Spring fishing in WNY

Although spring isn't officially here yet, it certainly has felt like it, especially on this morning.

I have been out fishing this past Monday morning and again this morning. On Monday our streams were still raging with conditions near flood stage. And because of that, I headed to an inland stream that does not get flooded, even in the worst conditions. I would say that it was a good choice because I caught some fish, but the truth is....it was a good choice because it was the only fishable water. And the fact that I was able to catch a few fish was almost secondary.

Fishing was good but not great, and even though I managed to bring 3 fish to the net, I lost another 4 fish after a few head shakes. Almost all the fish took either a small #22 pink wire midge or a #18 pink scud (with the exception of one that took a small #22 black midge larvae.

What a difference a few days can make, especially when the air is dry and the temperatures are going back up. I have been watching the water gauges at a few of our inland streams, and they have been dropping fast! They aren't perfect yet, but by this weekend they will be. So this morning I headed up to a small Lake Ontario tributary in search of some steel. The water is on the down trend, and it has a brown stain to it. But all is not bad, as there was about 8 - 12 Inches of visibility, and many seams looked like they would hold some fish. So I took a walk and searched out every good looking spot. I even took my time searching the shallow water right next to the bank. This brought a nice little surprise, as I found many small silver minnows darting back and forth. I even was able to catch one with my bare hands and take a few photos for reference. I really thought that seeing those little guys was a good sign and that I might be able to hook up with a steelhead or a drop back lake run brown trout. But over the next 45 to 50 minutes, my efforts had turned up no fish. On my way back to the car I stopped once again at the tailout of a slower flat peice of water. I worked it over pretty good with a #6 white woolly bugger. And on one of those drifts my line stopped, just like it had with a few rocks, but this time something pulled back after I lifted the rod. A quick burst of speed lead me to believe that it might be my first steelhead of the spring. But after the fish came to the surface I could clearly tell it was not a trout - It was a sucker. Oh well...at least I caught a fish(2 if you count the small bait fish.)

In the next few days the water in our streams will continue their down trend, and will soon be in perfect shape! This is the time to venture out and find some steel in high water. And perhaps even more important is the fact that you can do it without being hassled by countless other fishermen.

Posted March 17th, 2010 at 12:44 PM by Brian Bradfield