Shaking Off the Dust on Cayuta Creek

Cayuta Creek has become an old friend. With the coming of each early spring I find myself drawn to her. Part of that attraction is her beauty. Sweet and petite, her waters bring out the best of early spring, before wildflowers and green leaves fill the woods around her banks.

Cayuta Creek’s beauty shines even before the forests come alive…

And part of that attraction is her ability to help me shake off the dust and lose the rust after a winter spent indoors. Her trout, some stocked, some holdover, and some wild, are always there waiting and often times willing.

Early season fly fishing on Cayuta is largely a stonefly game – little black stones – though traditional nymph patterns and streamers can also work well. Some years, like last year, the unusual early season weather brought caddis and mayflies in abundance leading to some very good dry fly fishing.

I usually fish Cayuta Creek at least once before the opener with fly angling friend Dan, profiled here before. We’ll meet up at a pull-off, rig up with nymphs or wet flies, and fish down or up – more or less walking the length of the special regs section above the Wyncoop Creek Road bridge – catching up, commiserating, celebrating the new season, and conjecturing on what the year might bring.

We met up the weekend before the opener and Cayuta Creek did not disappoint. It was Good Friday in more ways than one! I fished my standard early season pattern – the venerable picket pin – but this time it was one of my own. I fished it as the tail fly to a weighted prince nymph and to my delight, caught a feisty brown on my third cast.

First fish on one of my own flies…

Dan and I fished the lower stretch of the creek that day and found one particular section that was loaded with hatchery browns. We caught them dead drift and on the swing with our nymphs and wet flies. Sometimes they’d even jump a fly stripped in for another cast.

I fished Cayuta the next day, this time on my own, and I did nearly as well. The sun was out and later in the day little black stoneflies were hatching with abundance. They fell like heavy snow, on and off it seemed, and would float and skitter clumsily downstream. The trout did not ignore them, rising aggressively as they sailed down the creek. Unfortunately, I was ill-equipped. I did not have anything that matched those stoneflies, though a black caddis seemed to draw the trout up for a look. A picket pin fished weightless on the swing worked pretty well, though greasing one up to make it float would most likely have been better (again, ill-equipped – no floatant on hand!).

I returned to Cayuta Creek the Friday after Opening Day. I found a very different creek on that overcast and cold day. The water was up and had a dark green stain to it, no doubt the result of snow-melt and recent rains.

A brooding looking Cayuta Creek…

I fished a nymph with a picket pin tail fly and found little success and I wondered at one point if this disturbing finding on a section of the creek that allows artificial lure use only had anything to do with it…

What fly or lure angler would use a ‘Y’ stick…

Later I decided to switch up to a streamer – a picket pin streamer tied by Dave Pelachik of JJ’s Jigs. I fished it upstream dead drift, then stripped it on the swing. Wading downstream, I swung the weighted streamer through a deep run and felt a solid whack and then the head-shakes of a good trout – one bigger than the stockie fare. After a good tussle I landed a brown in excellent condition, heavy-bodied, silvery colored, and quite possibly a wild trout from what I could tell.

A nice Cayuta brown caught on a picket pin streamer…

I fished a little more, lost another decent trout and had a few more swipes from what seemed to be stockies. At one point, a nice older gentleman stopped by to check things out. He spoke to me from roadside, across the creek and I could tell from our conversation that he was an experienced fly angler. He was new to the area, having moved from Pennsylvania and thought he’d check out Cayuta Creek. I fed him with all sorts of good information on this favorite little creek. After a while of pleasant chat, he bade me good luck and told me he’d leave a glass bead midge larva pattern he’d recently had luck with on Kettle Creek. In a way I suppose, it was my ‘little gem’ thanking me for all the praise…

Short Casts: Big Weekend for Fly Fishing Events

Local creeks and streams are still high but that oh-so-nice green snow melt color is showing in some of them and that, to most fly anglers, is like seeing the first robin of spring. Looking back over pictures from last year, however, it’s pretty apparent that this winter was a stronger bloke than 2010′s contender…

Nanticoke Creek, in great fishing shape, a year ago to the day...

