Local WNY Talent Spotlight!

Jessie Hollenbeck fishing a local spring creek

This week I would like to highlight two Western New York companies that are looking to make a few waves in the world of fly fishing.

First is Wide Sky Fly Fishing. WSFF is run by local guide Jessie Hollenbeck who specializes in fly fishing for the many species of fish that call Western and Central New York home. He has spent numerous hours learning our local streams and can put you on trophy lake run trout and salmon during the run, help you decipher the code of our local spring creek trout, put you in position for excellent dry fly fishing in the spring and summer, and also get you into some great warm water fishing opportunities.

I have had the pleasure of getting to know Jessie throughout the years and his dedication and love for the sport of fly fishing is second to none, not to mention that he knows how to catch fish!!! His patience and persistence give him an edge when teaching others how to be successful on the stream, and those who have spent any time with him come away with a better understanding of our WNY fisheries.

You can get more info on both him and the fish pursues at his website www.wideskyflyfishing.com, or just give him a call at 585-314-5089.

The second company I would like to feature in this week’s blog is Silo4. This new upstart company is a four man team with two of them coming from the local WNY talent pool – Matt Smythe and Grant Taylor. They’re goal is to tell stories that need telling, or as their opening paragraph on their website puts it, “Some stories grab you by the collar. Some whisper softly in your ear. However they're told, they still need to say something that matters.”

Both Matt and Grant live just south of me out here in WNY and have been working hard at what they love to do – writing and photography! 

Matt has his own blog www.fishingpoet.com where he continually writes outside of his hectic freelance world. And we are thankful he does!

Grant is an artist as well, but his art comes from behind a lens. His website www.granttaylorphoto.com will give you a sneak peek into his world.

These two WNY artists are joined by two very talented cinematographers Matt White and Dustin Lutt of Rockhouse Motion. Together they are Silo4.

There most recent project is a short film entitled a “Deliberate Life” and it is a beautiful piece that should get some attention this year, as it well should – It’s amazing!

A DELIBERATE LIFE..... FILM TRAILER from RockHouse Motion on Vimeo.
 

I hope that those of you who visit will take the time to stop over to their pages and, at the very least, take a moment to look around. But you may be moved to stay awhile or even leave a comment two. Either way....enjoy!

Good WNY tributary fishing continues!

The first of the day.

Our WNY tributaries continue to provide excellent fly fishing for trophy lake run trout.

As of now the salmon are all but gone! They finished their job a week or so after Sandy pushed through. Their dead decaying bodies litter the shallows and the bank, adding nutrients back onto the system for the betterment of future generations.

A nicely colored male with the fly of the day

Even a few of these rainbow/steelhead made an appearance

In fact, Sandy’s after effects provided some way better than average fishing for me. When the water is high and stained, the fish move and become very active, especially before the cold sets in. And I had the fortune of hitting it at the right time. Fishing was out of this world! I spent a little over two hours fishing a local small tributary, hooking up a dozen times and landing seven – all trout!

High water = Great fishing!

My technique for that day was dead drifting egg patterns, but with a little twist! I had no indicator with me on this day, so I had to resort to an alternative style of fishing. My goal was to keep a tight line at all times but also try to get a natural drift. What I came up with was as simple as it gets. In fact it is what I used to do as a kid when fishing with worms on my local trout stream. All I did was put a medium sized split shot a foot above the egg pattern, cast slightly downstream and allow the egg to drift with my rod guiding it down and across. Kind of like a dead drift/swing combo!

With the tight line I could feel the fish pick up the fly more than half the time, and on two occasions, I had the pleasure of the fish pull the fly just as you would have them do when swinging streamers.

This was a great change from the low water stalk that I have had to employ for much of the fall, and better yet, the fish responded well. But like any high water period during the spawn, this is what you should expect. Plenty of eggs getting washed into the system will always put the fish in the mood for eggs.

Sometimes...keeping it simple is best!

WNY tributary fishing is in full swing!

A colored up male Chinook salmon that took a brown bead head woolly bugger on the swing.

The fall fishing in WNY is in full swing with plenty of fish in all the area tributaries.

A 39 inch female Chinook getting ready for release.

Salmon are now at the end of their spawn and soon the big lake run brown trout will begin theirs. Most of the areas larger tributaries have had decent numbers of trout in and around all the salmon, while the smaller tribs have now seen good pushes of trout for the past two weeks. Most of these are brown trout, with a few steelhead and lake run rainbows mixed in. As the end of the fall approaches we will see more and more steelhead and rainbows push in before the cold of winter takes hold.

A big 28 inch male lake run brown trout - Taken on an egg pattern.

This gorgeous 22 inch male brown also took an egg pattern.

At this time there is a very good to excellent egg bite going on, and that will continue with the brown trout spawn coming into full swing in a week or two. As the spawn settles down by mid-November the fish will begin to switch over to nymphs and dead drifted/swung streamers. But with any high water period the egg bite will most likely be back on in high gear as eggs get dislodged from their reds.

