Salmon on the Brain

[PinelandsGillie]

While spending a week in Vermont, my grandmother in law picked me up Lee Wulff's Salmon on the Fly Book from the library. I read it after dinner, through the night and while I at breakfast. What an exciting book, one day when I'm done raising my five boys I'll find some time to go to Nova Scotia and take an Atlantic on a big dry fly.
When I returned to New Jersey I was telling a coworker some of my Vermont fish stories(one including a <40 inch pike my son almost landed on 6 pound test), and he decided to invite me up to the Salmon River at a cabin for a weekend. It is going to be in Mid October and I was reading the Chinook and Coho Runs will already be in full swing by then. I have never been to this river, but I heard nobody rotates pools and its super crowded with people literally diving in tackling salmon like a football. I am going to try to avoid this as much as possible and have a good time and hopefully land my first king salmon on a fly.
From what I was reading they almost never will take a dry and you have to use a lot of egg type flys or annoying chartreuse or hot pink rabbit fur streamers to piss them off. I wonder if a huge scud pattern would work since they eat crustaceans. In ontario I heard their main food item is alewife and smelt. I have a 9 foot 8 weight i use to fish the bays and ocean down here in south NJ and was considering a 9 or ten weight because I heard its hard to take a King on an 8 weight. I recently have been learning some single hand spey casts and the thought of owning a spey or switch rod is pretty tempting. I even have considered getting a switch rod to fish the estuaries on the NJ shore to just be able to get out there farther in the channel while wading. Do you think its worth having on this river?
Does anyone on here have experiences taking Chinook form Lake ontario tribes on a fly rod? Any recommendations on some interesting patterns to learn to tie or a rod setup? I am really excited about this trip and hoping i get to fish some more rivers like the genesee and oak orchard if I am working up that way. I would also like to explore Lake cayuga near Ithaca. Until then I think I am going to teach my boss how to catch largemouth on a fly rod in south nj until the fall, and maybe hit up some streams in western PA or the Savage in MD.

 

[flyI4]

Pinelands:There is a lot to say about the fishing up there but to sum it up in 3 basic points (1) the fishing is very exciting (2) the crowds are bad, but you get used to it and the fishing is still enjoyable and (3) Mid october is in my opinion the best time of year to fish the river.

I'm sure you have heard stories, but if you haven't, the river is heavily fished and has everything from blatant snaggers to guys trying to fish ethically with a 10wt and 50lb test. its not your classic fly fishing situation by any means. Despite the goon squad- when you approach the river, lock up a spot in a nice run, and see 10-40lb fish running through the riffles it can't help but draw excitement. Now I'll be honest, the salmon game gets old quick. It gets old because they rarely take the fly legit and you have a lot of foul hooks even if you are not attempting to do so. Aside from the king salmon- the fishing in mid october is great because you have a lot of steelhead coming in on the lower river along with the coho salmon that will take the fly aggressively on a consistent basis. My advice, pay the money to fish the douglaston salmon run, and you will have plenty of chrome bright steelhead heading up the river amongst the salmon. Last year- I did great fishing the skinny water where I would see steelhead eating eggs behind the spawning salmon, and would sight fish a nymph or egg pattern to the steelies and watch them eat it- a lot of fun. DO NOT FISH THE UPPER RIVER- you will have nothing but dead salmon and half dead fish hanging on for dear life in the slow pools. Fish the lower river below 2a, and fish the fastest riffles to ensure you are in the zone where the steelies are holding. Enjoy

 

[PinelandsGillie]

Thanks for the advice, yeh I think I will just get excited spotting fish. Good advice on not fishing the upper stretch

 

[BioGuy]

Send me a PM if you want info about fishing around lower Cayuga. October is possibly on the early side, though it really depends on the weather.

 

[Trout Guy]

This post got my steelhead senses tingling!!

Or maybe it's just the Percocets the doc gave me...

But anyways, I barely got out last year so I'm stoked for this coming season!


Fly14 is spot on, the goonery is insane up there. Especially when you'll be up there.. I've only fished the dsr a few times but it's nice to be able to have some breathing room.

Although when I fished it last year it was slightly less packed than up river.

Maybe they're getting greedy and letting more people in to make more money..

 

[reelfisher]

Pinelands, you dont need to buy another fly rod. I use a 8wt 9ft for salmon and steelhead up there and it is sufficent enough. As for flies you can learn to tie glo bugs, crystal meth, and sucker spawn. They are fairly easy to tie and dont require too much materials. But tie/purchase ALOT as you will loose them due to snags.

As for the crowds you dont need to spend money to fish the DSR. There are plenty of places to fish and you just have to walk away from crowds and the fishing is better many times.

And I cant comment on spey or switch rods because i dont have any expiecnce with them. sorry

 

[theartoflee]

As for whether or not to get a spey or switch rod it really depends what type of fishing you plan to do. Switch rods can be great if you plan to both indicator/highstick and swing flies. If you plan to mostly swing flies look into the spey rods that are 12-13 feet in either a 7 or 8 weight. One potentially negative thing about getting a two handed is that you will also have to buy a larger reel to balance the longer rod and accommodate the speyline. You will also have to buy a spey style line/head along with tips or Poly leaders which gets expensive. With that said have a switch/Spey rod helps cover more water provided you are a proficient caster.

