Fishing in November might be considered late-season fishing. By early November most fish have moved to their winter homes in Florida to avoid the cold weather. However, that should not stop you from trying your luck out there. Just be sure to follow state regulations on open season for fishing. The NY state guidelines for 2020/2021 are online but you can always find the latest information on their website. One thing that you might find confusing is that “open season” is by fish species, not location. That means you cannot fish for particular species of fish during particular times. If you are like us, and never really know what you are fishing for, it should be fine. Realistically, you probably aren’t going to catch anything anyway.
We decided to see what we could catch in Early November by heading Upstate. The concept of “upstate” is a contentious one – for me that means anything north of the Bronx – for others it can mean anything north of 14th. This time, we went to Silver Mine Lake in Harriman State Park. We got a Zipcar and stayed overnight at an Airbnb in Highland Falls, NY. We started the morning by grabbing breakfast at the incredible Bear Mountain Bakery & Cafe.
We had brought out a collapsible telescoping rod. We forgot to get bait so we used some dried squid that we had taken for late-night snacks. We hadn’t planned to visit Silver Mine Lake in particular. There are a number of lakes upstate so we just searched for one that was close and was listed by the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation as being a legal place to fish (or as close to legal as we could tell from their god-awful website). We figured at a place called Silver Mine Lake, we might find fish or silver, so really it was win-win (spoiler: it was not – we found neither).
As it turns out the fish weren’t so interested in dried squid- or they had already all gone South. In the end, we thought the lake seemed pretty dead as we didn’t see much activity on the surface of the water. Overall it was a great success though since we had a much-needed break from the city. We will have to try out this spot again in the summer.
Since we were driving to and from the lake there was no beer this time. Instead, it was just pastries from Bear Mountain Bakery & Cafe, which I could not recommend highly enough.