I want to know how many of you guys have or do go Salmon fishing in Pulaski, NY right off of lake Ontario. I went 2 weeks ago, stopped at Fat Nancy's, got my license and fished all weekend. I'm doing it again this weekend. I didn't land any 2 weeks ago, but one of the guys in our group did. I guess it was pretty busy they say since it was the first time they were doing a serious run this year. I guess they are going to force them to run again this weekend. Any pointers would be real nice if you guys have any. Wish me luck again this weekend. Its going to be me, my girlfriend and her grandfather again. This girl is up for anything, its awesome. This is the same girl that bought a bow just so she could shoot/hunt with me.
I'm not sure what you mean by this? Who is forcing them to run? Are you fishing in Lake Ontario, or in a river?
We go up every year for a week. We rent a cabin or two depending on number of guys. Those salmon out of Lake Ontario taste like crap. We don't keep them... we don't fish for them... but we do catch a few just for fun. We go late when the salmon are about done. We'll be there next Saturday Oct.22nd. We go for the steelhead and big browns that come in to feast on the eggs. I only live 35 minutes max from Pulaski but we like to do the fish camp thing with old Marine Corp buddies of my brother. You may have had a hard time landing them because by the time they get to Pulaski they've been hit on the head with 40 pounds of lead. They don't bite for the most part. Most salmon that are caught are caught by snatching, which is illegal... but it seems to be the thing of the salmon fishermen. We fish the main parts where everyone else is but also spend a lot of time in the fly fishing/ catch and release only areas. We have a couple fly patterns that seem to make one bite once in a while. The steelhead and browns bite and are great fun. We don't keep them either as a rule. Last year my brother kept one big Steelhead and had it smoked. Usually.... we catch and turn them loose. First lite is best. After the masses get on the water and start chunking lead the fish get spooked. We have a couple usual holes that hold fish and they bring the steelheads for us to play with. My nephew was up last week and hooked 6 and landed 4. That's a good day. My brother and I went up one of the fly fishing only areas just to watch one day a couple weeks or so ago. The river was filled with fish and they were biting the right flies. We watched for probably an hour. One guy had the secret fly. We watched him hook up and land 4 salmon in 5 casts. He was surrounded by the masses of people there and others only occasionally hooked up. He was using a salmon flea, one of our favorites. It's a fun time.... but as far as tablefare.... the salmon suck. I was spoiled with all the salmon we caught in Alaska. LOL My brother with a nice steelhead... yup, it went back into the river. Not a catch and release area... but we just don't keep them as a rule. The usual gang and a couple extras in Alaska.
Vito... they don't really force them to run.... but it's been dry lately and water flow is down. The salmon tend to stack up in pools and wait for water. There's a dam upstream that they can and do open up at certain times to increase the flow. Higher water they move more. Right now the flow at Pineville USGS monitoring site is only 425 or something like that. Best fishing and fish movement is around 600-750. We had some rain but not that much in the past couple days. The river becomes unfishable above 1000. I've been there when it was 1900 and there was NO WAY you could fish it. You had to hit side streams like Orwell Brook to fish. They don't force them to move.... just make it easier with a little more water. The power company that controls the dam has an agreement with DEC to keep the water above 400 or something like that. Last spring in the big floods that flooded everyone out the flow was at 20,000 cu. feet per second. Here I am in a side stream when it was 1900 in the main river. this is Orwell Brook. They also open the dam during the summer several times on the weekends to give the Kayak folks some good water.
It wasn't terrible. Every time we go up it rains, so that was no different then usual. HEAVY winds on Saturday night. Hooked a few fish, landed enough to take a good amount of fillets home. I want to learn to fly fish, so that's another project I have to start before trout season in April. All in all, It was good. They are still finding fish 40ish feet down in the lake that haven't run yet so there might be more coming. There were guys catching a ton of steelies and there were much more dead salmon than 2 weeks ago when we went up. So this probably will be the last trip for me this season. Now the guys I work with are planning an ice fishing trip for Lake Ontario or Erie this year, so I better warm up the showdown and get ready.