Whatever patterns you carry besure to have hot pink intruders or buggers for the Coho's and Chartreuse and black patterns for the Chinooks.

 

[CTobias]

You're all snaggers.

Don't waste the money on a new setup if you aren't going to be confident fishing it. Just stick with what you have and go from there. You can swing flies with a single hand rod, just the same as a two handed rod.

 

[PinelandsGillie]

I was really thinking about a double handed rod more so I could cast from the bank with back casting into trees and if it's gets super crowded if it's easier to Spey cast without foul booking another fisherman. Thanks everybody for all the advice on flies to tie. Do you guys use tungsten leaders? I usually do a dry dropper setup when I nymph, I'm wondering if you even need an indicator considering that steelhead are so aggressive

 

[moosekid]

i'm far from an expert on the SR but think about it like this...

...if the river is so crowded that you're worried about hooking other fishermen with a rogue backcast, you'd be lucky to get a 30 foot drift before you're encroaching on your neighbor's water.

that's 15 feet upstream, 15 feet downstream -- we'll call it 20 feet to be safe. you should be able to roll-cast 20 feet of line with your 8 wt, even if you have a ton of weight on the end..

 

[Stevester]

During the peak season (usually late Sept through Oct) it will be pretty crowded especially up by Altmar and in Pulaski. There are areas that don't get a lot pressure but you will have to walk some to get to them. If you are not a fan of egg patterns I have had more than a few take an egg-sucking leech type pattern but it must be weighted. This type of fishing has almost nothing to do with the Atlantic salmon fishing that Lee Wulff described. This is combat fishing, especially if you do it on the Oswego River below the dam in Oswego. That said I have used a Scott 8 wt for several years and have landed numerous fish over 20 lbs. Moosekid is right, in the crowded areas a Spey rod is no real advantage. Spey casting requirers a lot more room side to side which you will not have in the popular holes and runs. I have not fished the DSR in several years so it might be different now but it even if they let twice as many people in there it still is will be less crowded than the fly stretch or just below the Altmar bridge. The big advantage the DSR has is that it is close to the lake so the fish have not seen 10,000 spawn sacks or egg flies like they will by the time they get to the fly stretch.

 

[CTobias]

I usually do a dry dropper setup when I nymph, I'm wondering if you even need an indicator considering that steelhead are so aggressive

You're going to have to use an indicator unless you high stick. Single hook only on the Salmon River. This means no dry fly as your indicator. Unless of course you cut the hook off.

 

[sneelhead]

im up there every other weekend or so from oct-feb...shoot me a PM i can walk you thru everything

 

[Simms]

im up there every other weekend or so from oct-feb...shoot me a PM i can walk you thru everything

DONALD GOOD EVENING

kr()m

 

[sneelhead]

Hello there Christopher hey do u know where I can get guide spools of piano wire and lots of fluoro ok ? Krûmdeaux


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Simms]

Hello there Christopher hey do u know where I can get guide spools of piano wire and lots of fluoro ok ? Krûmdeaux


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Academy records sells 3,000 yard spools of 6 gauge piano wire. Then take a run down to Fulton's and ask "Old Hooky" for some 1/0 'Shark Grabbers'.... Rig up on umbrella rig rod, head to ball park on Columbus Day weekend.

Keep the floreaux in your pocket in case DEC questions your tactics...

"But sir, I got floreaux deaux"


GOOD EVENING

 

[sneelhead]

ok but where do i find 14' furled fluoreux sinking leaders?

 

[Simms]

Should be in the same tub that they sell Michigan crickets in....

 

[PinelandsGillie]

Thanks a lot to everybody who provided advice on here. I went up October 4th and witnessed the first big run of kings and cohos during a rainstorm at the beginning of the DSR. I got a switch rod and hooked one king on the swing at meadow run near the cut banks and broke him off in a few secs. My drag was set too high and the next one I hooked into snapped my rod. I also landed a giant red horse sucker. So I ended up walking a mile and some
back to my car at 3 PM to setup my single handed rod. Took it back to the first bend in the river after the estuary and hooked into a fish first cast with an egg pattern, was a king, and I wasn't prepared for how surprising and brutish these fish can be. I let him run once then started to try and walk him
into shallow waters after fifteen minutes of just holding him
in one place, then the fish decided to just say f*%! You and took off like a Harley Davidson snapping off. I probably snapped off four more kings when I hooked into something silver. Did a couple jumps and I thought it was a coho. Netted it in the shallows and it was a pink cheeked 37 inch bright silver steelhead. My first one. I revived the fish underwater for minute or so and then decided to try an hold it for a quick photo. I could not for the life of me get that fish to stay still. Before my friend could get a shot it was back in river. What a day though I really want to try and make it up there again this year. I can see now why fly guys target steelers moreso then kings. Drifting an egg into a salmons gills just doesn't seem as exciting as a sterile smashing an intruder.

 

[PinelandsGillie]

27 not 37 inches

 

[Future Fanatic]

27 not 37 inches

You were just getting a head start...

We ALL know that in 10 years or so, that fish will be 37" in the story you tell THEN.

Probably 40" when you are 75-80 years old...