Oak Orchard Dreams

I first heard of Oak Orchard Creek in the late 80's.  A friend had fished it and came back with unbelievable stories.  The pictures, however, made me a believer, and that's when I started dreaming about my dream trip to the Oak while living in Croton-on-Hudson, NY.  My trip was going to be picture perfect – because that’s all I saw – pictures.

It was just a short seven hour drive, but before I could head north for a weekend on a classic stream with monster browns and steelhead navigating upstream between kings and Cohos and maybe even an Atlantic, I moved to Portland, Oregon.  The Oak was put on the back burner for about 26 years while I caught my first steelhead and salmon on a fly – with a rod I built – a 39” King on my 4 weight using a 10 lb. tippet with a #8 natural, Teeny nymph tied by yours truly, but that’s another story.

After fishing in Oregon and Washington and one trip to Alaska, 

Steelhead - Cowlitz River, WA 

Halibut - Ketchikan, AK

A new job forced me to move my family to the San Francisco Bay area, and then another job took us to Buffalo, NY.  I knew that Western New York had a wealth of fishing opportunities, and when I read an article in New York Sportsman magazine that referred to Oak Orchard as the next “famous trout stream” - the dream was alive again - and only a short drive away! How lucky could I be!  Not very.  

Job, family, responsibilities and really good local fishing kept me from thinking about Oak Orchard, until I was organizing my basement recently and came across the article from 1998 – I’m a bit of a pack rat – my wife calls me a hoarder – I prefer to think of it as preserving history.

                        "Fish of the Orchard" -  New York Sportsman, August 1998

The important thing is that I rekindled my Oak Orchard dream.  I only live about 1-1/2 hours away, but have yet to hit the Oak.  However, a friend has been fishing it for years and is headed there this weekend (3/9/13).  I’m looking forward to her report, especially on several flies I tied and gave to her to field test. 

Dave's Fly Bench flies - wooly bugger, spoon fly, DFB laser eggs and minnows, leeches

And while she fishes the Oak, I’ll be prepping for my dream trip.