Memorial Day Getaway

 Friday I took a little road trip up to Rochester to do some fishing. I went to Irondequoit Creek which is a tributary of Lake Ontario. It’s one of the best wild brown trout, steelhead trout, salmon waterways in New York. There are a series of five city parks along the creek to provide public access. 

Saw this exotic house as I accidentally trespassed on private property. (Learn to read a map upside down). Met the owner and he was super friendly and not pissed I was wandering through his yard. 

Kinda hard to tell, but one park had a long bridge through a valley for a very scenic walk. 

I walked 8 miles during the day. Just below the small waterfall pictured above, I hooked and lost one large trout. That was just about my only action of the day. But it was one hell of an experience. There was a school of trophy sized trout, smallest was 18 inches and largest was a minimum of 25 inches. These were creek monsters. On my second cast I got one to bite, but it swam into the strong current and shook the hook. With polarized sunglasses I could see them swimming and eating bugs that were swirling around on the side of the waterfall. I would walk away, tie on a different lure and sneak back for over an hour but they wouldn’t bite again. I felt honored to just see such big fish in a creek. 

For dinner I went to Rising Storm Brewery, a brewery built in an old Daisy Flower Mill, right on the creeks edge.

 

The Biergarten had creek access from the patio 

I grabbed my gear from the truck and sipped craft beer while I fished. Pretty cool experience.  

It would have been nice to catch something, but the trip was just about pushing out of my comfort zone for a quick getaway. My goal for this fishing season isn’t a specific number of catches, it’s about new experiences and broadening my horizons. 

Any plans for the Memorial Day weekend? Are you gearing up for summer yet?