Lower Falls to Charlotte: the city stretch
The fish that matter on the lower Genesee stop at the Lower Falls in Rochester. Below them the river runs north through a gorge and then flattens out through Charlotte to Lake Ontario, and Trout and Steelhead's Rochester guide puts the fishable water between the mouth and the falls at about 6 miles. Everything in that stretch is inside the city, which makes it one of the few big run rivers in New York you can reach from a downtown parking spot.
The City of Rochester lists the Seth Green Fishing Access among the ways down into the Lower Falls gorge, along with Maplewood Park, Seneca Park and the Genesee Riverway Trail. Farther north, Turning Point Park on Boxart Street covers 275 wooded acres on the west bank, and its boardwalk crosses the Genesee River Turning Basin on a 3,572 foot bridge before joining the Riverway Trail. At the mouth, the city runs a four-lane public launch beside the Port of Rochester marina at 1000 North River Street. The Charlotte neighborhood sits on the west bank right at the lake, with the pier and Ontario Beach Park beside it.
The run, month by month
DEC stocks the river in Rochester every spring, and the numbers explain why the fall is crowded: its stocking records for April 2025 show 138,195 chinook fingerlings and 32,484 young steelhead going in at Rochester, plus another 25,000 chinook in May. In 2024 the April figures were 138,210 chinook and 35,000 steelhead. Those are the fish that come back.
Trout and Steelhead's Rochester guide lays out the calendar. September brings the salmon into the river and a scattering of early steelhead with them. Mid October is when the steelhead run builds as the water cools, and late October through November is the best fall window, with steelhead holding behind spawning salmon and picking off loose eggs. December can produce the biggest fish of the year when flows allow. January and February are a winter fishery that turns on after a thaw or a small bump in flow. Mid March through April is the spawning run and the second peak, and drop-back fish feed on their way out through late April and into mid May. From late May through summer most steelhead are back in the lake. The same guide says small spawn sacs, single eggs and beads fished under a float are the standard Genesee approach, with indicator nymphing and swinging flies in the faster, shallower water.
Route 104 bridge to the Lower Falls: tributary rules
DEC's Great Lakes tributary regulations define the Genesee's regulated reach as the State Route 104 bridge upstream to the Lower Falls. From September 1 through March 31 that reach is closed to fishing from half an hour after sunset to half an hour before sunrise, and the tackle rules apply: one hook with a single point and a gap no wider than half an inch, an artificial fly with no more than two points and no tandem flies, any added weight within 4 feet of the hook, and no weight hanging below the hook when the line is held straight up.
The Lake Ontario tributary limits run all year: 3 trout and salmon in combination, 15 inch minimum, but a steelhead or rainbow has to be 25 inches in a tributary, and you may keep only 1 rainbow and 1 brown trout of the 3. Walleye season is May 1 through March 15 at 18 inches. Those figures come from DEC's tributary page; New York rewrote parts of its fishing rules effective April 1, 2026, so check the current page before you keep anything.
What the Ford Street gauge reads, and what it does not
USGS 04231600 sits at the Ford Street Bridge in Rochester, upstream of the downtown falls, so it reads the water that ends up in the gorge and the run reach below. It says nothing useful about Letchworth or the trout water in Allegany County, which are far upstream and behind the Mount Morris Dam, the Army Corps flood-control dam at the north end of Letchworth State Park.
No shop publishes a wading range for this gauge, so the 1,000 to 3,000 cfs figure on this page is derived from the USGS record instead. The monthly medians since 1951 run 1,193 cfs in October, 2,122 in November, 2,953 in December and 2,861 in January, which is the heart of the fall and winter run season. March and April medians of 5,516 and 6,119 cfs show why the spring fishery is so often a high-water game, and summer drops to a median of 781 cfs in August, when there are few run fish to target anyway. Treat readings well above the seasonal median as a reason to fish the edges near the falls or wait a day.
Upriver: Letchworth's gorge and the Allegany trout reach
Letchworth State Park covers 14,427 acres along roughly 17 miles of the river, with the Upper, Middle and Lower Falls in Portage Canyon and gorge walls up to 550 feet high; the park lists fishing among its activities. DEC's Region 8 rules close the river from the downstream side of the Mount Morris Dam down to the first railroad bridge below State Route 36 from March 16 through April 30.
The Genesee's trout water is farther south, in Allegany County near the Pennsylvania line. DEC's trout stream rules make the stretch from the Belmont Dam up to 1.0 mile above County Route 29 near York's Corners a Stocked-Extended reach, with 3 trout a day and no more than 1 over 12 inches from April 1 to October 15, and catch and release with artificial lures the rest of the year. From that point up to the Route 19 bridge in Shongo it is catch and release with artificial lures all year, and from Shongo to the state line it goes back to Stocked-Extended. DEC's 2025 stocking list for Allegany County includes 5,590 brown trout at Amity, plus 150 browns averaging 21.5 inches and 65 rainbows recorded at 30.3 inches. Wiscoy Creek, which enters the Genesee from the west, is Wild-Premier water with a 1 fish limit.