Thoughts for November

We’ve gone through what has been a spectacular fall and now we are transitioning to what is likely to be some less than spectacular weather. A lot of people head inside and watch football, but there is a different football season out there and that is the fly fishing for football browns!

A number of years ago I wrote a couple of articles on fly fishing the Lake Ontario tributaries for football brown trout. Technically, they are Seforellen??? Brown trout, a lake dwelling species brought over from Europe that were stocked in Lake Ontario. The browns run up into the tributaries to spawn, usually in the end of November through the beginning of December and some of them will stay in the streams all winter instead of dropping back to the lake.

When they first come in, they are stacked up below spawning salmon, and they eat all of the stray eggs that come out of the salmon nests, in addition to any large nymphs or aquatic insects the spawning salmon may dislodge. This makes for some interesting fishing with an indicator. I have had a great time catching the browns this way, and oddly enough I had a pretty good sized king salmon that was below a pair of spawning kings that I landed on an egg fly.

After the salmon spawn dies out the browns are next and they start vying for territory to do their thing in the gravel areas. The browns will eagerly hit streamers out of spawning aggression before they set up their own nests and spawn.

When the browns are on their own nests, it is best to leave them alone and let them produce future generations of big brown trout for the tributaries.

Prior to leaving the streams if they are going to, the browns go back to feeding and again, eggs, nymphs and streamers are all effective.

This type of fishing is not for everyone, though. It can be great fly fishing, but the weather in November and December can be really foul on the tributaries. It is important to have the right gear, including a waterproof wading jacket or parka and some fingerless gloves in order to be comfortable and stick it out on a nasty, windy day.

The biggest problem that I have with fishing the tributary streams is that it is a long drive to get there. It takes me over two hours to get to the Salmon River and anything to the west is much longer. I got out there last fall in late November and while the weather conditions were tolerable, the stream I went to fish was low. I found plenty of browns, but I couldn’t get them to take a fly in the low water. I would guess they had a bunch of fishing pressure and were shut down.

You can go on the very worst weather days and won’t be alone on any of the streams. I try and use the USGS gauge stations to get a handle on the water levels, and hit a couple of fly shop websites for fishing conditions. Even with all of this data, I still have taken long rides for nothing. I have also had good days.

So if you don’t want to spend football season inside and love to fly fish, this might be a good option for you!

Thoughts for November

Your cart is empty

Your cart is empty