Ended the
NY open trout season the same way I started it (with a few exceptions, the major one being we caught fish); backpacking into a brookie pond for the weekend.
Perfect weekend for it, the weather was amazing (never dropped below freezing where we were), leaves were pretty much at max color, and dropping on the water and trails. And the fish were everywhere and a few even cooperated with us. The one drawback to the weekend being, as it was Columbus Day weekend, all the other yahoos were out as well. The leantos were taken, which wasn't a big deal, but the group across the pond was unbelievably loud and obnoxious throughout all the PM and some of the AM hours. Still, small price to pay for the weekend.
Between the two of us fishing, we took 15-20 brookies in a day and a half of fishing; we definately didn't clean house, but it was nice just to have some success for once (haven't been to lucky on the ponds). they took a mix of nymphs and emergers. The only hatches we could see were midges but they seemed to snub those and I couldn't get a bite on any streamers.
The guy below was average size for the weekend. I did catch one bigger female that the girl snapped a pic of; hopefully I'll be able to put that one up later. The colors were amazing. We did keep 4 of the average size to grill up with some butter and lemon-pepper seasoning. Man were they delicious, and it helped ease the guilt when the ranger showed up in the morning and confirmed that there wasn't much natural reproduction in this pond.