Lee Wulff never fished here, nor did Theodore Gordon. Joe Brooks reportedly broke a leg here once, but it wasn't enough to put the place on the map. You don't see TV crews on the Black River or West Canada Creek, and there are no classic fly patterns named after them either.

By Northeast standards, the Black (above) and West Canada are large rivers, sometimes as much as 300-feet wide. Though the rivers have catch-and-keep regulations, they don't receive much pressure and it is common to fish a stretch of river by yourself.

New York's trout fishing has been relentlessly publicized for more than a century, but somehow the verdant, stream-laced region between the Adirondacks and the Catskills has escaped widespread notice. Among locals, it's common knowledge that the upper Black has ten miles of scenic pocketwater, deep black pools, and large wild fish. They know West Canada Creek is a 30-mile tailwater, two casts wide and too deep to cross, that teems with trout. But despite their thick hatches and good fishing, the Black and West Canada just don't get many visitors with neighbors like the Beaverkill and the Ausable.

The first ten miles of both the Black and West Canada are rocky brook-trout streams draining vast wilderness forests well away from roads and cities. Their sources are lakes only about 15 miles apart in the southwest corner of the Adirondacks.

The rivers' headwaters are pristine, but not fertile. The shallow Adirondack soils are stingy with their nutrients, and decades of acid precipitation have further sterilized the region's lakes and streams.

Though there aren't many wild trout in West Canada Creek, there are a lot of holdovers. Trout 12- to 15-inches long are typical though larger ones are caught every year.

Below their impoundments, the rivers widen dramatically and begin to offer fine fishing for large trout. Both are liberally stocked, West Canada Creek with browns, the Black with browns and rainbows. Because the rivers are large by Northeastern standards--100 to 300 feet wide--the hatchery fish stand good chances of surviving predation and the elements to hold over and grow. The Black also harbors a robust population of wild browns; both hold wild brook trout.

Most of West Canada Creek and all of the Black River are under general catch-and-keep regulations, and both rivers are probably fished more often with bait and spinning tackle than with fly rods. But neither are fished hard at all. For example, in an afternoon and evening on Memorial Day in 2001, I had a half-mile of the best water on the Black all to myself.