We may, in fact, still be a few weeks behind last year’s spring breakout. But remember NY’s weather rule which holds that if you don’t like the weather, just wait a minute. Of course, that could mean a leap to summer-like temps or a cold winter recession and even more of the white stuff…

In any case, it’s still not too late to get the gear out and spread it all over the living room – drape every piece of furniture with it – lay out fly boxes and reels and spare spools on every flat surface – empty reels of fly line and backing – and christen it all with a few empty beer bottles, perhaps. Much as a dog marks their territory, this will let all household inhabitants know, you are IN town and ready to flog the banks…

And whilst doing this, don’t forget the bevy of fly fishing events popping up like so many crocuses. Our area is ripe with them, and just this weekend, you’ll find 2 fine examples to attend and really get you in the mood…

If that doesn’t induce spring fever, or the cost of “Texas tea” is just too heady to drive much, stay home and attend to cleaning, lubing, restoring, fixing and general preparation, as described in these short articles:

Rod Care 1, Rod Care 2

Reel Care

Line Care

Boot Care

Preparing 1, Preparing 2

Tight  Lines…

Is that a golf ball in your pocket, or are you just happy to be fishing…

I’ve tried my best to interest my son in fly fishing, thinking it was something we could enjoy together and an avocation I could pass down the family line. When there was some interest and eagerness early on, I bought him an Orvis 6 weight rod and reel outfit, a vest, waders, and took him on a few trips but after only a few ventures out, I could tell he just didn’t have “the passion”.  All of you die-hards know what I’m talking about – the mojo, moxy, and absolute drive to excel in something so much that time itself stads still.  Chris does, thankfully, fish with me at the shore on the party boats out of Barnegat Inlet for blues, fluke, and stripers.  It’s a tradition thing mostly, a father-son “bonding” event, if you will.  But at his age, if I had a backyard pond stocked with hungry bass, as exists now just 100 yards out the back door of STFF headquarters, I’d be bank-side every evening.  Chris has yet to wet a line there.

My wife and I have stood by him in his search for a hobby that would capture his mind and heart, one that would make use of his abundant talents, and possibly turn into a labor of love.  There was guitar, lacrosse, paintball, biking, and wrestling, but all of these things were like tossing gas on a fire, producing white-hot flames that burned out fast and left no enduring embers.  And then along came golf…

Chris picked up a driver like he did a fly rod, and in no time was clipping balls 225 yards.  He has natural talent of which most of us can only dream.  I remember once casting a new rod on the lawn of a local fly shop with him, back when I was trying to cuddle him up to the sport.  The owner bluntly told me that my son, at 13, cast better than I did, 10+ years into the game.

The hills of Apalachin - from the front 9...

So this past April we bought him a junior membership at a public course just a few hills over from where we live and ever since he started the “good walk spoiled”, a funny thing happened – I found golf balls wherever I fished.  It began with our pond, which wasn’t too surprising since Chris is constantly practicing on the lawn under our #1 ground rule, “away from the house – toward the pond”.  I’d paddle out on the pond and in the shallows, WAY down from where he’d tee off, see these white things down on the pond bottom.  Once I was fishing in the stillness of the evening, casting poppers, and nearly jumped out of the kayak when a big bass exploded only feet away.  Later, having returned from my back-yard expedition, a smiling Chris asked me how I liked his driving.

He could have been a fly fishing 'contendah'...

But soon after that, more golf balls appeared in remote and very un-golflike places.  I found one in the upper Susquehanna River near Windsor where the river is secluded in deep woods and vast tracts of farmland.  I found another in the Chemung, downstream from the towering dikes that shoulder the river from the town of Athens.  I found still more in the Tioughnioga and the lower Susquehanna, and most recently, of all places, in Cayuta Creek.

Going for birdie...

I would bring them back, every one of them, as proof…

Fresh from the cool mountain springs of Cayuta Creek...

Serendipity?  Chance?  Divine intervention?  Could it be the Big Man’s way of tying the seemingly disparate fires burning deep within us together?  I’ve pondered this at length, concluding that, chance discovery or bread crumbs from above, it is indeed a sign that these two great avocations can be shared over the years.  Next time Chris hits the links I think I’ll throw my 8 weight in the back of the golf cart.  There just have to be some real hawg bass in those beautiful water obstacles…

Tight lines…

Falling for Fall Creek…

When it comes to fishing new water, I’m a believer in humbly paying my dues.  I grossly lower my expectations and fish with head bowed low, hoping the fly fishing gods take notice.  These first trips are more “recon” than fishing – an attempt to learn the water with eyes wide open.

Some of my loyal readership know I’ve been itching to take a trip to Fall Creek.  I had heard the fishing can be great in the fall, when lake-sized browns and landlocked salmon feel the ancestral urge to spawn, but I had also heard it was a place requiring tribute (read, many fish-less casts) before one could “bring home the Cayuga Lake bacon”.

Those who angle the tribs in the fall know that a big push of cold water is all it takes to signal the lake’s trout and salmon to make their annual spawning runs, so last week’s heavy rains and cool weather were just what I was waiting for…

The kind of chart for trib fishers love...

After spending a good chunk of Saturday “leaf-plowing”, I decided to give Fall Creek a try early Sunday morning.   I set up my gear the night before, turned back my Seiko Monster for Daylight Savings Time, and hit the sack.  I was up and on my way at “0″ dark-thirty Sunday morning; it was still dark when I pulled into a local McDonald’s / Express Stop for an Egg McMuffin and a fill-up of petrol.  By the time I crossed the river bridge in Owego, it was just light enough to see a high and muddy Susquehanna, a river far different from the one I fished as summer transitioned to fall.  The trip up route 96B to Ithaca was relaxing – the Catatonk Valley’s mix of heavily forested hills, serpentine brooks, and bucolic farms made for a nice drive.

