Jay Peck's Blog

At this time we are officially calling steelhead season over. It is time to go trout fishing. That being said. There are still plenty of steelheads still in the Salmon River. As of writing this report the Salmon River Fish hatchery still has several tanks full of steelheads that have yet to leave and drop down through the river. I suspect we will have about two more weeks of productive steelhead fishing.  As all of you know I cannot live a river with Steelhead in it and no one fishing it. How often do we get a chance to fish for steelhead with green leaves on the trees? I will still make the occasional run through my favorite pools for a few more weeks, when the opportunity provides itself.  If you are interested in one last chance, too fish for steelhead feel free to contact me.

The water flows in the Salmon River is at 185 CFS Summer minimum flows. Ironically this low flow has provided the most consistent fishing we have had on the Salmon River all spring. Water temperatures have also remained fairly consistent even in the hot weather holding around the mid 50s to below 60° mark. Obviously we are fishing for drop back steelhead, which means we must cover a lot of water. As I said earlier the month of May is swing season. We have found the best fishing from mid river on down. It seems that when the steelhead get to mid river they have recovered enough from spawning and have started to feed. With the lower water flows the fish are more concentrated in the bigger pool, we also are using lighter tips, which makes the casting far more enjoyable. For flies the brown and copper woolly bugger are also known as steelhead crack been catching the majority of the fish. Also the standard smaller intruders and leech patterns taking their share fish. 

I will be starting to concentrate my efforts on the trout streams and river now. The water flows have improved over the last week, do to the rain we get. We were dry enough that the heavy rains ware not enough to bring the water up to much. The hatches on the trout streams and river are moving along fast, do to the hot weather. There is still Hendrickson and olives hatching. By now the caddis is starting to show up in the bug mixes.  Most of the bug activity will start around mid afternoon and go until dark. Look for Hendrickson spinner s at the end of the day. Keep in mind for a spinner fall to happen we need air temperatures to be above 60°. If this does not happen on a particular evening expect the spinner fall to be more intense the following evening. I am in the process of working on a few unique trout fishing adventures. These streams and rivers are best described, as rivers off the grid. For now all I can say, stay tuned.