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Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Fly Fishing The Adirondacks

Less than a week after returning home from out west, we were already back on the road headed east. We had made plans earlier this spring to fish a few remote streams in the Adirondack Region of New York. I was still pretty whooped from my previous travel, but the thought of Brookies, Brown, and Rainbows on the fly was enough to keep us all lively through the entire 13 hour haul...

Eirik and I would be rolling into town a day early to set up camp, and meeting up with Shawn Brillon and Matt from the Orvis Company the following morning. The guys were bringing down some of the new prototype gear to try out, and as always, to hang out, fish, and have fun. John Clouser spends a lot of time in upstate New York with his family on vacation, and we can't thank John enough as he was extremely generous with his time, and showed us a few of the favorite remote trout streams he loves to fish. It didn't take me very long to understand why he comes back up here year after year!

Taking a break after a long hike through the
gorge. The scenery was breath taking!

The fishing was absolutely spectacular!

Matt with a nice Adirondack stream Brown Trout
from the pool at the base of the waterfall above.

The Adirondack Region is definitely a special place to catch trout! I have fished a lot of trout streams across the United States and never once wished I had a wading staff as badly as I wanted one here! Every stream I fished was filled with perfectly round rock, large boulders, and very little space to put a foot on even ground. Talk about breaking an ankle! I totally understood the meaning of "experienced stream wading required" after my trip here!
Tourism and camping near the mountains were at peak season and the area towns were busy. At first I thought we would have a hard time finding quiet water to fish, but during the 3 days I was fishing I had no one fishing even remotely close to us, and on some streams I never saw another soul.

Eirik hooked up with a nice Rainbow! The best position
to fish this pool was from a perch position 6 foot above the run.

Eirik poses for a close shot of the Rainbow
he hooked from the above photo.

We spent the next 3 days camping, hiking, fishing, sleeping, and eating! This was the perfect fly fishing getaway! If you like to fish remote waters, and have numerous opportunities at medium sized trout this is definitely a trip you should consider doing!

John Clouser land a nice brown trout while enjoying a good cigar.

Greg plays a nice Brown Trout.

I told you it was a nice Brown Trout!

Orvis Mirage Reel, Hydros Rod, and Adirondack Rainbow Trout.

Nymphing was key during our visit, as very few bugs were coming off. A quick look around the cliffs, boulders, and wood debris showed us that the bug biomass here was tremendous. I had never seen so many Golden Stonefly and mayfly shucks stuck to nearly everything around the stream. A no brainer idea to run stonefly nymphs through the pools put us into a lot of really nice trout each day.

A Brown Trout that fell for a rubber legged golden stonefly.

Rainbow Trout that fell for the same bug.

You know that camping and fishing trips tend to make you eat with a bit less concern for your heart health. Man its so good though! So we would eat until we were near to passing out next to our camp fire, living the good life even if it was only for a few days! We did however make a conscience effort to eat a healthy breakfast of Peaches and Cream Oatmeal, left over marinated steak, and extra strong coffee :)

Below are a few pictures from our time spent in the Adirondack mountains!

Steaks, Pork Chops, Salsa, corn, instant potatoes, and
a cold one were on the chefs menu...every night!

Our nightly camp fire, and as you can tell its almost bed time!

John with a fat Adirondack Brown Trout.

Nice trout to start the day off on a good note!

Eirik decided to let us catch the trout, as he wanted a trophy chub!
We always knew that Eirik was a chubby chaser.....

Nymphs including small caddis, worm, and midge larvae were also effective.

Greg fishes a pool we affectionately dubbed as brownbow rock.

Eirik holds the last fish of our trip! A great way to end a stellar trip!
Look at the beautiful reds on this fish!

We have a lot more still to come from our summer adventures, so stay dialed in and we'll have some more for you in the days to come!

Tight lines,

Greg Senyo
Owner/Operator
Steelhead Alley Outfitters

2 comments:

Patrick "Flybum" Robinson said...

Missed out on another cool trip....GRRR....next time...there's always next time. Or so I keep telling myself : )

Patrick Campbell said...

Sweet pics and a great trip. Pat's right on this...we gotta quit making excuses about the ellusive "next time!"