Fishing! What else is there!: First November run with my brother

November is already proving to be a great year for brown trout fishing in New York’s best tributaries. The fall season saw a washout of high water in NY rivers and streams. This allowed the salmon and browns to venture further inland from Lake Ontario. The female browns are holding right now over spawning redds. The water is weak coffee color and moderately high.
This week I took my brothers out in freezing weather to two different streams. Both streams offered opportunities to hook fish. Marvin lives near lake Ontario where fishing is a daily reality. Paul lives in the California desert where fishing is a fading dream.

Day 1: We started at sunrise and the ice was still on the mud puddles as we headed for the stream. Marvin, Paul and I worked some pools that normally hold fish. We saw several moving up through the current.

Is this what we came here for?

Paul caught a large creek chub. As we only had three hours to fish, we had to find fish in hurry. Never a good way to relax. But as we were leaving the stream, we came across several fish holding in the gravel areas. I used a swing pattern in the current to no avail. Nothing was attacking it. I did manage to hook up twice with a grub pattern, both times the fish bolted up stream and I lost them.

Day 2: Only Paul and I went this day and checked out a couple of areas before we settled on a familiar stream. This second stream had produced fish for me many times in the past. Each year is different in the adventures I encounter. We were seeing a half dozen or more fish holding in various places. We found a few that were not spooked by our trudging across the fast moving water. Then I hooked one and tried to hand the fly rod off to Paul, not knowing he was getting his phone ready to photograph the action. When we met rod with phone it almost knocked his phone into the water. With all the excitement happening, slack went crazy wild in my 6 wt. line. I watched as the fish had looped around and removed himself from my 12 lb. leader. I showed Paul some different techniques to fishing under the grass banks in the current. We traded fly rods, and I left Paul to practice drifting egg patterns. I found a female holding in about three feet of water in the back end of a long deep pool. I cast upstream and watched my egg drift above her. I checked my two split shot on this 7-8 wt. rod and moved them closer to the egg pattern. Again I tossed the egg into the current. As the split shot pulled the egg under, it still missed the target and rolled past her. I added another small shot and cast again, so she could see it. The indicator pulled under I raised my fly rod and set the hook. I yelled to Paul “fish on”. After a great four minute fight in deep water, she tired and went belly up in the shallows. Paul took a video and these photos. Thanks Paul for getting our adventure all recorded.