Jay Peck's Blog

 It is official our conservation department has declared that we are in drought conditions, what a surprise we knew that for a few months now. Obviously not much has changed with water flows. As I stated previously in my updates, water flows continue to remain extremely low; complicating the conditions the extreme hot weather certainly doesn’t help the water temperature.

It has been a couple of weeks since my last update. Oatka Creek, and the surrounding creeks and rivers, the Trico hatch continue to come off every morning. At this stage the hatches are a little sporadic, heavy some mornings other mornings not so heavy. This hatch pattern is typical for this time of year. If you are planning on going on the water keep in mind to monitor water temperatures. We do not need to beat up our resource for just a couple of days of fishing.

Fall is coming; the tributary season will be here soon enough. Couple points of interest, first off reports from the lake are interesting. The boats are experiencing some of the best fishing they have seen in the past few seasons. They are at this time reporting consistent catches of Chinook salmon. This is good news for us, there appears to be a decent population of mature salmon. Hopefully they will be migrating I into our rivers this fall. With the previous mild winter and the hot summer we are enduring. There has been a good growing season on the lake this summer. A dramatic change from the last two years, when water temperatures hardly reached the low 50° mark.

Second point is obviously we are in drought conditions. It is going to take substantial rainfall bring us out of this. Because of the drought conditions I am anticipating fishing in low water conditions for at least the initial salmon season. Summer minimum flow for the Salmon River is 185 CFS, this tailor-made for us fly fisherman.  The salmon will run the river at this low water flow. Also keep in mind, fall of 20/12 was one of the greatest salmon runs ever experienced and was during a drought year. The water flows on the Salmon River was 185 CFS that year If the salmon are there they are going to run. In low water condition fly fishermen have the advantage.

Note;

Even though it is Midsummer it is time to start planning your fall fishing.

We are going to be offering another fishing option for early salmon season, running from late August to mid September. This will be fishing for salmon in the morning for either Atlantic Salmon or Chinook salmon depending on availability. Then heading off to the Brook trout water for an afternoon of trout fishing.

We are also offering two spey casting classes.

Date for the casting clinic are

Clinic 1; September 3 Saturday, starting time 9:00 AM to 2:00 PM. Meet at Pineville fishing excess parking Clinic 2; October 1 Saturday, starting time 9:00 AM to 2:00 PM. Meet at 2.A fishing excess parking

Also keep in mind, If you are considering fishing this fall I would highly recommend that you give me a call so that you can get your date and more importantly find lodging, especially if you plan to fish the Salmon River. Please feel free to give me a call [Cell 585-233-0436] and discuss any concerns and your options.