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In: Central New York Fishing, Fly Fishing, Trout fishing, Trout Fishing In New York

As a boy, with my spinning rod and reel bundled and tied to the frame of my BMX bike with rubber bands and bread ties, I spent many summer days pedaling from my home in the hilly suburbia of Syracuse to the nearby Erie Canal towpath. Once reached, I could travel the towpath west to Butternut Creek or east to Limestone Creek.  Each creek, with its remote green pools of cold water, was an oasis of summer adventure where I fished and explored. In those days the creeks were healthy. Shaded by dense softwood canopies and rich with beds of clean gravel. Colorful trout wereRead More →

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In: Central New York Fishing, Fly Fishing, Professional Guide Service in Upstate New York, Trout fishing, Trout Fishing Guide In New York, Trout Fishing In New York

In the world of professional fly fishing and guiding there is no more anticipated time of the year than the Spring. The busiest season of the year. The Spring trips on my calendar are the  benchmark that can determine my success for the entire year. The loss of the 2020 Spring season will be difficult to survive for my modest guide service. But it is a nothing when considering the gravity and scale of what New York and the country is going through right now. Most frustrating is not all the cancelled fishing trips. It is being stuck here at home. The degree of sufferingRead More →

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In: Ice Fishing, Ice Fishing In The Adirondacks, Professional Guide Service in Upstate New York, Trout fishing, Trout Fishing Guide In New York, Trout Fishing In New York

With temperatures falling well below zero in the Adirondacks over the course of the last several weeks…Ice fishing season is here! Many of the big lakes and all of the small ponds throughout the six and a half million acre park are frozen over with five to seven inches of ice. Ice fishing in the Adirondacks is challenging. Early ice (now) is perhaps the best time of the year for fishing. The ice is new and easy to traverse and easy to drill holes through. The fish are adjusting to the new roof over their heads but have not become inactive. Coldwater species like trout,Read More →

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In: Fly Fishing, Trout fishing, Trout Fishing Guide In New York, Trout Fishing In New York

On a tailwater river I fish often the consistent and large hatches decline in early July. By mid August there are just a few reliable species of mayflies hatching each day. As the month progresses these hatches become unreliable and can disappear. The flies tied to replicate these mayflies are dressed on size 18 to 22 hooks and consist of sulphur, olives and tricos. Mid summer will find the river quiet. The bulk of fly fishermen have abandoned the banks. As summer ends and the shorter days and cooler nights begin, the insect activity begins to pick up again. Angling pressure does not. In theRead More →

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In: Central New York Fishing, Trout fishing

  Longer days and strengthening sunshine evaporates the snow on the hillsides and warms the rocks along the lakeshore. The lake ice, built thick in layers from the winter weeks of bitter cold, separates from the shoreline more each day. Most of the ice anglers have put their sleds in the rafters and hung their pack baskets on a nail in the shed. The birds get excited. Woodpeckers hammer away on a dead maple, hollowed and tuned by the years. Calm, cold bright early spring days see the starlings clamber in the eaves of my cabin for a place to build a nest. Bluebirds sing from a perch on the wires and the troutRead More →

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In: Central New York Fishing, Fly Fishing, Trout fishing, Trout Fishing Guide In New York, Trout Fishing In New York

Each year, peaking in the early summer, I enjoy nothing so much as fly fishing on small streams for wild trout. It is, in fact, the most enjoyable form of angling. Within five minutes drive of my cabin is ten miles of catch-and-release trout stream that is loaded with wild trout.  This creek is small. Very small. The county puts a few thousand run-of-the-mill stock rainbow trout in it each spring. But it is the brown trout that thrive. Wild browns that average 12 inches are common and when approached with a three or four weight fly rod they make for great angling. My guideRead More →

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In: Central New York Fishing, Fly Fishing, Trout fishing, Trout Fishing Guide In New York, Trout Fishing In New York

Twice a year trout migrate from the lakes into the streams and rivers that flow into them. Some species travel upstream to spawn in the fall, like brown trout, brook trout and salmon. Another species of trout, the rainbow trout, migrate upstream in the spring to spawn. Anglers take advantage of this bi-annual run of fish and stalk wary lake-run trout in the pools, runs, riffles and eddies in streams and creeks swollen with run-off. In the Finger Lakes on the first day of April each year hundreds of anglers descend upon the creeks flowing into the lakes to catch spawning rainbow trout. In some biological logicRead More →

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In: Fly Fishing, Trout fishing, Trout Fishing Guide In New York, Trout Fishing In New York

In Leon Chandlers’ boyhood he fished the same waters that I do today. I imagine him a teen with a fly rod in his hand roll casting a hand-tied callibaetis at dimpling browns. He was most likely fishing a nightcrawler at that age. The reason I fly fish the boyhood home of Leon Chandler is due to geography and proximity. Just coincidental. But, if not for Leon Chandler I may not fish with a fly rod at all. Leon Chandler was the catalyst of fly fishing and fly fishing products in America. He was a Catskill fly fisherman, Cortland native, and a gentleman who introduced American flyRead More →

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In: Trout fishing, Trout Fishing Guide In New York, Trout Fishing In New York

May was the month for Lake Trout for Upstate Guide Service. This blog showcases a few pics of some of the finer specimens brought to net and released on board The Grey Ghost 2 this past month. All fish were caught on medium fast action spinning rods and 10# test with jigs. The handsome male above is a native, or wild Lake Trout. This fish was seen before it was caught. I was out with guests in early May and noticed it chasing and eating stock trout next to a shallow shoal in 14 FOW. The next day I went back and caught it. It’s bellyRead More →

Professional Guide Service In The Adirondacks

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In: Fly Fishing, Trout fishing, Trout Fishing Guide In New York, Trout Fishing In New York

The first brook trout I caught was over thirty years ago. My Dad left me on the bank of a swollen Spring trout river on the Tug Hill with a can of worms, some hooks and split-shot, and instructions to not fall in or wander off. Perched high above a turbulent eddy hole on the precarious sod bank I drowned a worm and set the hook into a beautiful hook-jawed male brookie’ of about 16 inches in length and shaped like a nerf football. Knowing this trout was a rare find, and big for its kind, it was not going back into the creek. ItRead More →