I arrived at the parking area off Lake Street and quickly rigged my rod and donned my gear to the roaring music of Ithaca Falls, the largest of the Finger Lakes falls at 150 feet in height and 175 feet in width.  It was a short hike down to the creek and the gorge pool…

Looking upstream from the tail of the gorge pool to the falls...

I fished the gorge pool using a sink tip line, a 1X tippet, and a weighted purple streamer.  As the sun rose and lit the morning, fishermen began to arrive in numbers I was not used to after fishing the Susquehanna in late summer / early fall.  I watched one angler below me expertly flipping a long orange bobber with what looked like a fly rod.  I spoke with him out of curiosity as he moved by me on his way upstream and found he was fishing a centerpin rig.  He had hooked a few small fish but was still in search of bigger fish, like the 27″ male landlocked salmon he reportedly caught on just such a rig the previous year.  For those not familiar with centerpin fishing, it’s a deadly way to fish a bait, typically an egg sack or worm, using a bobber for a drag-free drift.

I decided it was “recon” time after working the gorge pool and watching fishermen stack up above me.  I slowly waded downstream, swinging my streamer – an easy and enjoyable way to fly fish on such a beautiful fall morning.  Below the gorge pool was some fast deep water, and further below these runs the river broadened, slowed, and ran largely featureless, save a few deep pockets in isolated spots.  I fished all the water the same – exploring this delightful Finger Lake tributary one cast at a time.

The N. Cayuga Street and Rt 13/34 bridges, looking downstream...

I could see bridges below me and figured I’d fish downstream to them and then get out and hike upstream to fish the falls pool before heading home.  But as I closed the distance to the bridge pool, two things convinced me that this spot was worth a longer stay: 1) a fat and feisty rainbow nailed my streamer on a swing through a riffle, and 2) I almost stepped on a small landlocked salmon, holding mid-stream, as I got in position just above the bridge.

I changed my fly to an olive bead-head soft hackle wooly bugger, having read that olive was a good color for landlocked salmon.  I swung my streamer across and down, periodically wiggling my rod tip to give the fly some life.  The water appeared to deepen just above the bridge, and it was there, that a man scanning the water from the bridge above, spied two large shapes holding in the current.  “There”, he said, pointing just downstream and across from me.  “I’m not sure whether they’re browns or salmon, but they’re big fish”, he said.  “If I were you I’d move upstream a little and swing your fly just above that deep water”.  I thanked him for his advice, and did as he said.  A few casts across and down and my fly stopped dead as it swung.

I set the hook into solid head-shaking, and below me I could see the white of a big jaw, whipping angrily back and forth.  I stripped in my slack line and put the fish on the reel.  The fish, a nice landlocked salmon, held in the current, solid as a planer board trolling a spoon.

So unprepared was I for this early success, that my thoughts immediately turned to where the hell I’d land this fish.  I had no net, and the channelized banks on either side of the creek were fairly steep, so beaching was out of the question.  I let the fish hold upstream of me until I could find an area of slower water and, after two thrashing jumps, dragged him with side pressure to a slow water eddy along the bank.  I’d like to say I executed the perfect Lee Wulff atlantic salmon tailing, but in reality, I slipped as I moved shoreward, ending up flat on my back in the water with rod held high.  My salmon slipped under a tree branch hanging in the water, but I did manage to tail him.  A nearby angler helped me unhook my fish as I held him, and moments later was kind enough to photograph the evidence for posterity purposes…

Well worth a dunking...

The kype on this male was, well, garish, to say the least.  The kype is to salmon, like antlers to a buck, formed when the testosterone starts flowing for taking care of the competition.  This bad-ass had marks from scraps he had already undertaken in the quest for some lucky salmon maiden.  I released him back to the creek and watched him effortlessly swim away.

I had read the temp of the creek to be 46 – 48 degrees, so it wasn’t long before I was shivering cold.  I got out of the river, shed my soaking shirt layers, and walked back to my car in my t-shirt and waders, like some bass-fishing river rat on a summer’s day, an odd sight for the many anglers dressed in heavy wading jackets and topped with ski hats.

Fall Creek in late fall...

I left Fall Creek with mixed feelings.  I was delighted to land a truly magnificent fish – the original upstate version of the atlantic salmon that none other than Lee Wulff proclaimed to be the king of gamefish.  On the other hand, no angler likes beginner’s luck.  It often spells doom for subsequent outings until the fly fishing gods deem said angler is finally due again.  Better to get the lay of the water and work into good fishing than to start off with a bang and go fishless.

