Inland stream or Great Lakes tributary? Big or bigger trout & salmon? Fall & winter or spring & summer? A few months or twelve months? Orleans County or Wyoming County? You don’t have to decide – a savvy angler can enjoy it all!
There are dedicated Great Lakes trib fly anglers on the Oak Orchard River in all kinds of weather fall, winter and some of the spring. There are match the hatch anglers on Wiscoy Creek spring, summer and some of the fall. Fly anglers by choice or chance often fall into one of the two camps as trib or inland anglers – and they put their rods away for half the year! Yet the outstanding fly fishing in Wyoming and Orleans Counties are in close proximity to each and can offer twelve months of outstanding angling opportunity.
You may need a couple rods. And what angler wouldn’t want an excuse for more gear!? For the smaller inland trout and lighter tippets something like a 3 – 5 weight rod is right. You’ll be concerned with matching the hatch on waters like Wiscoy Creek, East Coy Creek, Oatka Creek and others (Mike Valla’s Fly Fishing Guide to NYS is a good resource). Fine tippets or a close eye on surface activity for dry fly action will be the norm. In the picturesque rolling hills and farmland waterways of Wyoming County you’ll find stocked rainbows, naturalized browns and wild trout.
The other rod you’ll need for trib cold water action on big migratory browns and steelhead would be a 7 or 8 weight. That’s a great tool for dead drifting or swinging the runs and riffles of the Oak Orchard River or smaller Orleans County tribs like Johnson Creek or Sandy Creek. For the trib game you’ll need egg pattern attractor flies, flashback nymphs and egg sucking leeches to get you hooked up. In the fish rich trib waters of Orleans County the trout and salmon are big, some are just bigger then others! (Check out www.orleanscountyfishing.com for more info.)
If you want to experience year round trout and salmon fly fishing come explore Wyoming and Orleans Counties in western New York. Wyoming County streams during the warmer weather months are the place to be for some of the finest small stream fly fishing found in all of NY. Orleans County tribs in the cold weather months offer some of the best fly fishing in all of the Great Lakes. Tackle might be a little different, but the presentation of your flies is similar – and you’ll find the same but different rod bending excitement in these two Greater Niagara Region locales!
