Big (short) camping weekend coming up at the family's preferred camping area in Speculator, NY in the  heart of ADK.  Usual show is skiing/wakeboarding, spin fishing, drinking, smores, fires, etc.  This year I have some confidence in my casting and my fly tying ability so I'll do some exploring and hopefully hook into some of the famed NY state fish in the area.


It's been hot in my part of the woods lately and a quick glance at Speculator's weather revealed the same.  I'm aware the source for many of the creeks in the area is snow melt, so hot weather means lower flows and higher water temps.  This is more a reminder for myself, but I should bring a thermometer to measure stream temps and couple that with maybe catching a morning hatch rather than an evening spinner fall.  I'm usually diligent about allowing a fish to recover before letting it go, so this is also a reminder to maybe lengthen that amount of time.


Due to the heat, timing wise it looks like it'll be the meat of the Sulphur, BWO, Caddis, and Stonefly season, the beginning of the Golden Drake, and the end of the March Brown, Blue Dun, Grey Fox, Green Drake, and Drake Fly.  I'm sure I'll get some laughs from the family (they think fly fishing is an old man's game) but I'm bringing a limited supply of fly tying stuff so I'll have some leeway to vary patterns to the area if needed.


That's it for now, hopefully I'll report back Sunday with some obligatory fishy photos.

Conditions: Sunny 74-81F
Location: Oatka Creek, 2.67'
Predominant Bug(s): Nymphs, ants


Got to go out for a couple of hours today...and initially saw nothing rising, no dimples, nada!  Which made for an immediate uh oh as I haven't got nymphing down well yet!  Toward the end I threw on a couple small midge patterns to hopefully imitate the ants I think a couple small fish were rising to, but to no avail.


So zilch in the end, but hey, it was a beautiful day to be out and enjoying it.