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.