New York
New York carries both the region's biggest October story and its sharpest mid-month switch. Inland trout harvest ends on the 15th and a catch-and-release season opens on the 16th, so the state goes from harvest to artificials-only overnight rather than closing for the winter.
Trout stocking
New York publishes no autumn stocking schedule, and that is worth knowing before you go looking for one. The forward list covers the spring season only, goes up around the middle of March and runs from the first of April. What exists for the rest of the year is a record rather than a plan: the state says its own actual stocking data is not compiled until the calendar year ends, so the newest complete year is the one before this one. The searchable dataset is still the thing to open, because it carries a month column, so you can see which waters have taken October fish in past years even though nobody will tell you about this October.
NYSDEC fish stocking records, searchable by county, water, species and monthWhat the rules say
- Inland trout harvest season closes 15 October.
- Catch-and-release trout season opens 16 October and runs to 31 March. Artificial lures only.
- Tautog, Long Island Sound region: 11 October to 9 December, three fish, 16 inch minimum.
- Tautog, New York Bight region: 15 October to 22 December, four fish, 16 inch minimum.
- The Salmon River lower fly-fishing section is closed by DEC. The closure is condition-bound and carries no end date.
Read from New York DEC's own season pages and its press release on the Salmon River closure.
What to expect from the fish
Two autumns in one state and they share almost nothing. The Lake Ontario tributaries hand over from one fish to another partway through, so the river a visitor arrives at depends on the week they booked, while Long Island reaches the peak of its run.
- Chinook Salmon
Runs the Lake Ontario tributaries first, and is the fish the early half of the quarter is known for.
Where they are. Up the tributaries as far as flow allows, which in a dry autumn is not far.
- Steelhead
Moves in behind the chinook, which is the handover that makes the booking week matter.
Where they are. The same rivers, lower down at first.
- Brown Trout
Spawning inland, which is why the inland harvest season closes when it does.
Where they are. On gravel at the heads of pools.
- Striped Bass
Long Island is at the peak of its autumn run, and it is a moving fishery rather than a place.
Where they are. Wherever the bait is, which is a line travelling along a beach and not a point on a map. A south shore morning goes on reading birds and surface rather than returning to what produced last week.
Long Island and New York City
Montauk · South Shore · North Shore · East End · the West End · NYC
Salt water on three sides of a long island, fished hard from the beach and from small boats. The autumn run down the south shore is the single biggest fishery in the region by audience, and it is covered entirely by private publishers because DEC gives this part of the state a telephone number and no report.
Bass are blitzing on everything from bunker to small bait, with night surfcasters landing fish to 40 to 45 inches.
Engine outlook
- MontaukStriped BassBest: Sat, Oct 10, A11 good hours65F measured on this waterbest run 6hOur read
The best stretch of that day runs 6am to noon, in local time at the water.
The engine has striped bass here feeding hard ahead of winter.
Across the 14 days it could grade, the water is projected to fall 2 degrees. That is a forecast, not a pair of readings.
Depth to try, in low light: surface blitzes near bait.
The bait is at its active temperature. Live-line bunker; bucktails with pork rind on outgoing.
the Catskills and the upper Delaware
Esopus Creek · Upper Esopus · Ashokan Reservoir · Phoenicia · Willowemoc · Beaverkill
The birthplace of American dry fly fishing, and still wild trout water. The upper Esopus runs twenty-six miles above the Ashokan and has not been stocked since the 2021 regulations, so the fish in it were born there. Cold releases on the Delaware branches keep that river fishable when everything around it is too warm.
Engine outlook
- Delaware River (upper)Brown TroutBest: Thu, Oct 22, A+5 good hours57F measured on this waterbest run 5h1170 cfsat DELAWARE RIVER AT CALLICOON NY1 mi awayOur read
The best stretch of that day runs 4pm to 9pm, in local time at the water.
The engine has brown trout here staging to spawn.
Across the 14 days it could grade, the water is projected to fall 2 degrees. That is a forecast, not a pair of readings.
Depth to try, in high pressure: deep structure and undercuts.
The bait is at its active temperature. Streamer flies after dark; large nymphs and crayfish patterns during day.
- Esopus CreekBrown TroutBest: Thu, Oct 22, A+8 good hours59F measured on this waterbest run 6h341 cfsat ESOPUS CREEK AT COLDBROOK NYon this waterOur read
The best stretch of that day runs 4pm to 10pm, in local time at the water.
