Fish here, use these...catch these

Fish here... the riffs at the head of this slow, silt edged run.

It's like being addicted.  When I know the Hex spinner fall is on, come 6:30- 7:00 in the evening, I have a hard time concentrating on any thing else.  So.... last evening I found myself standing on the edge of my favorite Hex water.  I arrived about an hour before the spinner fall began, just to fish with 'normal' sized flies for a while.  The fishing and catching was good.  I fished a BWO sparkle dun #18 and had fish for cast on the first 5 casts.  I lost it on a stick, trying to get a little closer to the log, you know how that is, so I tied on a thorax BWO #16.  The fish love that one too.  All the browns were nice, 12" -14" and FAAAT.  These are nice healthy fish.  I had a nice surprise.  On the BWO thorax a nice fish sucked it off the surface and on the hook set it went airborne several times.  As I got the fish ready to net I noticed it was an Atlantic salmon.  It was a nice healthy fish and the biggest Atlantic I've caught in this creek.



Nice 12" Atlantic salmon, ID'd by the fork tail.

 The Fish Creek Atlantic Salmon Club stocked this stretch of Fish Creek in 2010 and last year I picked up two about half this size. One from Fish Creek and another in the Mad River which flows into this section of Fish Creek. 

The fishing on the BWOs was so good I started to worry that I might sting too many trout and put most of them down before the Hex appeared, so I took a break. 



Use these... Hex compara dun tie on #6 hook

Catch these...

...and these

The Hex spinners started showing up about 7:45 and the trout started doing their thing about 15 minutes later.  This went on into the dark and I landed several in the 14" -18" range, nothing bigger.

There were a few White Flies starting to show up last night and it was good to finally start to see them.  The hatch should get stronger over the next week or so and they will be around till mid to late September, same as always.

I noticed this past weekend that the trees are not as green as they have been and along some stretches of highway some trees, a few, are showing a hint of color.  A look at the calander tells me that in 8 weeks from now we will be past peak color here and the leaf hatch will be choking the Salmon River.  8 weeks from now believe it or not and the salmon fishing will also be past peak and the steelhead fishing will be ramping up for what we are all expecting, another awesome fall on the steelhead.

Tight lines.








They're here...

This hex spinner decided to land inside my wader bib.

Just like clock work, the arrival of the hex hatch here in central New York is an event you can depend on.  This summer is no exception.  After about a month of no trout fishing I went out this evening KNOWING the the hex spinners would be there, it was a beautiful thing.  I fished the last 30 minutes of daylight and into the evenings darkness. As I stood in the stream the trout erupted on the floating hex spinner like starved animals and the spinner fall was so heavy this evening that I was constantly being pelted by flying spinners. 

The hex spinner fall is special, to me. As I watch these browns explode on the spinner like it's their last meal I have to laugh, they are so enthusiastic, like they've waited all year for this fly and now it's Christmas!  Really makes me chuckle.  These trout are far from starved as most are in robust health, they're beautiful.  This evening didn't produce any really big browns, most in the 14"-16" range but I did sting a few that were pushing 20"+.



Nice healthy brown with a hex comparadun sticking out his gullet.

I have layed off the trout streams for the last month or so as the weather has been hot and water levels are very low.  The trout are jambed into small areas of refuge water so, for myself, I leave them alone.  We've finally been getting some rain locally that has brought some temperature relief to the streams and raised the level just a bit.  They're forecasting more heavier rain over the next few days so that should help things out. 

We really need a couple weeks of dependable rain fall.  The water tables are down and for me, a good water flow ensures a good steady salmon run and I'll be able to float my drift boat with clients.  Twice in the past 12 years the water has been so low in the Salmon River that I had to convert my float trips to wade trip.  The last time it was too low to float was in 2008.  That year the water was so low in the Salmon River that the DEC had to shock fish out of the deeper holes just to get enough fish to the hatchery to have at least a decent eggs harvest. 

As for this years salmon run you can feel anticipation for it building locally.  Everywhere the local businesses and guides are preparing for it, myself included.  I am trying something different this year when it comes to fly fishing for salmon.  I'll be road testing it as soon as we get some fish entering the river and if it works as good as I believe it will it should make for some happy clients.

I'll be posting again soon.

Tight lines,
Mark