Tuesday, September 30, 2014

Tenkara Fishing in Croton - The Trout Season Ends.


Last Saturday we fished the West and East Branch of Croton to conclude this year's trout fishing season.

I caught a beautiful 15+ inches rainbow in the East Branch as a nice season's finale.
   




















My wife got many browns in her favorite pools in the West Branch.

We were happy to end the season with these catches.











On Sunday I planned to go to the Breezy Point jetty,
but instead I went to Croton again because saltwater fishing seemed still slow.
The pools that were productive on Saturday were very quiet,
and yet I found a pool with fish rising to tiny ants.
I caught many browns with midge flies similar to ants in sizes and looks. They really like ants.




Monday, September 8, 2014

Tenkara Fishing In Croton Falls Outlet





My wife and I went to the Croton Falls Outlet for tenkara fishing again.  We hoped to have a good time like last weekend.
We were quite well prepared this time.  We carried our whole sets of fly boxes.



The water was still murky. We fished in the small pool where I caught several fishes last weekend. This pool was very productive. Fish were rising in the morning, and after the severe noon time thunder storm, they were rising again.  Just before the late afternoon thunder storm, I caught a 14-inch brownie.  Then we were forced to take our leave.





The fish seemed eating spent caddis,  Anyway they were not picky.
We caught fishes with different kinds of flies which were similar sizes and colors of the spent caddis.


I've been fishing with the tenkara rods for two seasons.  In a small stream like the Croton Falls Outlet, I can control the flies easier with tenkara rods than fly rods whether I am midging, nymphing or dry fly fishing.


Wednesday, September 3, 2014

Tenkara Fishing Trip to the Catskills and Croton Watershed in Labor Day Weekend




Saturday:

I was eager to show my wife the beautiful streams and ponds in the Catskills Mountains where I had explored earlier.

First we visited West Kill in the Hunter Mountain region.
Unfortunately construction has been going on in the lower section of the stream. The water flow is redirected into a metal pipe and causes no water flow in this section.
However we were still able to fish the public fishing stretch in the middle section of the stream.

We each caught a small brookie though the water level was quite low in the late summer as now.

I think West Kill's wide open bank and many nice plunge pools make it one of the most tenkara friendly good brookie stream when there is more water in spring time.





















In the afternoon we fished the mountain pond where I caught many brookies three weeks ago.
In the beginning we used dry flies and caught many 3-5 inches brookies.
When they seemed getting tired of dry flies, we used bead head tenkara flies with twitching movement.
These inexperienced brookies just could not resist them. We were catching 6-inch brookies one after the other till almost all brookies in this pond I guessed got some painful lessons.  

             
                                                                                                           



Labor Day:      

We went to Amawalk Outlet in the morning.
The stream condition looked good, but there was not much action. It seemed not many fish were in the stream.














In the afternoon we fished the West Branch of the Croton Outlet. Although the water was murky, some fish were rising and we caught a few.

In the early evening the fish were rising left and right.
My wife said, " It is once in a life time opportunity in this water."
I couldn't figure out what they were eating, only later did I find out it was tiny black ants when I saw a lot of them on the water.

Being lightly equipped for tenkara fishing, we carried only several kinds of flies. Even with these limited supply and without the right size ant, we caught several of those nice rising trouts between 12 to 14 inches.