The engine has brown trout here staging to spawn.
Across the 14 days it could grade, the water is projected to fall 3 degrees. That is a forecast, not a pair of readings.
Depth to try, in high pressure: deep structure and undercuts.
The bait is at its active temperature.
Central New York and the Salmon River
Salmon River · the DSR · Pineville gauge · Oswego River · eastern Lake Ontario · Lake Ontario
A short river carrying one of the heaviest salmon and steelhead runs in the lower forty-eight, and the most searched water in the Northeast in autumn. Fish move on water, so a release from the reservoir or a day of rain changes everything about it. The best-instrumented report anywhere in the region covers a private stretch of it, twice a day, because selling access is what pays for the reporting.
The dry summer that closed the lower fly water is also governing the flow, which on this river matters more than it does anywhere else in the region. Under the federal licence the autumn baseflow steps up from 185 to 335 cubic feet a second on the first of September, but only when the reservoir sits above a critical level, and this year it did not. So the Salmon River Flow Management Team, the resource agencies and the Brookfield hydro operator sitting together, cancelled the scheduled whitewater releases and left the river at its summer baseflow, and it is the second autumn running that low water has done this here. Brookfield publishes its own schedule about a week ahead, and on a river where the fish move when the water does, what the operator intends to release is worth more than a forecast.
216 CFS at the Pineville gauge, and water temperature 53 degrees Fahrenheit, both read at 5:15pm.
Water temp 56F.
Engine outlook
- Lake OntarioSteelheadBest: Thu, Oct 22, A10 good hours62F measured on this waterbest run 10h1090 cfsat OSWEGO RIVER AT LOCK 7, OSWEGO NY4 mi awayon a different water, so read it as the catchment rather than this oneOur read
The best stretch of that day runs 7am to 5pm, in local time at the water.
The engine has steelhead here feeding hard ahead of winter.
Across the 14 days it could grade, the water is projected to fall 2 degrees. That is a forecast, not a pair of readings.
Depth to try, in low light: the weakest part of the day in winter; fish the softest water and wait for warmth.
The bait is above it. Beads and egg patterns behind spawning salmon; swung flies and nymphs elsewhere. These fish strike from aggression, not hunger.
the Finger Lakes and Oneida
Seneca Lake · Cayuga Lake · Oneida Lake · Otisco Lake
Long narrow lakes gouged far deeper than the land around them, sat beside one broad shallow basin. Cayuga and Seneca are deep enough never to freeze and hold lake trout down where the light stops; Oneida is wide, bright and famous for walleye, and the two kinds of water run on different clocks all year.
Both of our anchor waters here are held back this month because the nearest thermometer sits on Lake Ontario, nearly sixty miles away and a different kind of water entirely. Seneca is a deep trench and Oneida averages about twenty feet, so a single reading cannot describe both and we would rather publish nothing than describe one with the other.
Western New York and the Niagara
Lake Erie · Niagara River · Lower Niagara River · Upper Niagara River · Devil's Hole · Chautauqua Lake
Two Great Lakes joined by a short violent river, plus a row of tributaries that fill with fish when it rains. The lower Niagara runs hard and deep enough to fish all winter, which is unusual this far north, and the creeks either side of Olcott are the classic autumn run.
A fall turnover event, with scattered walleye and smallmouth bass showing in numbers. King salmon moving up the lower river in earnest, with good catches in Devils Hole.
the Adirondacks
West Branch Ausable River · Saranac · St. Regis · Bouquet · Chateaugay
High, cold, rocky rivers inside a six-million-acre park, fished for wild and holdover trout. The West Branch Ausable is the one with a reputation and the one with a reporter, which in this region is rarer than the reputation.
Flow 184 cfs, clarity clear, temperature 48 F in the morning.
Who reports on this water
DEC publishes a live weekly report for Central and Western New York, which makes those two regions the best covered water in the Northeast. It publishes no dated report for Regions 1, 2, 3 and 6, which is Long Island, New York City and the Hudson: those offices give a telephone number instead. So the state with the strongest agency coverage in the region also has its largest uncovered audience, and everything you read about Long Island here came from private publishers.
We read: NY DEC Central New York Fishing Hotline, NY DEC Lake Erie and Western New York Fishing Hotline