True to form
for the month of October, salmon fishing is starting to fire up all along the
lake shore. Despite the low water flows, Chinook salmon are starting to show up
in a few of the Western New York tributaries. Both the Genesee River and Oak
Orchard River have received good runs of salmon.
I am still fishing
the Salmon River, and will be until the end of the month. The salmon run is
still holding up. We have seen some slow-down in the run activity. One day the run
is all out and the next day, very little to no movement. There is so many salmon
in the river that it doesn’t matter. We are still getting all the action we
want.
Despite the
low waters salmon are making their way through the entire river system and have
even reached the upper fly fishing zone. (Note: the lower fly fishing zone
still remains closed.) We are seeing a fair amount of steelhead recently in the
lower river. I will be concentrating my efforts more on steelhead over the
coming days, and the way the conditions are looking, I think my biggest
challenge will be fishing around all the salmon.
Over the
past week the Salmon River watershed received a little more rainfall. However
the ground is still extremely dry. I do not anticipate a change in water flow
yet. We still need a lot more rainfall to get us out of this intense drought.
The river water flow is still holding at 185 CFS. Obviously the fish do not
mind this water flow. The upcoming weather forecast is for cooler weather and a
little more rain. Every bit helps.
We're still
having good success dead drifting and swinging woolly buggers in a variety of
colors and sizes. We have been working between three colors, black/silver,
brown/copper and olive. When fishing in low light conditions, the darker colors
are working the best. In bright sunny conditions olive woolly buggers have been
devastating. Depending on the day and the mood of the fish, the size will very
between a size 4 and a size 6. We have been constantly experimenting throughout
the day, to see which combination of fly size and color will be the best
producers.
For the
Chinook salmon it is now prime spawning time and the river bottom is quickly
filling up with eggs. With the huge run of salmon we are experiencing this
fall, we are going to have a big egg bite. Obviously we are now using a lot more egg
patterns. As of now we are primarily using size 8 nuclear roe bugs. We have
been recently having our best success with the color orange but I suspect the
number of eggs lying around the color Oregon Cheese will become my hot color
soon.
Note:
I have only one date available for fall fishing on the Salmon River: October 27th.
The following November dates will be fishing the Western New York tributaries for
Lake run Brown trout and steelhead:November 7,23,24,25,27,28,29,30.
Please feel free to call the fly shop and talk to Carl. The number is 585-352-4775 or my cell at 585-233-0436
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