Racing back home with my car’s heater on high to fight the chill, I couldn’t help but stop to take this photo from a high point at the south end of Cayuga Lake…

"Far above Cayuga's waters, with its waves of blue..."

Beginner’s luck or not, I’d be back to this special place, where salmon once ran so thick, native Indians speared them by the hundreds on their fall spawning runs.  To hold the progeny of evolution just once was well worth the risk of never holding it again…

Tight lines…

Cayuta Creek

Cayuta Creek is a wonderful little creek, 40 miles in length, running parallel for much of its length with Route 34 as it meanders to its terminus with the North Branch of the Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania.  Indian legend has it that its source, Cayuta Lake, is named after a beautiful Seneca princess who was kidnapped by another tribe, causing her mother’s tears to form the lake.  An older spelling of the creek’s name, still sometimes used, is “Kayutah”.  The name translates to “little gem”, and that is exactly what this creek is to the fly fishers who frequent it.

Little Gem...

Cayuta receives healthy stockings of brown trout every year, but is also known for its holdovers and natives.  This is classic upstate fly fishing – fast riffles, slow runs, brush-lined pools, and deep, snag-infested holes abound.  Every year at least a few large browns are taken; indeed, a coworker once told me his son pulled a 6 lb brown out of the lower section.  I had my doubts about this until one bright spring day when my Hendrickson nymph stopped dead as it swept under a downfall.  I set the hook and saw the golden flash of a big brown in the murky green depths.  The weight of the fish in combination with some heavy current did their thing, but suddenly I was a believer, as they say.

Open all year, Cayuta offers solitude, gorgeous upstate surroundings, and the chance for good trout fishing.  While there are only two DEC angler parking areas in the upper section, finding a place to park along most of the creek is not difficult.  Wading and navigating the creek, however, can be tricky.  The best places to do well are going to be the ones the lazy fishermen pass up.

Riffle water...

Staff Hydrologist Dan and I usually hit Cayuta before the traditional NY opener as a warm-up for the season.  We fish the special regs section, from the Rt. 223 bridge downstream to the Wyncoop Creek Rd bridge, as this is open to artificial lures only.  I’ve fished above this stretch once before and did well.  The section below the special regs stretch I’ve yet to explore, but I’ve been told this area can produce some real slabs, if you’re willing to work for them.

I arrived at the special regs section on Sunday afternoon around 2 pm.  After stringing up my 7′ 4 wt JP Ross Beaver Meadow rod and getting down to the creek I noticed a few caddis about, and as these patterns typically do well here, I tied on a tan caddis dry to see if the fish were looking up.  I worked over a nice riffle, run, pool and another combination of the same and all I could come up with were creek chubs that hurled themselves at the fly.  As I fished, I noticed the water had a slight “snowmelt” color to it.  The temp was a very cool 52 degrees F.  I re-rigged to fish wet, and tied on one of my favorite search patterns – the infamous Picket Pin.

Old Faithful...

I hiked down the road about a quarter mile to a place Dan likes to fish – a nice brush-lined riffle that spills into a long run and meandering pool.  I fished the picket pin upstream dead drift, then let the line belly out with the current, swing down, and hang for a moment.  I fished the fly weightless, but let the upstream cast and mend give the fly some depth.  A few casts at this spot and I was tight to a fish – a nice 2 year old.  He came up slow, head-shaking, then ran upstream.  I worked him across into the slack water and quickly released him.

I moved upstream to another good spot – broader in width, shallower in depth, but with good cover.

Looking upstream - a nice pool with good cover...

After much ducking and grappling through those nasty thorn-covered crabapple trees, I was able to position myself across a pool that cut into the bank and had great cover.  I watched the water and a flash of butter yellow and silver caught my eye.  Looking more closely, I could see a brown trout picking off nymphs.  I cast upstream, giving my unweighted fly time to sink as it reached the deep middle of the pool, then I’d let my line tighten and swing the fly through.  I did this 3 times before the fly stopped, my line tightened, and I strip set the hook into another nice brown.  This fish came to the surface, thrashing the water to a froth, and settled back in the pool to slug it out.  I worked the fish out upstream, and released it after a quick photo op…

Cayuta Creek brown...

Pool by pool I worked my way upstream.  I fished the riffles, pools, holes, and downfalls, one by one.

Downfall - deep hole...

I picked up 2 more browns, smaller in size, but just as big in their fighting spirit.  Around 5 pm I reached the point upstream where I had parked and decided I had been blessed enough.  I stowed my gear, broke out a cigar, and enjoyed the warmth of the late afternoon.  Across the creek was a cornfield, partially harvested and mowed, and beyond it, hills turning scarlet, copper, gold, and brown.  I felt lucky to be alive…

Autumn afternoon...

Tight lines…