Friday, March 30, 2012

Late March Salmon River report

First off, the river is in prime condition, it don't get any better than this.  The water release is at 900cfs and the gauge at Pineville is at 944cfs.  What this tells you is that at this point there is virtually no run-off adding volume to the river, the water flows from here on out are dependent on what the power company decides.  Let's hope they continue to feel generous.

The steelhead are reaching peak or just past peak spawning,  a lot of dropbacks in the river and these are not from the hatchery, they have only recently begun to take eggs so we wont see any fish drop out of the hatchery for awhile.  This means that there should be good fishing on dropbacks through mid-April.

Swinging flies is becoming very productive in the river now.  Spawned out steelies are on a feeding binge so leeches, streamers, sculpins and big meat flies are connecting regularly.  If you prefer the indicator, egg patterns, big golden stone fly nymphs and San Juan worms in the fast water will hook you up.

Inland trout season starts Sunday here in New York.  The creeks are in good shape, maybe a little low depending on where you're fishing.  The forcast is for mid 50's and chance of rain, showers.  This should make for a busy day on the trout streams.  Most years the opener is about 10-15 degrees colder and often the percipitation is snow.  Also, no snow banks to climb over this year and the water is not high or off color as it is many opening days. 

I plan to take my wife and head out Sunday afternoon on a local trout stream.  I always look forward to the opener, this year a little more than others.  Probably has to do with the mild spring so far and knowing that I wont have to throw streamer as there is already some hatching going on.  I'll probably try a few small Dark Hendrickson comparaduns and I always like fishing traditional tied Red Quills early in the season.  Richard Strolis has a great video showing how to tie the Hendrickson Comparadun, click on his name for the link to some excellent fly tying vids.

Hope your steelheading and trout fishing are good for you. 

Tight lines.

Sunday, March 11, 2012

Salmon River report and more...

Back on the river for the last few days.  A lot of bedding activity in the usual areas.  Water flow has been at 500cfs for a while but it is scheduled to increase later today to 900cfs.  This is due to the weather forecast, 50s -60s into April and no freezing temps at night.  This all means that any snow pack left in the Tug Hills will be melting and in all likelihood will be gone completely by the end of this week.  I don't expect any heavy run off, there just isn't enough snow to make that happen.  However, when this is gone you will see the release cut back, probably down to 335cfs, in about a week from now.  Let's hope it doesn't drop lower.  Once the snow melt is finished you will see the water temps rising and if they are anywhere close to their forecast we could see water temperatures hit 50 degrees  by April 1. 

The tributaries west of the Salmon River will loose water fast over the next week if we get no substantial rain fall.  Those to the north will get a little more volume as the Tug melts, but once that is done the flows will drop pretty quick.  The next week or so should be very good fishing on the tribs north of the Salmon River.

Fisheries Report

This past February the New York State DEC released it's New York's 2011 Lake Ontario Fisheries Program Highlights.  To say the least it is a good report.  With the focus on the Lake Ontario and eastern basin tributaries here are a few tidbits.

First of interest to me is the tributary creel surveys done by the state. 

Total estimated angling effort for all tributaries was 1,111,362 angler hours. The Salmon River accounted for 68% of the total with 751,127 angler hours. 

The estimated catch and harvest of Chinook Salmon on all tributaries surveyed were 125,180 and 45,214, respectively; below 2005/2006 estimates. The Salmon River accounted for 68% (85,106) of the catch and 70% (31,516) of the harvest. 

Coho Salmon were caught in 11 of the 21 tributaries surveyed, totaling 30,676 fish. The estimated catch increased markedly from the 2005 (18,163 fish) and 2006 (5, 804 fish) surveys. The Salmon River accounted for 95% of the catch (29,113) and 97% of the harvest (10,154). 


Seventeen of the 21 tributaries surveyed had reported catches of steelhead. For all tributaries surveyed, the total estimated catch and harvest were 58,846 and 5,366, respectively. The Salmon River had the highest estimated catch (39,697; 68% of total) and harvest (3,657; 75% of total). The release rate for steelhead on all tributaries combined was 92%, and was 91% on the Salmon River. (italics mine)

Chinook salmon Marking Project
In 2008, NYSDEC purchased an automated fish marking trailer (Autofish) which is capable oadipose clipping and/or applying coded wire tags (CWTs) to salmon and trout at a high rate of speed and accuracy. To determine the proportions of wild and hatchery Chinook salmon in Lake Ontario, all Chinook Salmon stocked by New York and Ontario from 2008-2011 were marked with an adipose fin clip. In 2011, preliminary results indicate that 38% of Chinook Salmon harvested by anglers in Lake Ontario were wild. The proportion of wild Chinook Salmon observed in most New York tributaries varied by fish age but was generally low (i.e., 5-12%), except in the Salmon River where approximately 44% of angler-caught Chinook Salmon were wild.  (italics mine)

