Big Storms

Like a sign of the apocalypse (probably because I'm leaving tomorrow), upstate NY received a beating today from three or four major super cell storm systems. I had the pleasure of sitting in a car through one and then later being trapped by flooded streets. It must have rained at least 2 inches in less than an hour and at one point I had to backtrack to get around a flooded road. Reports of golf ball size hail came from around the north country and tornado warnings were in effect for the entire day. Pretty cool to see some big storms!

In the flood

Here's a snapshot taken from a video that I took with my cell phone. This bolt of lighting hit only about 100 yards away. Very loud and kinda sketchy.

The fish should be pretty damn happy with the rain today, for it will definitely push the river levels up.

Tomorrow morning I'm headed west! Very stoked to get back out and work....and fish. Not sure how the Internet situation will be but I'll see what I can do for keeping the posts coming. 

Approaching the End

I am rapidly approaching the end of my time here in New York and tomorrow will be my last full day here. Unfortunately, I did not fish today and my "fish every day that I'm home" streak has now ended. It lasted 11 strait days but now there is simply too much to do in too little time. I have really enjoyed my time in the East, and have landed some great fish. Tomorrow I'll be out trying to catch one more decent fish before I leave.

Cody is currently working hard in Craig and I'm excited to get back and begin work. Garret is on his way to Tennessee to fish. Chris is currently home in Vermont and seems to have landed some nice browns lately (according to Facebook), and Trevor....I don't know where he is, but I'm sure he's doing great!

I got out last night with Chris Stiles on a stretch of the Schroon River. Mega hatch of caddis coming off and we found success early with elk hairs and caddis emergers. It didn't take long for the hendricksons to come out and the fish went nuts for them.

Stay tuned for tomorrows report.

Aggressive brown

I have continued fishing these past few days....

THURSDAY: Headed up to Schroon Lake with my dad to fish the afternoon and evening. Fishing was mostly slow. I was expecting to get into some smallies while fishing for pike but only managed one nice pickerel and a few small perch. Still, it was nice to get out with dad for the first time in a while. The picture files were corrupted for some reason so no pics of the fish.

FRIDAY: I met up with Jon Swartwout to fish a few streams in the Saratoga area. Always being an admirer of Jon's artwork, I was ecstatic when he surprised me with a special gift; one of his paintings.

I really couldn't believe that he gave me the painting and I will be forever grateful. Jon has inspired me to get back into painting like I did a couple of years ago. I can only hope to create such awesome paintings as he does. Thanks a bunch Jon!

Now to the fishing... Jon and I fished from mid day to around 4pm. It was probably the worst time to fish but we each moved a fish and I had one brown on. Jon also lost a huge smallmouth that snapped him off at his feet. Temps hit the low 80's while we were fishing, so slow fishing was expected.

SATURDAY: After spending the night at my grandparents, I woke early to fish a different section of the stream Jon and I had fished on Friday. I made my way upstream, hitting every seam, pool, and good looking run. Almost all the way up the section, I found the seam that held one highly aggressive brown. The fish came out of nowhere and missed my streamer on three consecutive casts. I positioned myself upstream of the fish's lie after unsuccessfully connecting with the fish. This time neither the fish or I missed. The hook set was good and the fight was on. The fish put up a real good fight and I had my hands full trying to keep the fish from getting into fast water. I finally netted the fish as it tired, took two quick photos and released it.

NY browns are just as bad-ass as MT browns

Only stung one more fish for the remaining couple of hours that I fished. Not too bad considering the water conditions are low. All I needed was the one fish and I was very happy.

Tomorrow is looking to be a native brookie day as I am trying to keep my "fish everyday that I'm home" streak alive. Only a few days until I'm headed back to Montana, so there's no reason to stop now!

Adirondack Brookies

Stiles and I woke early and got on the road with hopes of tying into some nice wild Adirondack native brookies. We hiked in to a remote back country stream which we have fished before. After losing our bearings in the thick disorientating woods, we finally found the section of stream that we wanted to fish. We landed fish immediately...

As we fished upstream, the hatches started to happen. We saw everything, and I mean everything; march browns, hendricksons, yellow sallies, golden drakes, and this big guy which may be a golden drake also...if you can identify this, please leave a comment...

Fishing continued to be great with elk hair caddis and caddis emergers doing the job. Stiles managed to pull 5+ fish out of a deep slot, all of them being decent sized. One of them even posed for an underwater shot after the release.

We had great day on the water and fished for more than 8 hours. It was great being back in a remote part of the Adirondacks again. I really did miss it while I was in Montana. 

Big thanks to Stiles for driving, a great day fishing, and for being a great friend.

Brownies

Just got off the water. Had a good evening of fishing and actually managed to land two large browns which I believe are lake run fish that have made their way down an outlet stream. The fish were far more powerful than the stockie rainbows that I caught tonight. They also had all of their fins and great colors.

How now brown trout

Tomorrow Stiles and I are headed deep into the heart of the Adirondacks in search of some big native brookies. On our last trip to this secret location, we were quite literally eaten alive by black flies. If you think you know how bad black flies can be in upstate NY, then think again.... I am now releasing to the public (you the readers) for the first time ever, two very embarrassing photos of what Stiles and I looked like when we got out of the woods on that day....the day of the worst black flies we have ever experienced.

Don't laugh to hard...It wasn't a fun thing. We still caught nice fish though. Hopefully we catch some nice fish tomorrow also.