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I couldn’t resist an invitation to fish Oatka Creek on Halloween with two friends (Dave and Will).  The moderate forecast, fall colors, good company and a chance to throw some streamers on a sink tip encouraged my enthusiasm.  We split up, each covering a different section of the creek.  I initially struck out w/ an olive zonker and a bronze bugger in the first few promising spots.  When I arrived at a large deep pool, I switched to a dark brown bugger.  Within a few long casts, I hooked a 14″ brown.  Nice colors and a scrappy fight.  I took two more browns from this pool, all swinging/jerk stripping across current.  Moving downstream, I missed two more fish and landed another brown.

The angling highlight was hooking a monster brown against a downed log.  Watching the flash, the head turn, the roll and the sheer size of an unexpectedly large brown was a true Halloween Treat.  After a head roll, and lazy body shake, the hook pulled.  I’m  now convinced there is at least one 2′ meat eating brown in Oatka Creek.  Losing that fish has haunted me all day!  My buddies also managed to find  a few trout nymphing.  All in all a pleasant day on a gem of a trout stream.

It was a busy Saturday and I wanted to get outside.  There are fresh salmon in the lower portion of Irondequoit Creek  and it was tempting to mess with them.

Instead, I opted to stay close to home and fished a middle stretch of Irondequoit Creek.  I liked the drizzly conditions and hoped to move browns on streamers.  Irondequoit Creek was low, clear and presented no anglers for the 1 mile stretch of water that I fished.  I tied on an olive zonker (size #4) and cast to a log.  Within my first two casts, smaller browns were charging the streamer.  Despite the rain, it was fun to tempt a trout or two in every decent stretch of water.  Every hole w/ depth produced a flash, slash at the fly, miss, hook up, etc.  My best brown was 14″, but the majority were 6″” to 9″ agressive, well colored fish.  Some were so small that they couldn’t take the long shanked fly, or there wasn’t enough mass to keep the trout hooked.  I lost far more than I landed.  The olive zonker outfished a chartreuse clouser, a golden brown wooly bugger, a dark brown wooly bugger, a black wooly bugger and a white zonker.  Despite my success with an olive zonker, I have yet to determine one, “go to” streamer for Irondequoit day in and day out!  Nor did I see any larger browns or signs of salmon.  That said, it sure was a treat to mess around with streamers and to watch fish pounce on the fly on one of our local streams.

On Columbus Day we decided to fish Cattaraugus Creek.  The water was steadily receding  (lower 600 cfs) and we were optimistic that we we might enjoy visibility to target fresh steelhead.  We also wanted to explore some new holes, as well as check out the changes to the system after this summer’s flood.  As soon as we crossed the Creek on I-90, we knew that our  angling hopes were too optimistic.  The Catt was still discolored.  With all the post-flood silt and mud in the system, anglers may need to revise their visibility/cfs guidelines when fishing the Catt.  Not to be deterred, we fished above the Versailles Bridge, around Gowonda, the South Fork and in Zoar Valley.  Early on I hooked two fresh steelhead in the lower system fishing a bright orange wooly bugger.  Both took off downstream and became unbuttoned.  Sloppy fish fighting on my part because it was my only action all day!  That said, it was a pleasant day to fish w/ a friend, the angling pressure was minimal, the weather decent and the fall foliage bright.  Barring significant rainfall, my hunch is that the  Lower Catt will offer some very fine fishing for bright fish in the next few days!

My father-in-law and I had grand plans to take Friday off and travel to West Canada Creek in Central NY.  We were looking forward to fishing this Adirondack creek.  Our plan was to fish some Pumpkin Caddis and do some nymphing for some of the larger Browns that are know to be in that fishery.  By mid-week it was obvious that the rain was making West Canada unfishable.  The water levels were just too high to fish it safely.

As a back up we decided to make our way over to the Oatka.  All the years I have been fishing the Oatka I have never fished it in October.  In Western NY, this time of year, we are usually scoping out Lake Ontario and Lake Erie tribs for salmon and steelhead.  When we got to the Oatka we found the creek all to ourselves and a strong blue wing olive hatch coming off.  They were about a size 18 and hatched for several hours.  Most of the fish pushed off into deeper holes and when we finally found a hole it had several 12″ plus browns feeding on the surface.  We had several hookups but only landed the one pictured below.  It was a bit wet and chilly but fishing the Oatka in October will definitely be something I will do again.