Numerous times, my friend Dave boasted that if ever he saw a trout rise, he could catch it with his Black Gnat fishing fly. It’s not that I didn’t believe him, I just wanted to see him do it.
One day, I had the chance.
We were fishing a small pond near Stony Creek in Warren County, when we saw the small dimple of a trout rise, just beyond casting distance. With a couple strokes of the oars, I brought us within range and Dave dropped his Black Gnat right on that spot. Sure enough, a trout grabbed it and the fight was on. Dave clearly knew what he was doing with a fly rod and after many good runs, he guided the fish into my net—a gorgeous 18-inch Adirondack brook trout (Salvelinus fontinalis). It was an impressive catch, especially since the pond we were on is one of about 350 Adirondack trout waterbodies deemed fishless for approximately 35 years due to acid precipitation. Once teeming with life, Dave watched as brook trout, rainbows, mayflies, and pond lilies disappeared from his favorite fishing hole. When the pond went dead, he didn’t fish trout for decades—until the day he went out with me and caught a beautiful one.
ADIRONDACK TROUT’S FALL AND RISE At one time, the remote Brooktrout Lake was a premier location to catch trout in the North Country. My father fished the lake many times, sometimes hauling a 15-incher aboard an old log raft and other times netting one from the rocks along the shore. I tried fishing the lake several times, but by then, it was negatively affected from the acidity. In the 1980s, biologists at DEC declared the lake to have no fish. Around the same time, scientists found that spruce trees in the higher elevations were dying. They concluded that this, along with the trout decline, was caused by toxic emissions from coal-burning power plants in the Ohio Valley and Midwest. The pollutants were being picked up by the prevailing westerly winds and deposited in the Adirondacks in the form of rain, snow, and fog. Guided by this information, and in collaboration with environmentalists and scientists, politicians passed the federal 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments that made drastic reductions to those emissions. The legislation put Adirondack trout waters on the long road to recovery. A turning point for Brooktrout Lake came 15 years later in 2005, when the acidity there decreased significantly enough that DEC was able to stock its waters with 2,000 brook trout. A few years later, biologists found that those trout were reproducing, just as they had 100 years earlier.
Another notable recovery was reported in the article, “Brook Trout Return to Lake Colden” (April 2020 issue of Conservationist). In 2019, a High Peaks angler reported to the local DEC office that he caught several trout in the once dead Lake Colden. While electrofishing Cold Brook, a tributary to the lake, DEC biologists confirmed that the trout had somehow survived the acidity in the brook. A subsequent netting survey discovered several generations of brook trout in the lake, and a DNA study found them to be the Temiscamie-hybrid commonly stocked in the mountains. Canadian Temiscamie trout are known to be somewhat resistant to acidity, which might explain how they survived and began thriving again on their own. Photo of Lake Colden by NYSDEC
Adirondack trout waters have made a remarkable comeback after years of acidity, leaving grateful anglers like Dave and me with our pick of spots for a fine day of fishing.
WHERE TO GO There are hundreds of trout ponds in the 2.7 million-acre Adirondack Park, which also includes more than one million acres of designated wilderness areas. You can find good fishing near the road or hike miles into wilderness areas to cast your flies and lures. To the South In the Silver Lake Wilderness Area, there are Silver Lake and Canary Pond, both a good hike to reach. In the Siamese Ponds Wilderness Area, there is Upper Siamese with rainbows, and Lower Siamese with brook trout and lakers, both a trek of about 7 miles. In my old hunting territory northwest of Piseco, the recently recovered T Lake now supports not just a stocked population of trout, but wild self-sustaining trout. This lake requires a hike of about 3 miles to reach. Several miles upstream from the Cedar River Flow are Cedar Lakes with plenty of brook trout. To the North A popular location in the northern Adirondacks is the 18,400-acre Saint Regis Canoe Area with its 20 lakes and ponds, containing brook trout, splake, and lakers. There is no fishing in Little Clear and Little Green ponds, since both are broodstock waters used for hatchery rearing. Many backwoods lakes and ponds are stocked by DEC using a helicopter or fixed-wing aircraft. One fall, during the last weekend of the season, I was fishing a small pond in the Wilcox Lake country when I heard a chopper behind a mountain off to the west. A couple minutes later, it appeared over a ridge and settled about 10 feet above the water in front of my boat. The pilot waved to me as the crew dumped a bucket of trout out the bottom of the helicopter. The entire process took about two minutes before they were on their way to the next pond on the list. No doubt I caught a few of those trout during the years that followed.
AUTHOR’S TIPS FOR SUCCESS The most common method of trout fishing in the Adirondacks is trolling a Lake Clear Wabbler lure, followed by a worm a couple of feet back. I occasionally use this method, but I also troll a Lake Clear followed by a couple flies, like the Black Gnat or Hares Ear Nymph, with a Muddler Minnow in back. I like the Black Gnat early in the spring because once, right after ice-out, I caught several good trout that were stuffed with small black insects. Later, as the season progresses, I like to use the browns and grays. Several times, I’ve caught two trout at the same time using this system, including once when both fish were 14-inchers. Lures like the Phoebe and Mepps work on trout, but I prefer the quarter-ounce red and white Dardevle. It casts like a bullet and I can get it out there 180 feet, so it covers a lot of water, especially when fishing from shore.
One spring, I was fishing off a rock ledge in the Wilcox Lake country and had made about a dozen casts with the Dardevle, when suddenly, it stopped dead in the water. I thought I might have hooked bottom, but when it ripped line off my reel, I knew it wasn’t the bottom. After a spirited battle, I guided a 21-inch brook trout into the net—my best in many years of fishing.
Donald Wharton has enjoyed the Adirondacks for trout fishing, hunting, photography, and writing for many years.
A NEW PATH FORWARD
DEC recently released the revised and updated Adirondack Brook Trout Pond Management Plan. Guided by the latest science, the plan identifies the current risks, challenges, and opportunities that will guide New York State’s management actions at Adirondack brook trout ponds for the next 15 years. In the United States, pond dwelling populations of brook trout (Salvelinus fontinalis) are extremely rare outside of Maine and New York State. Up to 90% of brook trout pond habitat has been lost due to poor silvicultural practices, acid precipitation, and incompatible and detrimental fish species introductions. It has been 46 years since the original DEC plan was created and many factors contributing to the health of the fishery have changed during that time. Incorporating information of what fisheries managers have learned in the past four decades, the new plan serves as a roadmap to improve the status of these unique fisheries and address emerging challenges to pond-dwelling Adirondack brook trout. A final copy of the plan and more information about Adirondack brook trout pond management can be found on the DEC website