got rain?...FINALLY!...SPRING CREEK SUMMER STEELHEAD....NEW YORK'S WILD TROUT MECCA

( Tom Terrry from Chicago with his fisrt summer run fun which jumped into a tree on its first leap from an Indiana spring creek on a pink scud last weekend)

( Client Dave Richardson from Virginia and his first summer Skamania steelhead- also...great to see water flowing again!)

So sorry!...for the long delay in posting. As you are well aware we have been in the grip of the worst drought and heat wave in a century.The whole country is dealing with it but I'm glad to say we are over the hump with the big storms we had the last two days and cooler weather coming.Laurie, Peter and I  spent the first two weeks of July at our family's summer home in the magnificant Catskill mountains of  of New York- a wild trout mecca! The ice cold tailwaters of the Delaware and Neversink, with their deep mountain ice cold reservoirs with several hundred feet deep bottom draws made these rivers ice cold. Air temps were hitting the 100 F  range and both the West and East Branch and the Neversink upper tailwaters were 42 degrees.

( view from our families place in the Catskills)

( The amazing Neversink River of New York- a fusion river: mountain freestoner, spring creek and ice cold tailwater all in one....PLUS!.... the birthplace of American Fly fishing....Theodore Gordon/Hewitt and La Branche...this is Americas 'ground zero' of fly fishing...above a wild Neversink brown, the spring creek like waters and the steep falls at Fallsburg)

I spent each day chest deep and chilly, watching wild brown trout sipping sulphers, olives and stenos in the middle of the afternoon as the waters warmed to the prefered low 50F range. Their fisheries are managed for wild brown, rainbow and brook trout which are splendidly colored and fight like mad....also ultra super selective .

( Angler chest deep on the West Branch....44F water...air temp 95F...tailwater fog)

( West Branch sulpher sipper..."drive by style".... only my guide/friend/sansai/trout coon dog, and Catskill trout master...Johnny"Miller Time" Miller can figure out...he has finally figured out how to crack these big selective/reflective sippers feed...incredible habituation behaviour is taking place here on these extremelly "hammered to death" fish...since this river was the only fishable place on the east coast!...except for spring creeks.)

 On the way back, I got to stop by my childhood wild trout classroom...the Wiscoy Creek in the

 southern tier Allegheny mountains. I fished here last 31 years ago when I lived in Niagara Falls and it is here I learned of the selective cunning nature of its exclusive wild brown trout.

( Wiscoy terrestrials..."da box")

( I love bohvines...if you talk to them like puppys they follow you all day...my pals!)

( New York does an amazing job of public access and wild trout management)

 It is a cow pasture spring creek/freestoner that runs through Wyoming County- "little Switzerland' of western New York. The water levels in all the New York streams were very low due to the drought but things gave changed with the rains.

( Pota mayfly shuck)

( Peter walking the Wiscoy Crekk Falls...we stayed at the Wiscoy Creek Lodge...a spectacular log cabin...go to their web site...big thumbs up!!!!!!... a true forest setting an hour and half south of Buffalo)

AND NOW!....after many prayers answered the rains have come and my pursuit of summer steelhead  with my clients from all over the nation could not have come at a better time. The "Skamania Alley' of Michigan/Indiana got anywhere between 2-4 inches of rain with the storms depending on location....the mother load of summer runs are yet to come!.

The St. Joseph remains too warm for fish yet but will change. I'm concentrating on smaller spring creeks and some private new water I've obtained. Those creeks are icy and have good flows now.
Muskegon Report. It got really brutal in early July- so did all the blue ribbon wild trout waters of Michigan's PM/Au Sable where water temps hit 70's...that's all changing.
The Muskegon bubbler only had so much cooler water and the cooler nights and lower daytime temps will gradually get things back to normal...if normal exists anymore! The trout are concentrated in the deeper pools andfast shallow riffles due to the river hitting a brutal low and hot 797 cfs...now 1,090 after it hit 1800 cfs after the storms. They are sipping #26 olive rusty spinners in the mornings and evenings and the tiny green caddis is starting up. The rocks are covered with cinnamon and green caddis larvae/pupae and the rest of the summer thru October should see massive caddis hatches. Their has been no trout die offs noticed and the trout that are caught are still fat and healthy despite the heat from the caddis pupae...please exercise extreme caution when fishing till temperatures cool further!!!
 Heard reports of summer king salmon coming in Litle and Big Man and PM Lake.
 I think we are over the heat hump and more storms and showers are predicted even though temps will climb again... the rain buffer is the key!....Cheers!

( high water Skamie box...some of Greg Senyo's masta egg eating minnows...and more master Senyo creations...a monument will be built to this Great Lakes steelhead flyt tyer....all of us are humbled next to him!...no blowing smoke!)

STILL HAVE SOME OPEN DATES FOR SUMMER SKAMANIA STEELHEAD AND THE "SUMMER TROUT EVENING SIPPER SPECIALS" THAT WILL LAST TILL OCTOBER!....SEE YOU ON THE RIVER!

Posted in: gray drake , Greg Senyo , Indiana Skamania , muskegon river , Neversink , New York wild trout , skamania steelhead , summer steelhead , terrestrial insects , trout and eagle , WEST BRANCH DELAWARE , Wiscoy Creek