In my view there are 3 factors that contribute to this.  One is the pen rearing and stocking of salmon as opposed to hatchery rearing.  Non-hatchery fish have proven to be healthier and have better survival rate as compared to hatchery fish.  Second is the elimination of snagging back in the early 90s.  This has resulted in more fish left to spawn and snagging was only allowed (legally) in probably the best spawning water for salmon, Altmar to Pineville.  Third is the required minimum release that was required by the DEC last time FERC licensing was needed.  This resulted in spawning beds staying covered during the incubation and alvine stage of a salmons life. 



This latter point is why I feel the Salmon River would never sustain any significant steelhead population with out stocking.  During the incubation and alvine stage of the steelheads life the Salmon River is flowing at minimum release which means the spawning beds are high and dry.  Should the state ever suspend the steelhead stocking programs the steelhead fishery would virtually disappear from the Salmon River.  The only Lake Ontario tribs on this side of the lake (US) that could sustain a naturally reproducing steelhead population is the Niagara River, the Black River and possibly the Genessee River.  (Back to the state of the fisheries report.)

Projects completed in 2011

A new well site identified in a hydro-geological survey at the NYSDEC Salmon River Fish Hatchery was developed and began contributing approximately 200 gallons per minute to the hatchery well water supply in September.  



The Stony Creek angler parking area on Delaney Road (County Rt. 152, Jefferson County) was completed in September.

Projects ongoing

In an ongoing effort to improve Salmon River Hatchery water supplies, the development of a shallow infiltration well will be further investigated in 2012. 

To improve public outreach efforts at the Salmon River Hatchery, new aquaria and interpretive displays will be installed in the visitor’s center in 2012. In addition, an underwater camera will be installed in the fish ladder, allowing the public to view fish on a closed-circuit TV monitor. That would be cool!

Final thoughts

We had a awesome fall season on both salmon and steelhead.  I believe that we are going to continue to see exceptional fishing here in the Salmon River continue for some time to come.  I have been guiding here since 1988 and through the years since the state has put a lot of research and effort into the Lake Ontario fishery including it's tribs, trying to get a handle on the resource and how to sustain it.  Seems like it's starting to come together, only time will tell.  For now though there are a lot of happy lake and tributary fishermen.

Tight lines.




Sunday, March 4, 2012

Lake Ontario tributaries report

Spent most of this past week off the Salmon River and fished quite a few tribs with clients.  The water level in most of the tribs we fished is in good shape, plenty of water for steelhead.  The tribs to the north of the Salmon River were a little higher than those to the west and also tended to be alittle more off color, not muddy but cloudy.  As for quantity of fish, not a lot but most did hold fish, both steelhead and browns.  A few streams we saw no fish, at least not where we poked around.

We fly fished all these tribs with good success.  We indie fished using mostly black stone fly nymphs in #12-16.  A lot of small stones flies out on the banks now.  Also Copper Johns were working good in # 12-16.  We fished these CJ's on the end of the tippet with a dropper run off the hook.  I like to run Glo bugs on the dropper as they drift higher in the water column than the CJ's, helps to cover more water.

Spawned out Steelie
Didn't see much spawning activity, however, we did land a few steelhead with loose eggs and even landed  a couple that were already spawned out.  All fish we landed were chrome, didn't hit any that looked as though they had been holding over since last fall.  Judging by that I'd believe that the tribs will be seeing a lot of spawning activity very soon.

As for the Salmon River itself the release is up to 900cfs as of a few days ago and the gauge at Pineville is running at 1060cfs at this time.  We have had quite a bit of rain and some snow (none sticking to the ground as the temps are above freezing) since this last Wednesday.  The reports I got off anglers who did fish the river is that it was SLOW.  One fella I spoke to Thursday said they pin fished with a guide, floating from Pineville to the Ballpark. He had ONE bobber drop and landed that one fish.  He is a very good fisherman so it's not the man, it's the fish.  If your having slow action right now it's fairly typical of this time of the year.  The fish are setting up to spawn and their attention, well, they're a little distracted.  Work hard and cover alot of water, you'll find fish that will cooperate.  I have a good fly pattern for spawning steelhead and will put a post together when I get  minute.

We should have very fishable water for this spring.  We don't have a heavy snow pack in the Tug Hills so any high, run-off water shouldn't last too long if we get any.

Tight lines.