Anybody here fish the salmon river for Salmon,Steelhead and brown trout? Im heading up to fish Sat,Sun and half of Monday.
We've been doing it for years. We wait until the salmon are done spawning and all you yahoos are off the river. LOL My buddy and I were there today just to observe and watch the Chinese firedrill when 2 or 3 people get hooked up and lines cross and 30 pound salmon decide they've had enough. It was a lovely day today. The sun came out and the river was slammed full of fish. The water level is extremely low. How low... well the best fishing to me is when it's running 600-700 cubic feet per second at the Pineville bridge. It is running 222 today.... as it has for the past month or two. They have closed the fly fishing only areas to all fishing until Oct 31. That's from the Altmar bridge and upstream. Lots of fish being caught at the Pineville Bridge today. Well, let's not say exactly caught. Most were being snagged. The salmon do not go heavy into biting. Those that are caught are mostly snagged. Yes, it's illegal. So are certain techniques for catching them. Game wardens will be out writing lots of tickets. When the salmon are done the Steelhead come in. They are agressive feeders. They bite... and that's why we wait until the end of October to go. The salmon out of Lake Ontario are NOT what you think of when people say salmon. I love good salmon. I went to Alaska for 10 days of fly fishing for salmon. I won't eat a Lake Ontario salmon. Just not the same fish. WE catch them for fun but throw them all back. A nice steelhead .... well we may keep one a piece during the week. Lots of jumbo browns in the river. We throw them back too.... but that's just us. You'll have fun. You'll learn how to "Hook"..aka"SNATCH" a salmon. And dang the are fun to play with. WE use fly rods and typically only use 6 pound tippets because anything heavier and you hook up rate goes way down on Steelhead... which we're after. You hook a lot more than you land .... that's for sure. Anyway, enjoy your trip to the salmon river. Know the regulations because the wardens in dress clothing and out of uniform are on the river. You will see all sorts of anglers. The true purest fly fishing dude to the let me load this 40pound line on a spinning reel and snatch me , foul hook me all the fish I can. I was up a couple weeks ago and there are fewer fish today than then.... but still a ton of fish in the water. Bring your best polarized glasses or you won't see them. They'r powerful and fiesty. Enjoy. Where are you staying. What section of the river are you fishing in? It's all 30 minutes from my house but we don't do it until all you yahoos are gone. LOL Even though it's only 30 minutes from my house... we rent two 8 man cabins for a week every year. We is me, my buddy Chuck, my brother and 4 of his Marine Corps buddies, kids and friends. We don't have to drive, we're on the River although it's a little walk down the hill and the cabins both have kitchens. We rotate nights for cooking and drink entirely too much. LOL But damn we have fun. Our group has folks from Virginia, South Carolina, Pennsylvania and New York. Been a yearly event for 15 or more years. we're in camp on the 27th.
i fish up there occasionally but i typically stay at the west branch of the ausable(much closer). plus i know a ton of streams and have private access to some outstanding trout waters that i fly fish i usually hit it real hard april first until may turkey season kicks off
This is my 3rd year going and i dont think i will ever see that magical 600-700 cfs but still fun no matter what. Im staying in the holiday in express in front of the Gander Mtn on 81. I fish the town center where i learned to fish the river and where all the people i have fished with fish. A lot of us city people can be crazy and hard to talk to but not me. I love a good conversation with people and fishing next to good people. I would love to go up for the peak steel run since caught a 11lb and a 13lb steelhead last year but its a 4 1/2 hour drive from NYC.
The best steelheading is in the winter. Snow can be a real problem. What you usually do is find a pool and stay put. The water the past 3 years or so has been down. I think it was in 2007 that you could not fish the river. It was running at 2500 cubic feet per second. You had to go fish small stream like Orwell Brook to keep from drowning. We had a massive rain event a couple years ago early on. People were fishing in the woods. The water washed away the retaining walls in town center. They say at the peak it was 21,000 cupic feet per second. The lower part of the town of Altmar was flooded, parts of Pulaski were flooded. It was a whicked event. Not 2100... but 21,000 and today it's 222. By the time we got there at the end of October the water was flowing at a nice 600-700. On this date last year the water was 2120 The median water flow for this time of year is around 500. Video after the peak. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCq6No6r3TI Video town center wall collapse http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEnO79iPA_E
The year that your thinking about was 2010 which was my first year fishing there. The fishing was hard but extremely fun. last year the river was around 350 cfs Columbus day weekend. It says its going to rain tomorrow but i hope its light showers and not that bad.
Well the boy got rained on all morning...although it was light. Rained pretty good last night. This afternoon the sun came out. I think that's the second time I've seen the sun in a couple weeks. It was really nice.
I got soaked to the bone this morning but it was worth it! I got to see some faces i have not seen in a year and some others in 2 years. The crowd of people was ridiculous. People that have fished the river for 10 years some more haven't seen this many people! The fishing wasn't too bad in the am but in the after noon was the best i have ever seen it. On every cast a salmon or steel would slam the egg. Ill be at it tomorrow so hopefully the weather was as nice as this afternoons. I would tell you to come fish but its so crowded in the am but most leave in time for the afternoon run.
So ATbuckhunter???? What's the deal? Did you catch a lot and have fun? Pictures????? I don't know why I ask for pictures because we usually don't take many either.
Believe me i caught a lot of fish. Honestly you should have been there to fish the massive amount of fish. The kings and steel where every where. Most of the kings were somewhat fresh and the steel fought like hell like always. I even caught a 19 lb steelhead! I took quite a few pics so i will upload them as in a few.
