By Jerrod Vila
The West Canada Creek experienced a massive dose of precipitation the past month which ended up causing equally as massive problems downstream in Herkimer and surrounding villages. A creek which is usually running in the vicinity of 600 CFS (cubic feet per second) at one point was running close to 20,000 CFS!! This is more than 30 times the amount of water usually contained within its banks! Not sure how this will affect the aquatic insect life but regardless, it must have some effect.
Although August on the West Canada Creek isn’t well known for giant hatches of anything really, you still may run into some sporadic BWO hatches and slate drakes (Isonychias), along with the ever present caddis factor. Nymphing the riffles and highly oxygenated pocket water may be your best bet to put fish in the net. However, persistent dry fly anglers will still have success, especially in the early mornings and late evenings into dark. Generic patterns like the Haystack, the Usual, parachute Adams, and caddis patterns will all take fish.
