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Adirondack Trout Watch Video

It's been raining for weeks. We should be in the prime of our fly fishing season and glances at the USGS site for Eastern NY only reveals black dots. Dots notate streams and black is over 100% capacity. Today I decided to go for a drive to check out some smaller creeks I have had my eye on for years. Usually they just warrant passing glances over bridges as I speed on to larger rivers and predictable hatches. Today I knew they would be the only fishable moving water around. When I pulled off the main drag just north of a classic Adirondack town that had a motorcycle festival ongoing which slowed me down but I was in no hurry the pavement quickly gave way to a hard dirt road then deteriated. I parked next to an old rusted steel bridge and looked around. I could tell right away that I would be adding a size 10 stimmy with a dropper of a gold ribbed hare's ear nymph or prince to the leader. I walked a good fishing distance down stream by way of the road, cut into the woods and started picking my way back through the boulders. The casts were sometimes no longer than my leader but averaged about ten feet of line out and I found fish here and there. Some took the dropper, some took the dry and the browns I landed were spunky and buttery gold. Some were

obviously wild with bright red spots with a smattering of bigger ones which were probably stocked at some point but were starting to turn due to their mountain diet. I lost the only two brookies I hooked, one right at my feet and I even though it was small I wanted the picture anyway. Brookies are our only native fish however due to warmer water temps and invasion of species, the browns now do much better in our habitat. When the day was over, I was completely satisfied. New water, wild trout, and a new adventure in the books.