Northeast
Fly fishing in New York
Short answer
New York fly fishing is Catskill and Adirondack river fishing with a long history, holding wild brown and rainbow trout, native brook trout, and Great Lakes steelhead in the tributaries. The Beaverkill, Willowemoc and Upper Delaware are the headline waters. A license is required from age 16, and most trout streams are catch and release outside the April to October season.
What makes New York different
The Catskills are the birthplace of American dry-fly fishing, and that is a matter of record rather than marketing. Theodore Gordon was tying and fishing upright-winged duns on the Neversink in the 1890s, the Catskill style of tying came out of these valleys, and the Junction Pool at Roscoe — where the Willowemoc meets the Beaverkill — is the most photographed confluence in American angling. Two hours west the Upper Delaware is a different proposition entirely: its flows are governed by releases from New York City's water-supply reservoirs under an interstate agreement, so the river runs cold through a Pennsylvania-latitude summer and holds wild, large and famously selective browns and rainbows. Nobody describes the Delaware as easy. Then, in the Adirondacks, the West Branch of the Ausable is pure pocket water — boulders, seams and short drifts, fished on foot.
What trout and other fish are in New York?
- Brown trout
- Wild and self-sustaining on the Delaware system and much of the Catskills.
- Rainbow trout
- Wild in the Upper Delaware, where they run large and spook easily.
- Brook trout
- The state fish and the only native trout. Adirondack streams and ponds.
- Steelhead
- Lake Ontario tributaries, chiefly the Salmon River, from autumn into spring.
- Landlocked Atlantic salmon
- A handful of Adirondack waters and some Lake Ontario tributaries.
Where to fly fish in New York
- Beaverkill River
- The most storied trout stream in the country, and still a genuinely good one.
- Willowemoc Creek
- Meets the Beaverkill at Junction Pool in Roscoe. Smaller, and often kinder.
- West Branch Delaware
- Cold reservoir releases, wild browns and rainbows, and fish that refuse for a living.
- Esopus Creek
- Catskill freestone fed by the Shandaken tunnel, which keeps it cool in summer.
- West Branch Ausable
- Adirondack pocket water — boulders, seams and short, accurate drifts.
- Salmon River
- Pulaski. Lake Ontario steelhead and salmon, and crowds to match in the best weeks.
When to fly fish in New York
| When | What is happening |
|---|---|
| January – March | Catch-and-release season on most trout streams. Midges, and steelhead on the Salmon River. |
| April | The harvest season opens 1 April. Hendricksons and blue quills as the water warms. |
| May – June | March browns, sulphurs, then the Delaware green drake and coffin fly. The best weeks of the year. |
| July – August | Tricos at dawn and terrestrials through the day. The tailwaters hold up when the freestone streams get warm. |
| September – December | Baetis and isonychia, then steelhead moving into the Lake Ontario tributaries. |
Do you need a license to fly fish in New York?
Yes. Licenses are issued by New York State Department of Environmental Conservation.
| License | Price |
|---|---|
| Resident, annual | $25 |
| Non-resident, annual | $50 |
Figures are DEC's published rates for an annual freshwater fishing licence, residents aged 16 to 69. Residents 70 and over pay $5. The licence runs 365 days from purchase. Prices change — check with the agency before you buy.
Rules worth knowing before you go
- A fishing license is required from age 16. A licence is valid for 365 days from the date you buy it, not to a fixed calendar date.
- Under the statewide trout stream regulations, most streams run an April to mid-October season for harvest, and are catch and release with artificial lures only for the rest of the year.
- Trout streams are assigned management categories — wild, wild-quality, stocked and stocked-extended — and the category sets the rules for that stretch.
- Saltwater fishing needs a free marine registration instead of a licence.
- Rules differ stream by stream and change. Check the stretch you intend to fish before you go.
Regulations change every year and vary water by water. The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation rule book is the only authority — this page is a starting point, not a legal reference.
Flies that matter in New York
Each of these is a card in the deck, and each has a full page in Our Fly-brary.
Keep reading
- Do I need a fishing license? — how licensing works across states
- How to read water — where trout hold, anywhere
- Best time of day to fly fish — the seasonal logic behind the table above
- Our Fly-brary — every fly in the deck, explained
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The deck
54 flies, drawn by hand, in your jacket pocket.
A 54-card fly-fishing deck of original hand-drawn flies, each explaining what it imitates. Made by a father-and-daughter team in Eagle, Idaho.
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