Don Lehman

During most summers, trout stream anglers around New York worry about high stream temperatures and low water levels and the impact they can have on cold-water-loving trout.
That hasn’t been the case during the wet and weird summer of 2023, with near record precipitation in parts of the state providing plenty of cold water for fish, but also re-arranging streams during flooding in early July. And record high water levels actually kept anglers off some Adirondack streams that stayed too high to fish, an unusual problem for the depths of summer.

Joe Greco, owner of Justy Joe Charters on Lake George, has been taking hundreds of anglers onto the lake annually for more than three decades, targeting George’s lake trout, landlocked Atlantic salmon, and bass. Clients catch big lakers and bass all day long. Salmon, though, are another story.
Greco, many anglers, and the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation have been trying to figure out why the salmon fishing has been up-and-down for decades.

Several New York watersheds are more hospitable to trout thanks to a number of fisheries restoration projects that came to fruition in recent months, spearheaded by Trout Unlimited and dozens of volunteers.
Among the watersheds that received recent improvements were the Delaware River watershed and the Batten Kill, the latter the focus of a multi-year Trout Unlimited Home Rivers Initiative.