Exploring the Croton

A few Days ago(Thursday to be exact) I took the drive to the croton.. It takes me about 50 Min's from my house here in northern NJ and I actually enjoy the trip.. On the way up I was thinking of all the other times i have fished this stream and i came to the conclusion that i really haven't seen much of it. So before I started my exploration I stopped into Bedford Sportsman For A Tapered leader(just in case).
So Gear up and Ready to fish around 5, I set off from my car into the woods and Just kept walking. Rigged up with a caddis Larva and a small Pt I did manage to catch quite a few fish, mostly in the 9 to 15 inch range.. The Croton Water system is a great place, and even in this heat you can find fishable waters..
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That's great Tom. I was just taking to one of my kids who lives in NYC to take the train there and we can meet to fish.

You can walk to the stream from the train station!

You Can Also Sit in front of bedford sportsman and watch the train station.. Na for real the Croton and The sportsman Are real cool places to visit.. There is no shortage of fish in that stream

Keep in mind there's three different sections of the WB Croton and two of the EB Croton all seperated by reserviors to where they are basically their own distinct rivers so as a Brewster Native who lives literally 3 miles from Bathtub Pool on the upper EB and fishes here constantly I'd rank the sections as following: 1.) Croton Falls reservior Outlet (ie; Lower WB) 2.) Sodom Reservior Outlet (upper EB) 3.) West Branch reservior Outlet (Middle WB) 4.) Boyd Corners reservior Outlet (Upper WB) and 5.) Diverting Reservior Outlet (Lower EB)...my favorite personally however is West Branch reservior outlet as it's entirely wild browns, no stocking and i've even picked up three wild landlocked salmon in there as well...they used to stock them in the Croton falls reservior a while back but discontinued however there still remains a small self-sustaining population within the reservior that come into the stream to spawn. They're similar to the wild browns except instead of being a yellowish-golden color they are a distinct silver with a very deep fork in their tail and lightly speckled with red and black dots running broadside along the upper back

DBC,

What a good post. There are so many good streams in the entire watershed. I think that you will agree that it's a real unique place. You never know what you are going to catch in those streams. I heard that Croton Falls used to have a ton of smelt in it and that was the reason for stocking the landlocks. Supposedly the population crashed and they stopped stocking. It's neat to hear that some are still reproducing on their own. I would bet that there are other salmon that are caught but are mis-identified as brown trout.

I have had a great time this year on these streams. Talk about learning a whole bunch while fishing some prestine water. I also like the middle Wb some great wild fish there. I have landed a few nice ones and like Aaron said yo unever know what you are going to get there. Pllus usually if you walk a 1/2 mile or so you have the place to yourself. The E branch has some nice rainbows that are fun too!

I'm going to have to do some more walking :) I haven't fished there this spring or summer, but did make the trip (a short one for me) over the winter a couple times and was pleasantyl surprised at how it fished in the winter. I'm sure most of you know this, but just in case, don't forget your DEP watershed permit. It's free, all you have to do is apply online and you can print out your permit & the one that hangs off the windshield.

Thanks for bringing this topic up. I've been meaning to get there - I have the NY license and watershed pass, so I guess I'm good to go. It will be a welcome change since all I've done since the heat kicked is fishing in the Farmington. It's a great river, but I'm a little burnt out and bored with it. Your report is definitely encouraging. Thanks again.

Definitely dude...West Branch Reservior has started stocking landlocks in recent years (probably based on the same logic) so you might have a decent shot at running into one on Boyd Corners outlet as well...although, unless it was smaller than the size they stock, it'd probably be difficult to distinguish between a wild one and a reservior stockie who ran up into the river, but either way they're certainly over there. My wild landlocks from WB outlet were 8, 9, and 10in respectively but i've witnessed some guy dredge up a 16in one out of split rock pool in may. The Landlocks, aside from being in such diminutive numbers, have it really difficult there trying to survive amongst all the aggressive wild browns as the 8in Landlock I caught was clearly beaten up a bit on one of it's sides which I haven't seen on a single one of the probably 70+ wild browns i've caught there this year. Anyway though you'd be surprised about some places in or directly adjacent to the croton water system where you can find Wild Brookie populations. Amawalk inlet (which runs out of Kirk and Secor lakes), Beaver Dam Brook, and Broad Brook all have a small wild brookie population and there are even a few other even more less known places in putnam county that hold decent brookie populations..one of which I know of wild brookies as big as 15inches have been picked off but I don't want to post about them on a public forum as their ecosystems are extremely fragile and in turn really vulnerable to consistent pressure. Lastly EB definitely has some big rainbows...largest I picked off this year was a 17.5 in on a grizzly slumpbuster in the deep hole under the bath tub pool bridge...but I know of more than a couple people who've landed rainbows over 5lbs within the last few years...Pheobe's hole and the sharp drop off under the 684 bridge downstream of the spillway always hold a few fish over 18 inches..along with the odd walleye or two that occasionaly gets picked up by people throwing around big streamers