A warning about the gauge on this page
The trout water most people drive to on Schoharie Creek is above the Schoharie Reservoir, from the Hunter and Lexington area down to Prattsville. The gauge on this page is not there. USGS 01350355 sits at Breakabeen, 1.1 miles below the Keyser Kill and downstream of both impoundments north of Prattsville: New York City's Schoharie Reservoir behind the Gilboa Dam, and the Blenheim-Gilboa Power Project. DIY Fly Fishing points trout anglers to the USGS gauge near Lexington instead, which is the right one for the upper creek when it is reporting.
So read Breakabeen for what it is. Reservoir water bound for the city leaves through the 16-mile Shandaken Tunnel to the Esopus Creek, and the creek below Gilboa gets what spills over the dam or is let out through the release tunnel added in the reconstruction that began in 2011. Its monthly medians since 1975 show the pattern: 1,698 cfs in April and 740 in May, then 199 in June, 42 in July, 31 in August and 24 in September. A spike at Breakabeen means rain on the whole basin, and usually high, dirty water up top too. A summer trickle there says little about the creek at Prattsville. No shop publishes a wading range for Breakabeen, so the 200 to 750 cfs band on this page is derived from its June, November and May medians, the early-season and fall months the upper creek fishes best: a reading inside it means the basin is between runoff and drought, not that any particular pool is wadeable.
Hunter to Prattsville: the stocked brown trout water
The creek rises at the foot of Indian Head Mountain and runs west through Greene County, collecting the East Kill, West Kill, Little West Kill, Batavia Kill, Huntersfield Creek and Johnson Hollow Brook before it reaches the reservoir. It is big boulder pocket water, gin clear on a normal day, with little shade in the open valley; Hunter Mountain Sports & Expeditions, reporting for Orvis, says most feeding happens early in the morning and in the evening, and Perfect Fly advises moving to the cooler tributaries when summer heat sets in.
DEC's 2025 stocking records list 14,670 brown trout for the creek in Greene County, split across the towns of Lexington, Jewett and Hunter, with most around 7 inches and a smaller share near 11.6 inches. The fish are mostly browns with a few rainbows in the lower section near the reservoir, and holdovers grow large. The best-known public water is behind the municipal park in Prattsville, where DIY Fly Fishing and the Orvis report both send anglers to the parking area by the ball field. The Greene County Soil and Water Conservation District's Catskill Streams program publishes a Schoharie Creek fishing easement map for the rest; use it, because much of the bank is private.
The Prattsville barrier and the bass below it
A fish barrier dam at Prattsville divides the creek's two fisheries. The Catskill Streams watershed summary dates it to 1939 and says it was built to keep bass from moving upstream; the Orvis report credits Art Flick, working with the state, with its design. Above it DEC manages for trout. Below it, the summary names smallmouth bass and walleye as the main sport fish, and DEC stocked 22,900 walleye fingerlings into the reservoir in 2024. The Orvis report says the water just under the barrier gives good fly rod smallmouth fishing in summer, when the trout fishing upstream slows.
Every fall, reservoir browns run up into the creek to spawn. DIY Fly Fishing and Perfect Fly both call autumn the best time for a big brown here, when resident fish and lake-run fish are moving together. Give fish on redds a wide berth and fish the runs and pockets above them.
Blenheim to Middleburgh: water that depends on the dam
Below the reservoir the creek runs north through Blenheim, Breakabeen and Middleburgh toward the Mohawk. Wikipedia's summary of the DEC water-quality work notes that flow here is restricted when the dam is not spilling, that the low summer flow raises water temperature and hurts the fishery, and that the valley's farm fields add sediment and turbidity at high water. This is not trout water in summer. Fish it for smallmouth when Breakabeen shows a steady flow, and expect the August and September median of 24 to 31 cfs to leave long, warm, shallow pools.
Season, limits and the reservoir permit
Schoharie Creek is not on DEC's list of trout streams with special regulations, so the statewide stream rules apply: trout season April 1 to October 15 with 5 fish a day and no more than 2 over 12 inches, then catch and release with artificial lures only from October 16 through March 31. Black bass can be kept from June 15 through November 30 at 12 inches, 5 a day; walleye from May 1 through March 15 at 15 inches.
The reservoir is different. DEC's Region 4 rules list Schoharie Reservoir under Greene, Schoharie and Delaware counties with ice fishing prohibited and an NYC DEP Access Permit required, so get the permit before you fish the lake or walk its shoreline to the creek mouth.