Jay Peck's Blog

The fishing this past week has been a bit more consistent. However looking forward we are in for another challenging week, typical for this time of the year.

Starting with Western New York. Water flows over the past week has been very good, surprisingly is that temperatures also remained really consistent. This made for a good week of fishing.  As always, we are in for some changes in conditions. Many of our rivers and creeks in western New York, this time of year get water supplementation from the canal system. This supplement water is now coming to an end. Waterfalls will be dropping significantly, if they have not already done so. We will soon be back to dealing with low water conditions. Hopefully we will get some good old-fashioned wet weather, either in the form of Snow or rain. From this point we will need to pay closer attention to water level conditions. Keep in mind water fluctuations often means new fish.

Productive flies; our favorite egg patterns are still performing very well, in the standard size and colors. There is now a lot of spawned out Brown trout looking for food. The streamer fishing has been very productive. We have been doing very well with size 6 bunny streamers and woolly buggers, in a wide range of colors. The best color we have found so far is white.

Salmon River; water flows have been very good all this week. Water levels have been flowing at 1200 CFS plus runoff. Look like water flow will hold up throughout the upcoming week. Increase in water flows has definitely brought in a few new fish. However the fishing on the salmon has been a little of the hot and cold story. A lot of this has to do with water temperature fluctuations, once again, the normal fishing headaches of this time of year. Along with having to deal with fluctuating water temperatures, the fishing pressure this past week has been very high for this time of year. Fortunately the bulk of the fishing effort is in the upper river, leaving mid river and lower river with considerably less fishing effort. Keep in mind the lower portion of the river may not have as many fish but they are often willing to play.

For productive flies; Stay with your favorite egg flies and size 12 through 8 and in your favorite colors. Do not be afraid to experiment with both fly size and color. The swing fly has been more productive this fall than in years past, Especially in the lower river. Both bunny style and intruder style flies have been very productive. As always keep these styles of flies no larger than 3 ½ inches for best results.

A fishing tip; dealing with challenging fishing conditions this time of year.

Lots of time and frustration, can be saved by paying attention to water temperature. Knowing if water temperatures are falling or rising, you can easily project where in the river the fish are sitting. Greatly reducing the amount of water that you have to this to find a fish that is willing to bite.