American fly fishing grew up in New York. The Beaverkill, the Willowemoc, and the Neversink are where the dry fly found its American footing more than a century ago, and the Delaware system's East and West branches now anchor the region with cold tailwater releases and wild trout. Add the Ausable River in the Adirondacks, and New York offers more historic, varied trout water than any state in the East.
The Beaverkill's covered-bridge pools and long flat runs hold wild browns that rise to Hendricksons in April, March browns and sulphurs in May, and green drakes in early June.
The Catskills remain the pilgrimage. The Beaverkill's covered-bridge pools and long flat runs hold wild browns that rise to Hendricksons in April, March browns and sulphurs in May, and green drakes in early June. The West Branch of the Delaware runs cold all summer on releases from Cannonsville Reservoir, and its wild rainbows and browns are as selective as any tailwater trout in the country. Anglers have worked these rivers for a hundred years, and the fish act like it.
The Adirondacks are a different mood. The Ausable's West Branch tumbles through Wilmington Notch in a series of pockets and plunges that take a well-drifted dry fly all season, with the Flume Falls section as dramatic as trout water gets in the East. The Salmon River at Pulaski is the outlier fishery: king salmon in September and October, then steelhead through the winter and into April, with more raw fish numbers than anywhere else in the region. Small Adirondack ponds hold brook trout for anglers willing to walk.
Prime Catskill time is April through June, with fall streamer fishing from late September into November. The Ausable fishes from spring through fall. Salmon River steelhead run from October through April. Watch Delaware releases: the West Branch can jump several hundred cubic feet per second on a hot day.