Jay Peck's Blog

This past week gave us a taste of spring. We had not just had spring time temperatures but also water temperatures. Our smaller river and creeks cleared out of ice and gave us a taste of springtime fishing. Starting with Weston New York, even though we had some rain earlier in the week, Oak Orchard River water flow did not respond much. Water flow still remain low, however there is a few fish holding in the deeper pockets. The smaller rivers and creeks was where the best fishing happened. Depending on where you were fishing we found both steelhead and post spawn Brown trout. However and this is a big however, the weather did change by the end of the week. As everyone knows we now have some of the coldest weather of the entire winner. Everything is locked back up with ice for now. Hopefully the upcoming week, we’ll have some moderation in our whether and we can get back on the water soon.

The Salmon River; the water flows have come up, in fact we have had two increases in water flows over the past week.  We started out with a flow of 335 CFS by the end of the week a water flow of 1250 CFS. The 1250 CFS water flow is a bit much for comfortable winter steelhead fishing, for us fly fisherman.  Productive water is very limited and current speeds are way too fast to make proper winter condition presentations. We need to wait until water flows Drop down below the 750 CFS mark. Keep in mind that this recent round of high water is pulling in new fish from the lake. Even during this cold snap steelhead should be trickling in. As for fly patterns, not much has changed. For the swing, small intruders around two and a half to 3 and half inches long is getting the job done. Keep in mind with high water flows try fishing intruders around 4 to 6 inches long. Sometimes you need to put a big target out for them.

Note;

A reminder, as most of you know my booking calendar is now open. Time to start planning you’re up coming fishing trips. Feel free to give me a call discuss dates and fishing opportunities. Cell 585-233-0436