Jay Peck's Blog

If I said it once I have said it hundred times, conditions can and do change quickly. This is exactly what has happened. Just about every piece of water we have has coming into fishing condition or is about to. All of our smaller creeks and rivers are now ice free and are in prime fishing condition. The bigger rivers are also in ideal fishing condition or about to. We went from cold snowy winter conditions into late winter to early spring fishing conditions almost over night.

Starting with western New York, we have received some rain recently however. Water flows for Oak Orchard River and all the surrounding creeks are at what I would refer to as a medium level. Keep in mind for Western New York we do not have a snow pack, what little snow we do have is all butt gone. In less weather patterns turn cold and wet, I am anticipating in early spring. Water temperatures have been fluctuating from the mid 30s degree mark to as high as 40°. Start looking for steelhead in transition water between wintering water and spawning habitat. The amount of water we need to be covered is increasing. I suspect that we could see spawning activity at anytime. Once again we still need to get out and cover water to be successful.

Salmon River and the surroundings rivers and creeks. Water flows have risen considerably over the last two days. As of now Salmon River is flowing at 1600 CFS. I suspect this flow is going to continue for sometime. The water shed for the salmon has a considerable amount of snow. Anticipate a normal time schedule for the spring fishing in this area. Even the smaller rivers to the north of the salmon are running very high at this time. Water temperatures will be on the cold side for sometime to come, due to snow melt. Just before the water flows come up, we were experiencing consistent fishing both in the upper and lower end of the river.  The fishing has not been technically easy, we have been having to pay close attention to where and how we present the fly.

Judging by the weather patterns we’ve been having. The spring steelhead fishing season is off to an early start, can’t at least for Western New York. From this time on, rain fall is going to be Important for maintaining river conditions. We can easily be looking at six weeks of spring steelhead fishing for Western New York. We will have to see how the Salmon River comes alive. There’s a lot of snow on the woods in the Salmon River watershed, it will take some time to melt and runoff. Hopefully the snowpack will last until May.

Note;

We still have prime fishing dates are available, for both Western New York Oak Orchard River area and the Salmon River. If you’re interested please feel free to call and we can discuss your options cell 585-233-0436