Re: Big browns from NY state
If and when they get rain the fish will poor in. Right now there are some fish in the larger tribs as expected, since there is some flow. When the smaller tribs come in they will be inundated with fish. It's looks to be the same scenario as last year.
Re: Big browns from NY state
AJ's assessment is probably spot on. I'm fishing the Oak Fri first light so I'll give you guys a first hand. That's if I can drag my arse out of bed a few hours after doing my first Full Moon Sweat.
Re: Big browns from NY state
Actually, let me rephrase: Right now is typically the time to go. As Aaron mentioned, flows are important- not enough water and the browns cannot negotiate the streams. Oak Orchard & Burt Dam are sometimes exceptions, as they have some level of ability to control the flow due to the dams on them- often when other area streams are super low, they can have enough flow to bring the fish up from the lake. Not sure on the current status though, I'm guessing Aaron is up on it and it sounds like it's still early this year & we may need some rain up there. Do a little rain dance. You hearing anything about the conditions Dejon? I take it the Oak must have some fish or you wouldn't be heading there.
Re: Big browns from NY state
Fished the Oak yesterday from 1st light to 3pm. We arrived at 6:15 guessing to find maybe 3 cars... yeah right. There were at least 35! No doubt 50 to 75+ cars at the peak of the day. In lies the dilemma: fish higher in the system to large concentrations of fish and deal with the shoulder to shoulder fisherman or fish lower in the system to drastically smaller concentrations of both. We chose the latter. Long story short we fished a gorgeous part of the system all day with no other angler in roughly a ¼ mile. Most of the time we couldn’t even see another angler. The weather was fantastic and the fishing…. Well, the fishing was fantastic, but you have to temper your expectations. I went 1 for 3 and my buddy Chris Reid went 1 for 12 – I know, not a great batting average! We got chance though and that’s what counts. Lost at least 3 Steelhead and 1 Brown in the plus 12lb range. All fish were taken on Troutbeads in various colors. It took us a while to zero in on where the fish were lying. I think due to the tremendous pressure above most of the browns in this section were holding in very unlikely water or transitional chrome bright steelhead moving up from the lake were only stopping to harvest brown trout eggs along the way. Like Clock-Work if you hooked a Steelie you could bet there would be a Brown Trout dropping eggs approximately 20 or 30 paces directly up river and vice versa.
Just a few more hookups and maybe 2 or 3 fish brought to hand and it would have been one of my favorite days of the season. At one point I felt like I was on some Float Plane drop off trip in BC – the sun was shining on fall leaves, 3 red-tailed hawks were circling above, not a angler or car was to be heard, and then I hooked a mammoth Steelie that promptly whooped my arse. Fairly surrealistic for a place I like to call “Salmon-Hell.”
This is the single Brown we landed. 9lbs on the boga-grip. Found exactly 20 paces upriver from 4 lost steelhead. Probably would have weighed 12 or 13 a few hours earlier when she was egg laden. Removed one extra hook and sent her on her way back to the lake! Knowing that there were no other anglers below us the chances of that being true are actually really good – a nice thought.
http://i130.photobucket.com/albums/p...u/oakbrown.jpg
Re: Big browns from NY state
Dejon,
Nice fish! Did you go around the bend to look at the flat water down at the end? I am sure there were a ton of guys down there as well. It seems that people either go to the dam or down to the flat water and very few in between. I have only seen people throughout the entire stream course there on big holiday weekends like Columbus Day, Veterans Day and Turkey Day. I got to that last spot at 4 am once with my friend Jason and we exploded them pretty good. Guys were even trying to walk down and get in the water below us! We were right on the edge of that little peninsula that juts out into the middle of the stream!
Re: Big browns from NY state
I wonder if we're talking about the same spot:) The water is shockingly low right now, but usually you can't even get to this spot without swimming if you're under 6 feet tall.
