Jay Peck's Blog

The biggest change over the past week is the water flows. The water flow started out at 335 CFS, now is reduced to 185 CFS. The drought continues to have its effect. Hopefully we will get some heavy rains soon. Please note; with the present low water flows the lower fly-fishing zone on the Salmon River has been closed. As you can imagine this reduction in water flows is having a big effect on the fishing. Fist the fish are still on the move, the paste of the run has been picking up over the last week or so. This is normal for early October to see heavy runs of salmon; it is now the peak of the run. Obviously with the fishing, we have had made some adjustments to the low water. Nothing-unusual most of our adjustments are basic fishing 101. Low water salmon are more spooky, now, so we needed to back off the fish and make longer cast, lengthen our leaders and of course lighten up on the weight.  Often all we need to do is use a bead headed fly and a little line handling skills. This is often more than is needed to get the fly and keep the fly deep enough for the fish to eat it. The further off you can fish, the more relaxed the salmon will be.  Relaxed salmon will bite more aggressively and well stay in their respective holding location considerably longer. Keep in mind that at this stage of the salmon run, spooked salmon will often react by continuously pushing upriver. We are now in early October and the salmon spawning activity is growing on a daily basis. We should be at pick spawning soon. We are on now occasionally starting to see a few steelheads showing up. Hopefully these fish will keep their normal schedule. The fly pattern that seems to be developing, is at first light in the morning we are having good success with bright colored flies like size 6 crystal willy buggers in colors of bright pink, Purple and occasionally chartreuse. After that once the water gets lit up by the sun, We need to drop down in tippet size. At this point we are fishing size 6 willy buggers or other patterns of equal size. Also picking flies with the flash that is tone down has also been effective. With the spawning now going on, egg flies will now become important addition to the fly box. 

Note;

At this time I still have some prime October days open ,27,30 ideal dates for fishing Steelhead. Please feel free to give me a call [Cell 585-233-0436] and discuss any concerns and your options.