Exploring the Croton

**Walshmiko** · 07-28-2010, 09:38 AM

Went out and hit the croton water shed last night after charles and todd of the bedford sportsman put me on a new spot( thanks guys) and it was on fire. CADDIS AND MICRO MAY FLIES WERE THE TICKET AND A FEW SIXTEEN ICH PLUS fish came to hand. That water system is very under rated and bearly fish. I love it

**Duck-butt Chucker** · 07-28-2010, 10:27 PM

It's underrated yea..but it's definitely fished pretty heavily as it's the closest good trout water to the city and Long Island, especially since a few spots also have train access, so I wouldn't solicite the "barely fished" aspect of it cause it's really just the opposite. The people from around here who fish it usually hit each of the 3 major rivers within the system throughout the course of the season, but generally just frequent one specific river of their liking. The big three within the water system being: WB Croton (ie; Croton Falls Outlet), EB Croton (ie; Sodom Reservior Outlet), and the Lower Amawalk (below Brother's falls on Wood St. to the mouth Muscoot Reservior) and each of these three, especially WB and Amawalk, have quite a sizeable number of regulars who fish those sections particularly early season through sulfers. The people from Trout Unlimted chapter are obssessed w/ the Amawalk and consider that to be the chapter's "home river" (I think they actually do bi-weekly water tests at the place to help maintain the health of the stream) so that one has the largest following mainly because it stays ice cold all year round, has exclusively wild trout, and lastly is the furthest south of the big three making it the first for people driving up from down county/city/island to access...it's also popular with westchester county residents in particular because it's the only one of the three that's actually located within westchester county where as the other two are in Putnam. In terms of WB Croton it has train access right next to the place so on the weekends the place is a joke to put it mildly and also has a C and R section there that has alot of nice fish and a solid mix of both stocked and wild browns. A guy I know literally showed me a picture of a 21 inch brookie catch out of this section up in the sandy bottom close to where the croton falls dam feeds it which is fucking absurd something like was in there...another buddy of mine in late may picked up a 20in rainbow in here on a 28 royal gnat (griffith's gnat with red floss in between), and some kid picked off a 27in brown down near the mouth of the muscoot about a month ago (there is a pic of that one on Bedford Sportsman website) so like I was saying this section has alot of big fish and easy access which gives it a large following. Lately though they've been doing construction on the dam and it's let alot of the warm water from the croton falls reservior dump into the stream so alot of the fish have moved down towards the mouth of muscoot reservior...as a result most of the regulars here have been up on the farmington since mid-june. EB croton is only a few minutes from my house and is where I fish regularly myself..I consider WB croton the better of the two, but EB is still really good and has alot of good holdover browns and rainbows and risers all day in certain sections...regulars here are alot of people who don't want to deal with the crowds at either the WB or Amawalk and as a result choose to come here to fish egularly instead..also this is right off I-84 so alot of guys from fairfield county CT who don't want to drive all the way up to the Farmington or Housatonic come over here instead. The Titicus is the next most popular after these three which I bet is where they sent you since it runs cold all year (unlike WB and borderline w/ EB), you didn't distinguish the 16in trout you caught as being wild (no Amawalk), and charles is a fan of there cause it's good water for people who like fishing sub-surface...anyway though the system is underrated, but it's definitely fished pretty hard as well especially early season-june and on the weekends in the three places I listed so you don't want to make people take a trip from an hour or so away during one of those times and have them run into that shit...I live 3 miles from EB Croton and I don't even fish it on the weekends myself other than the occasional sunday night.