream side of the bridge. Once we got to the bridge and were able to look into the pool below, we counted a good 19-20 salmon. We watched for a good five or ten minutes before we headed to our third location.

At this point we knew that there were fish in the stream. So at the next bridge upstream we got ourselves geared up and headed down the trail.

A fresh hen from "round 2"

It took a little bit of walking before we found fish, but when there is nobody else around, we could take our time and swing some #6 olive and brown woolly buggers in front a few salmon.

We each landed one fish before we left for the day. A great start to the season for sure. 

October 6^th – “Round 2” was even better than our first session, as we all had a few hook ups and once again we were able to bring a few fish to hand. 

Jonathan's kyped out king from "round 2"

We ended up fishing a section of stream in the lower end and once again had the place to ourselves. We spotted a good twenty or so fish in and around the main pool area, with a few more that were moving up from down below. We once again used olive and brown buggers and Ethan spent some time fishing a large olive and white rabbit strip streamer.

This is a far better start than what we had last year. And the numbers of fish should steadily build from here on out, especially with a bunch of rain in the forecast.

Ethan gets ready to release his king from "round 2"

A little October color

Fishing with Ethan

Ethan's first fish of the fall

This past Saturday Ethan and I had found a little time to venture out to a favorite fishing spot to see if we could tempt a few lake run fish to take a fly.

Reports of a big push of fish have been nonexistent to this point. It seems to be a slow and methodical march for the Salmon that have been slowly making their way upstream in many of our WNY tributaries, with a few trout following close behind. 

A good, steady, 3 day rain would certainly help, but until then we must contend with low and clear water. Each year is different, and I have every bit of confidence that by late fall there will be plenty of fish around.

Ethan doing battle with the mighty Chinook

Even with these less than stellar fishing reports, the streams are filled with eager anglers looking to hook into a trophy salmon, brown trout or steelhead, so it has been hard to find a spot that hasn’t been already run through. So when we arrived at our fishing destination and found only a few cars at the pull off, I was very optimistic. 

We spent the first twenty minutes slowly walking the bank, heading downstream looking for the huge dark finned shapes of lake run Chinook salmon that we have come to know throughout the years of fishing this stream. Even a hint of white from the mouth of a trout would be a welcome sight….nothing.

Released!

We finally settled into a nice pool where I set Ethan up with a woolly bugger under an indicator. While he began fishing I went back to the bank and started to set up my switch rod. I had just gotten finished with getting all the line through the guides and started to get a new length of tippet ready when Ethan yelled out “Dad I got a fish!” I looked over to see his rod bent down to the cork with the line and indicator rapidly traveling upstream. He held tight, only letting line out when the fish went on a run up or downstream. Soon the fish began to tire and Ethan could bring it closer to shore where we could see he had hooked a large male Chinook salmon. I grabbed the net and headed just downstream from him and waited until the fish made for the shallow water. A quick scoop and a tight grip on the tail was all I needed to do to help Ethan land our first and only fish of the afternoon.

Ethan gives our fishing trip 2 thumbs up

After a short break we were back at it, but no other fish found the bottom of our net. And even a long walk downstream didn’t do much to change our situation. We only spotted three other fish and none of them were willing to even look at our flies.

That’s fishing on the tributaries for you. Some days you catch a run of fish and some days you don’t.

I had a blast either way. 

Watching my youngest son cast, hook, fight and land such a giant is

something I will always remember.

Fishing with and Old Friend

Bob and I watched this fish chase down his swung streamer a good 3 feet before eating.

Bob and I first met back in 2000 at our place of employment down in Canandaigua, NY. He had this fishing decoration hanging from his work desk that prompted the first conversation we ever had. A conversation that started with fishing, and more importantly – Fly Fishing! 

A 10lb+ brown trout to start the day

From that point on we would share our fly fishing experiences together….at least until I moved on to another job, a family, and a full schedule. But even then, we strived to find at least a little bit of time each year to get together and fish.

And each year we make sure to find at least a day or two to reconnect with each other and toss a fly or two to the local fish population.

A gorgeous steelhead ready for release

Back in those early days of our friendship we would find ourselves fishing for hours at the local trout stream, or in the fall at our local tributaries. We caught plenty of fish and made plenty of mental notes of conditions, the fish we caught, and what pattern was most successful. We had some pretty good days fishing together. And I am certain we learned a whole lot from each other as well!

This past Friday we had that opportunity to reconnect again. And as in so many years past at this time of year, we ventured out to see what we could do together at a local tributary.

Fishing started off somewhat slow due to the below freezing temperatures. But there were fish, and some of them were more than willing to be caught.

Another swung up brown

As the afternoon wore on we ventured to other places and found more fish. Even some salmon and brown trout that were willing to move for a swung streamer. This is usually the case with a constant water flow over a long period of time after the salmon spawn is done. Many of the trout in the system turn towards other food items other than eggs, as there are very few loose eggs to be had. This will change as we get more precipitation or a release of water from the Erie Canal, which will once again disturb the salmon spawning reds, releasing salmon eggs back into the stream and turn the trout onto eating eggs.

Bob with a nice male brown

Bob's Atlantic salmon

Golden hen

My indicator dipped down while fishing the head of a deep pool for lake run trout. I never expected this!

On this afternoon we had to walk to find some willing fish, but our efforts were rewarded with plenty of fish brought to hand – Just like the old days!