Adventures in the ADKS: Part II

PART II.

Josh and I walked down the side walk on Main Street Saranac Lake to Blue Line Sports (see my tackle shop review post), to buy fishing licenses.  We met one of the owners who was very nice and knowledgeable on fishing in the area.  After a short stop, Josh and I were on our way to an Adirondack adventure.

First Set of Rapids

The beginning of the Saranac River was literally in back of my apartment.  The dam at the end of Lake Flower marks the beginning of the Saranac River which flows East through the state of New York into Lake Champlain.  Atop the U-haul trailer sat my canoe, which together looked somewhat like an ancient Greek soldier’s helmet.  We unstrapped the canoe and brought it to the ground, filled it with two life vests, some bottled water, our fishing gear, and a pair of paddles.  I kept a quiet laugh to myself as my brother had to carry yet another thing for about 300 feet, but luckily there was only a canoe and kayak ramp and no stairs.  My landlord had told me that there was very good fishing in this section of the river, adding that walleye, pike and trout all breed in this faster moving area because of its deeper holes and rich oxygen content due to the dam.  He also said there were three small areas of rapids, but that you could paddle back through them without too much trouble.  Josh and I pushed off for the first Adirondack adventure, even if it was in downtown Saranac Lake.  We quickly found some smallmouth bass casting mister-twister style grub tail jigs into the deep pools surrounded by buildings that seemed more like walls around us. 

The first set of rapids was very short but had a sudden drop in elevation and was situated under a bridge which would prove difficult to come back through.  On the opposite side of the bridge, we again found some more smallmouth bass, and began to see open space again as the buildings thinned out.  It was a beautiful day with blue skies, and the cool breeze off the water felt nice on our sweaty backs.  We picked fish off of lay-downs of old trees, and to our surprise shopping carts.  I think we counted seven in total, all Grand Union carts.  The people who put them in the river must have missed the “Will it float” segment on David Letterman, or maybe the town hosted an annual cart-toss during their Winter Carnival.

Railroad Bridge over the Saranac

As we started heading out of town, we were approaching a bend with a tall railroad bridge ahead of us and could see a set of boulders in the river.  We made a number of casts with no luck, so we pressed forward, as we closed in on the largest boulder we saw an enormous brown trout which startled at the sight of our boat.  Josh and I looked at each other in excitement and knew if we saw a fish like that on the first day here, that there was much exploring to be done.  Under the railroad bridge is a longer rapid flow, which was fun to go through with the occasional bumps from rocks threatening to tip us if we weren’t careful.  This rapid was quickly followed by another shorter but faster set under the pine street bridge.  Immediately following the bridge is a large pool, with a large boulder peeking out in calm water.  We caught some more bass here, and missed a pike that was hiding in some brush along the bank.  The sun set was telling us to head back as it was dimming the light, but our curiosity of the next bend wanted us to push further down stream.  Josh and I proposed that if we catch something big, we’d keep fishing, but if not we could always come back again. 

Fly casting the bank

After the pool was a small, sandy, grass-covered island where we beached the boat and stepped into the water.  I grabbed my fly-rod and waded down to the tip of the island, making casts to potentially any kind of fish.  I made a forward cast that dropped along the grass-line on the slow edge of the river.  I watched the current move the fly along the bank until it stirred up a small pike that jumped clear of the water.  I set the hook only to make my line ball up in the tall grass of the island.  After untangling my line from the leaves of grass, I could barely see anymore, and we decided to make the paddle back with what light we had left…