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Cattaraugus Creek Lake Run — Salmon, Steelhead, Brown Trout
Tail-off · Steelhead as of 1 October 2026
35.7 miles of run water on the Cattaraugus Creek, from Lake Erie up to Springville Dam. 2 species run it, on windows curated from NYSDEC guidance.
- 35.7corridor miles
- 92NHD reaches
- 2species that run
- Lake Eriethe lake they come from
The questions about this river
One page each, answered from the same records as this one.
What runs the Cattaraugus Creek
Each window is calendar guidance curated from the state's own run-timing prose, not a regulation and not an observation. The stage beside it is this site's reading of that window against 1 October 2026.
- Steelhead — Sept–May Tail-off. New York's Erie shore is a steelhead fishery and the Cattaraugus is the river of it — the largest tributary on this shore and the one that stays fishable longest, because its size and its clay banks hold colour after the creeks have dropped. Fish come in on autumn rain from late September, hold through the winter and drop back through April and May. The lower Niagara is the winter half of this coast: those fish are Lake Ontario's and the river fishes hardest from December to March.
- Lake-run brown trout — Oct–Mar Staging, 1 day out. Strongest in the lower Niagara, where browns run with the steelhead through the winter.
The ceiling
Springville Dam is where the run stops. Everything above it is upstream of the fishery — a fish cannot pass it, so the water above holds resident trout and not run fish, whatever the calendar says.
USACE NID NY00704 'Springville Dam', River or Stream Name 'Cattaraugus Creek', Source Agency New York
The run water, mouth to ceiling
| Zone | What it is | River miles |
|---|---|---|
| Pier | the pierheads and the harbour mouth | 0.0–0.7 |
| Mouth | the river mouth | 0.7–3.2 |
| Lower | the lower river | 3.2–8.0 |
| Upstream | above the first holding water, up to the ceiling | 8.0–35.7 |
River miles from the harbour mouth, walked up the NHDPlus HR mainstem. Fish arrive at the bottom of this table and work up it as the river cools and rises.
Access
No state boating access site falls inside this corridor's box. That is the record saying nothing, not this page saying there is no way in — the public land layer on the live map is the better answer for a river fished from the bank.
Open the Cattaraugus Creek on the live map →
The Cattaraugus Creek river page — gauges, temperature and regulations by reach →
Regulations
Great Lakes tributary rules are their own rules: seasons, gear and possession on run water differ from the inland trout regulations, and they differ by river and often by reach. New York's regulation summary is here, and the state's own guide is the regulation.
Tackle
General guidance by species, not by river — there is no record of what a given river fishes best with, and a page that invented one would be worse than a page that says so.
- Steelhead Float fishing: a long 10'6"–13' rod, 8–12 lb main line, spawn bags, beads or jigs under a slip float — the method that covers a run without wading it.
- Lake-run brown trout Spinning: a medium 7'–8' rod, 8–12 lb line, minnow plugs and spoons fished at dusk and after dark, which is when these fish move.
Nearby run rivers
The next corridors up and down this shore, nearest first.
- Twentymile CreekLake Erie · 18.9 corridor miles →
- Sixteenmile CreekLake Erie · 10.2 corridor miles →
- Twelvemile CreekLake Erie · 8.5 corridor miles →
- Eightmile CreekLake Erie · 7.0 corridor miles →
- Sevenmile CreekLake Erie · 7.0 corridor miles →
- Sixmile CreekLake Erie · 13.7 corridor miles →