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| I couldn’t wait too long to get back out to Oak Orchard Creek, so I set out early Tuesday morning the 1st for the 7 ½ hour drive. I arrived just before noon at the creek, quickly got my stuff together and headed for an upstream location that I fished last time here. I was surprised by the smallish crowd (by Oak Orchard standards) and found my favorite location vacant. My expectation was to find far fewer King Salmon and hopefully more large browns seeking the spawning gravel. I set up my 9 wt. Loomis GL4 with a Lamson LP3 reel spooled with a Teeny WF-9-Floating line tipped with 3X mono and a small #3/0 split shot. Since the creek was chock full of salmon eggs, I decided to fish with my favorite “spawn fly pattern” in hot pink. Three casts later, bam, a large fresh King slammed the fly and quickly ran me into my backing. The large salmon rolled several times as he raced upstream through the shallows before stopping. I was able to get the salmon to come back downstream and after 10 minutes or so, got him to the sand, removed the fly and released him. That turned out to be a nice beginning to an action packed afternoon of fishing on the Oak. Too bad Al wasn’t here (lol)! The afternoon weather went down hill, with showers and clouds, good for fishing, though. The action was sporadic, with a push of fish coming up through the pool about every hour or so. The fish were a mix of salmon, browns and (mostly) steelhead. I managed several good hook ups the remainder of the afternoon, landing and releasing one 5 lb brown, a couple of 7-9 lb steelies and one more 20 lb king not to mention several other “long distance releases”. So with the day ending and tired from the long drive I called it a day (a real good day!). Wednesday morning broke clear and cool. My expectations for this day on the Oak were high because with fewer Kings in the creek, I expected to see more Browns migrating into the creek for the fall spawn. As I reached the “farmers” parking lot off Park St., I was happy to see fewer vehicles than I had expected for this time of season. The sun had just risen as I finished my last gulp of coffee when more cars started into the parking lot. Time to go! My plan was to return to the same area that I had fished Tuesday afternoon. As I made way up through the creek gravel bar, I noticed that the creek water level had come up about a half a foot and that the water clarity had noticeably decreased. My guess was that the Waterport Dam was releasing Erie Canal water, typical for early November. The increased water flow should bring more fish in from Lake Ontario. I got up to the top of the Archer Club pool, just below the skinny water at the creek split. The water was certainly running harder than it was on Tuesday and would require a bit more lead to get the fly down in the strike zone. So I attached one additional #3/0 split shot, tied on a chartreuse spawn fly and made my first cast of many for that day. With the harder running water, I positioned myself closer to the creek bank in shallower water and quartered my cast a bit further upstream than normal. No doubt the fish would be in closer to the edges and out of the stronger current. Sure enough, that was the case. I hooked up on my third cast with a very nice 4 lb female brown trout. I got out my camera to get a photo, but as luck would have it, I had left the camera power button in the “on” position and the battery had drained. None of the other anglers nearby had a digital camera, so no picture! The fishing action for the most part was slow, as it had been the day before, with sporadic activity throughout the day. I hooked a few quality browns, a few steelhead and an occasional spent king. The “spent” kings most likely were falling back downstream because of the stronger water flow. The fishing crowd was noticeably larger by mid morning, with quite a few more anglers arriving for a long weekend. The good thing about the Oak crowd is that most of the guy’s (and a few gal’s) were easy going about sharing space along the creek’s limited fishable water. With this many anglers tossing flies, you quickly get a sense of how many fish were moving through the water course. Throughout the remainder of the day, I saw as many steelhead as I did browns (though the number of browns was way down by Oak standards) and quite a few beautifully “colored up” domestic rainbows. The trout ran in size from about 18” up to 3 lbs. The majority of browns landed were large females, up to 12 lbs! Most anglers I spoke with were fishing egg imitation flies and dark stonefly presentations. All anglers I spoke to agreed that the number of brown trout were down from their expectations when compared to previous seasons (this may in fact be because of the late salmon run). But even with fewer fish than expected, the average number of hook ups for most experienced anglers exceeded a dozen or so for a day on the creek. As late afternoon arrived, the water flow had reduced and water clarity improved and this inspired a bit more optimism that Thursday morning would bring more fish up. The weather forecast for Thursday called for sun and clouds and a high wind advisory for SW winds approaching 50mph! As expected from the large number of anglers that arrived Wednesday, the parking area was filling fast when I arrived at 6am. I planned to fish the same area as I had fished the day before except to cast from the opposite side. This would have any wind effect mostly at my back. I arrived at top end of the pool with only one other angler present; however, the opposite bank was already cramped with several anglers (smart move on my part!). The forecast was right, wind was blowing steady at better than 25, with the higher gusts. The saving grace was the fact that the Oak is oriented N-S and set down in a ravine of sorts, so most of the wind velocity was high up over head. The wind however, did put in motion lots of falling leaves that reached the water’s surface making for difficult fishing. Only one out of every 5 or 6 casts resulted in a leaf free drift. The trick for this situation is shortening up your cast to reduce the amount of line on the water and to reduce the downstream drift distance. The water flow was down to a “normal med-high flow” and water clarity was acceptable. I chose to stick with a variety of egg imitation patterns, starting with a chartreuse spawn fly. On my very first cast I hooked a large steelhead. The fish jumped several times just a few feet away and quickly broke me off. I hoped that was not going to be the pattern of the day for me. In fact I hooked several more steelhead in the following 30 minutes that somehow found a way of getting loose. Most all the anglers in the pool were hooking up steelhead. The steelhead must have come up during the dark hours and were apparently stacked up in the deeper pool trough. The hot steelhead action stopped as quickly as it had started. Several very nice 8-12 lb fish were landed. The lull in action went on for an hour or so before the “fish on” chant resumed. This time it was large female browns on the menu! Several excellent fish were landed. I continued to hook and lose several fish! Wow! But my luck was about to change for the better. My next fish was a fantastic, super jumping Atlantic salmon that had gobbled up my hot pink spawn fly. The salmon was not particularly large, but put on quite a show. I knew right off what the fish was by its bright silver color and pronounced side markings. The Oak has been known for Atlantics, though not a large run of fish. I landed the salmon and a fellow angler offered to snap a digital photo for me before releasing it. Thanks John! Shortly thereafter, I hooked a real nice steelhead, landed it, and got another angler to snap a photo before releasing it. Thanks Pat! As noon time approached, I decided to call it a trip. I had enjoyed 2 exceptional days of fishing on the Oak. There are only a few places on the planet where you can catch an Atlantic salmon, a steelhead, a large brown and a King salmon (in the same pool) within days of each other. What a FISHERY! We’ll be heading out to western NY again in a week or so!
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