What AI can't give you
Time on the water. No AI can feel the push of current on your legs, read the light on a run, or know the minute a creek turns on. That's earned standing in the water, season after season. What this guide gives you is the data — live flows, real gauges, verified access, honest conditions — so your time out there counts. Nothing beats time on the water.
NEW YORK ON ONE PAGERead it in 60 seconds
This live card reads the Salmon River at Pineville only. It is not a statewide reading — every other water in this guide has its own gauge and its own bands (see All Gauges).
The run, in one window
First fish mid-September · the build mid-October · the peak late October–November · winter warmups · the spawn mid-March–late April · drop-backs into mid-May.
Two lakes, two rulebooks
The fish, by season
Steelhead (Washington strain, lake-run rainbow)
DEC-stocked winter-run fish. First fish enter in small numbers as early as mid-September; the run intensifies by mid-October as stream temperatures drop into the 45-58 F optimum, peaks late Oct-Nov, slows in deep winter, spawns mid-Mar through late Apr, and drop-backs can fish into mid-May.
Chinook and coho salmon
A Lake Ontario story first (Salmon River, Oak Orchard, Eighteen Mile): salmon school offshore in August and run September into November. The Salmon River alone is stocked annually with around 300,000 Chinook and 80,000 coho (DEC PFR map). Early steelhead key on their eggs.
Lake-run brown trout
Browns run mostly in October and November on the Ontario tributaries and mix into the Erie creeks; in the tributaries they share the combined trout/salmon limit (see Regulations for the two different lake rules).
Smallmouth bass and resident trout (upper reaches)
Summer is not steelhead season in the creeks. DEC notes harbor fishing (Dunkirk and Barcelona) is most productive in March and April, steelhead stage off the major mouths from mid-August, and upper Canadaway Creek holds an inland trout fishery above the falls.
THE KEYSTONED CALL — every morning
Today's flows, color and dawn verdict, posted before first light at keystonedsteel.pages.dev.
LIVE · LOADS FRESH ON EVERY VISITWeather & Radar
Live forecast for Cattaraugus Creek, NY — current sky, today, tomorrow and the 3-day outlook, plus the live radar loop centered on this water.
Forecast: Open-Meteo, live at page load · Radar: RainViewer / NOAA NEXRAD.
RULES & THE STOCKING STORYFish legal, fish welcome
- New York freshwater fishing license required for anglers 16 and older on all of these waters. On the Seneca Nation (Cattaraugus) Reservation reach of Cattaraugus Creek, a Seneca Nation license is required instead - DEC's PFR map notes a New York State license is not required on reservation lands.
- LAKE ERIE tributaries (Chautauqua, Canadaway, Cattaraugus, Erie Co. Eighteenmile): brown trout, rainbow trout/steelhead, coho and Chinook salmon - open all year, 12-inch minimum, daily limit 3 in any combination.
- LAKE ONTARIO tributaries (Niagara Co. Eighteen Mile, Oak Orchard, Salmon River): brown trout, rainbow trout/steelhead, coho and Chinook salmon - open all year, 15-inch minimum except steelhead at 21 inches in the lake and 25 inches in the tributaries; daily limit 3 in combination, including no more than 1 steelhead and 1 brown trout in the tributaries. Atlantic salmon: 25-inch minimum, 1 per day.
- SEASONAL TRIBUTARY RULES, Sep 1 - Mar 31 (both lakes): night fishing is prohibited in the designated tributary reaches (Erie: 1/2 hour before sunrise to 1/2 hour after sunset; Ontario: no fishing 1/2 hour after sunset to 1/2 hour before sunrise, with narrow exceptions). Hook gap cannot exceed 1/2 inch; hooks on lures must be free-swinging except on artificial flies and jigs. On Ontario tributaries: only one hook with a single hook point (floating lures and flies excepted as DEC specifies) and any weight must sit within 4 feet of the hook and never hang below it.
- Designated seasonal reaches include: Cattaraugus Creek from the Aldrich Street Extension Bridge in Gowanda upstream to Springville Dam; Eighteenmile Creek (Niagara Co.) from the Route 18 bridge upstream to Burt Dam; Oak Orchard Creek from the power lines 1.9 miles upstream (south) of the Route 18 bridge upstream to Waterport Dam; and, on other tributaries, from the bridge closest to the mouth upstream to the first barrier impassable to fish.
- CATCH-AND-RELEASE, ARTIFICIAL LURES ONLY: Chautauqua Creek from the South Gale Street bridge upstream 1.3 miles to the upper Village of Westfield water intake dam (trout and salmon); and the main branch of Eighteenmile Creek (Erie County) inside Eighteenmile Creek County Park (trout and salmon).
- SALMON RIVER SPECIAL REGULATIONS (Oswego County): downstream of the Route 52 bridge in Altmar, Aug 15 - Apr 14 brings the night-fishing prohibition and the single-hook, 1/2-inch-gap, free-swinging and 4-foot weight rules (Apr 15 - Aug 14, statewide gear restrictions apply; night fishing is permitted from the lake to the Route 3 bridge Apr 1 - Aug 14). Beaverdam Brook and its tributaries are closed to fishing from their mouths to the upstream boundary of the Salmon River Hatchery property.
- SALMON RIVER FLY-FISHING-ONLY CATCH-AND-RELEASE SECTIONS: Lower Fly Section - County Route 52 bridge in Altmar upstream 0.25 mile to the marked boundary at Beaverdam Brook, open Sep 15 - May 15. Upper Fly Section - from the marked boundary above the hatchery property 0.6 miles upstream to the Lighthouse Hill Reservoir tailrace, open Apr 1 - Nov 30. Both: 1/2 hour before sunrise to 1/2 hour after sunset, all fish released immediately, tackle restricted to a traditional fly rod, reel and line with an artificial fly; leaders (including tippet) may not exceed 15 ft, with seasonal fly-line, fly-weight and supplemental-weight restrictions - read the full DEC table before you fish them.
- At all times on Great Lakes waters: snatching is prohibited, foul-hooked fish must be released immediately, gaff hooks are prohibited, herding or frightening fish is prohibited, and fish eggs may not be used for chumming.
- All regulation notes in this guide are planning summaries of the NYSDEC Great Lakes and Tributaries Special Regulations (accessed Oct 29, 2026). Check the current NYSDEC fishing guide for the exact water, reach and date you fish - seasons, reaches and tackle rules change.
New York built this fishery on purpose. DEC's restoration program began in the late 1960s, re-establishing a Lake Ontario salmonid fishery that had collapsed under habitat destruction, sea lamprey parasitism and overfishing. The Salmon River Fish Hatchery at Altmar (on Beaverdam Brook) became the egg-collection point for the state's Lake Ontario stocking, and the modern program runs on Washington-strain steelhead statewide: 142,500 yearlings a year across 8 major Lake Erie tributaries (plus 50,000 domestic rainbows), and on the Ontario side a big-rivers stocking strategy that concentrates fish - and fishing - on the large tributaries that stay ice-free and hold adults all season. Access was built the same deliberate way: DEC purchased permanent Public Fishing Rights easements stream by stream (12 miles on the Salmon River alone), and since 2021 the Canal Corporation's fall release program has added managed water to the Ontario creeks each September to mid-December. The wild card in the system is Cattaraugus Creek, where DEC documents the Erie shore's strongest natural reproduction, in the creek and its feeder streams.
