Winter Trout Fishing on Butternut Creek, January 19, 2017

There are portions of Butternut Creek, Limestone Creek, and Chittenango Creek that are open year round for trout fishing (on Chittenango Creek be aware of the catch and release only zone). To me, real trout fishing comes in the Fall/Winter. It can be frustrating but the fish there have survived being dumped from the hatchery in the Spring and all the fishers that tried to take them from that time. They are smart. During off season, I usually start right at the Southern most point of Butternut that you can fish, where Route 20 and Apulia Road meet. Today was the first time I saw another fisherman in the winter and he was just as surprised to see me. He was fly fishing.

In the Winter, trout don't expend a lot of energy, so they hold in deeper, slower moving waters near breaks where food (if they are interested in it all) nicely flows down in front of them. Below is a good picture of a break where trout can hold as the water flows around the bend near them.

Whatever you are presenting to them, has to look either really appealing or really irritating and right in front of their face. I used a red, fly fishing worm that I sunk with a split shot to float by them and be low enough to where they don't have to make much effort to go to the surface for it. I use an ultralight spinning combo with 4 lb line.

Given that it was Winter, there was more of an opportunity to reach the spots you can't reach when foliage is in full bloom. Winter stream fishing has a beautiful peacefulness to it. I didn't get any hits at this location but saw an interesting little stream that was an offshoot from a beaver dam.

Next we tried the Weller Road location. Again, there were two fishers coming in and out of there. Two more than I would have expected this time of year. We got hits at this location and they were pretty substantial but the fish were leery. I used a Prichard Baits pink worm with a split shot. After a few hits, the fish lost interest.  One very cool find though was a ravaged deer carcass that we collected fur from to make flies for fly fishing.