Jay Peck's Blog

This is our fist week on the Salmon River for spring Steelhead. Looks like our timing is about right. We started the week out with typical spring high water of 1800 CFS we also received a fair amount of rain and the water flow releases quickly spiked to 3500 CFS.  This high water flow definitely made the fishing challenging on the Salmon River. We simply did what any good steelhead fishermen would do, adapt. One of the strong points of the Salmon River watershed is that there is shrouding creek and a few smaller rivers that receive good runs of steelhead. When the main river was at flood levels we were spending time fishing these smaller creeks and rivers. However high water flows normally does not last long and we were soon back on the main river. As of now water flows have dropped all the way down to 750 CFS this is a very comfortable level to fish, especially for us fly fishermen. Water temperatures started out this week quickly rising into the mid 40s. However spring weather has a way of relapsing back into winter mode. We had two days of cold snowy whether. As result water temperatures plummeted and the fishing shut down. As of writing this report water temperatures are starting to stabilize and the fish are coming out of their temperature shack. Judging by the upcoming weather forecast, we are in for a good week of steelhead fishing. By my best guess we are maybe halfway through river steelhead spawn.  We are also finding the fair amount drop back steelhead. These fish are for the most part below the lower fly-fishing zone. Fortunately water temperatures have been cold and the Steelhead that are done spawning have not moved much. We are having great success with a variety of presentations. For the most part, we have caught the majority of our fish swinging flies. During the past cold snap we did however have to slow down our presentation to almost a dead drift to get any reaction from the fish. However at this time, your favorite way to fish, is producing fish. Productive flies; we have head excellent success with small intruders, large leech patterns, willy buggers, egg sucking leech.

NOTE:

I still have dates available. With the late spring we are experiencing, the month of May is looking like a great month for fishing for steelhead with a swinging fly.  As of now I have these dates open May 3,7,9,11,12,13. If you have any questions please feel free to give me a call. Cell 585-233-0436