The female brown trout will be the first to drop back of their reds and look to feed, often with great ferociousness as they look to quickly add back the weight they lost during the spawn. Here is the time to really put forth the effort in swinging big flies. It may not be a numbers game, but it will be a welcome change from dead drifting eggs for most of the fall. And depending on the day you could also get a late running Coho, steelhead or Atlantic while swinging.

Yet another large lake run brown taken on.....you guessed it! An egg pattern.

As the cold really starts to settle into WNY in late November and December, the fish will begin to drop back into pools and deep holes to ready themselves for the winter. It is at this time that we need to really start to think about slowing our presentation down to a crawl. Again dead drifting flies becomes an important and productive way to take fish. But with the right set up, it is still possible to take fish while swinging. A heavy sink tip with short leader in slower pools can be a very effective way to take fish. The only problem will be to control the speed of the swing. If it is too fast the fish won’t pick it up. You want to have it crawl along the bottom. The take can be very subtle. Sometimes it is just as simple as your line stopping in mid-drift.

I have only had a few opportunities to get out this fall so far, and the fishing has been excellent. I hope that November will be present me with a little more fishing time here and there....maybe I’ll get the chance at my first steelhead of the season?

Enjoy the fall and get out there and fish!

Fall Inland brown trout on the fly

Michael Simmons with his inland beauty

Fall fishing for inland trout is one of my favorite kinds of fly fishing to do. One; the stream is almost void of people. And two; the fishing can be outstanding. The only bad part of fall fishing the inland trout streams is that little voice in the back of your head telling you that you need to get out to a Lake Ontario tributary in search of the first salmon of the fall. But experience tells me that adventure is still a little bit down the road.

So…….

Last week on Monday, Michael Simmons of Guys, Flies &Pies and I hit up an inland trout stream for a last ditch effort to convince some of the local brown trout to eat some flies before the lake fish in our neck of the woods make a run for it.

We arrived at location X to witness several trout feeding on trico spinners. A few delicate casts with the JP Ross Beaver Meadow two weight lined with 6X tippet and a #22 black trico spinner pattern promptly put those fish down. But all was not lost as we witnessed a good number of fish sitting near the bottom of a very nicely shaded pool….time to switch it up!

The fish in the pool were now our target and we went at them for a while with various nymphs trying to get the precision drift necessary to get them to eat. But when you have fish stacked on top and next to each other it is more difficult than one might imagine.

We each managed a few really nice trout, with Mike getting the big fish of the day. In fact he boasts that it is probably one of the biggest inland trout he has caught to date! And it was a gorgeous inland wild brown of almost 15” inches.

Enjoy the photos of some of WNY’s finest wild brown trout!

Note: With all the cool and wet weather we have had lately, it won’t be long until we have our first good run of lake run salmon and trout in WNY. I will try and get out and find time to get accurate reports when this happens.

Tight lines!

Midnight Mousin'

The ride down to one of my favorite inland trout streams at dusk

Last month I had the pleasure of fishing with several friends in what will hopefully become an annual event – Midnight Mousing!

I have talked about doing this kind of fishing for years. I was curious to see if we would have a chance at a truly large fish in a small stream setting. But it wasn’t until last year that I finally made the commitment to just do it! And of course it was good. In fact surprisingly good. In weeks prior to my trip, my friend Lucas Carroll had provided me with a few good stories from his recent outings that made it sound almost unbelievable. But a first-hand experience made me a believer in how good it can be. In fact last year I was able to land quite a few trout with the largest being about sixteen inches – Not bad for a small stream.

The first of many that came to hand via the mouse

I am happy to say that this year’s fishing lived up to the high bar set by that August of just last year. In fact both of my fly fishing friends who joined me this year can also attest to the successes that can be found while tossing flies in the darkness. Both Bob Burrows and Jessie Hollenbeck of Wide Sky Fly Fishing had plenty of action with many fish landed between the two of them.

We had about one fish landed to every four or five strikes, slashes, boils and pulls. And we ended up landing a good dozen fish. That’s a lot of activity! Even though the ratio between fish landed to fish felt/hooked wasn’t all that great, you have to remember that you can barely see what’s going on, even right in front of you. So for me, it was a success!

A little better fish

The key for a better catch rate for me has been to wait until you feel the fish pull the fly. You may hear splashes and even see a glimmer of a boil or splash, but that doesn’t mean the fish has taken the fly. It is far better to let the fly sit and drift in the current and wait for the fish to come back and eat the fly, than to try and set the hook on anything and everything you see or hear. Being patient and waiting for that pull, has made all the difference in the world.

Bob fools one with a muddler

Jessie holds on of a few fine small stream wild brown trout that he brought to hand for the night

A little bit bigger fish that fell for a big old streamer

We didn’t get into any really big fish this year, but I am confident that in years to come we will be able to find a few fish between sixteen and twenty inches. It is going to take a lot of work and experimentation to find what will work the best, but I’m up to the task!