This week has been a transition week for the Salmon River. The end of an incredible salmon run, the start of the steelhead run. Those of you who head the opportunity to fish the salmon run with me, know exactly what I’m talking about. Massive numbers of fish ran the river, and the Guide service salmon record was broken twice this fall. Going in to this fall the previous record was 37 pounds. This fall we landed a 38 ½ pound Chinook salmon in early September two weeks later we top that fish with a 43 pound salmon. An incredible fish the size of which I thought I would never see. As I said this is been an amazing salmon run. Now the steelhead is starting to show up. Each day I am becoming more confident we are going to have a decent to good run of steelhead. Earlier these fish were incredibly crappy. However water temperatures finally cooled off, and I figured it out their behavior and adjusted. Which is normally what happens with crappy fish, we adapt to their behavior. For now most of the steelhead are still in the lower to mid River.  It will not take long for these fish to start showing up in the upper river including the fly zones.  With the waterfalls that we had this fall there was minimal spawning in the lower river. As a result when the steelhead first come into the river they are not is dialed in on eggs. We are experiencing some wonderful classic fishing with a swinging fly. I suspect for the lower River this is going to be fishing this pattern for sometime to come. Ones the fish get in the mid river they will become more keyed in eggs.

Productive flies; this week the A lot of fun swing variations of small intruders in the lower river. Flies are approximately 2 and half to 3 ½ inches long. I personally like to tie them on plastic tubes, Colors are a mixes of pink, purple, black, white and olive. Did find that pinks and purples were good early today colors, midday olives and black worked excellent. For egg flies size 8 and 10 are working just fine. As for the colors the standard Oregon cheese, orange and chartreuse, pink are working just fine.

Note:

I also have dates available for Rick, in November. For those of you do not know Rick Smith, He has been working with me for over 10 years and is an excellent fly fisherman and Guide. I have no doubt you will enjoy your day on the water with him. Rick will be focusing on the Salmon River and the surrounding smaller rivers for the steelhead fishing.

If you’re interested or have any questions please feel free to give me a call. Cell 585-233-0436

It has been a while since my last update, long busy days on the water. After a long period of hot dry whether we’re finally getting a little rain. So far the rainfall has not mounted too much run off, the ground is a bit dry. Little luck the rain will become a more of a regular event and we can see an increase in our water flows. As of now water flows have remained at a release of 335 CFS, However this water flow has very little extra run off with it. Water temperatures still remains, warm for this time of year, Temperatures fluctuating between upper 50s and low 60 degrees mark. Despite the warm water temperatures salmon spawning activity is happening all up and down the river. We are still receiving light trickles of fresh salmon almost daily, but the pace of the run has slowed down. There is at this time a lot of salmon from one end of the river to the next. We are focusing most of our salmon fishing efforts in the heads of the pools and in the fast flowing runs.  The salmon are not spending as much time holding in the deeper slower portions other pools anymore. They are focusing on and around spawning habitat.

We are starting to see more steelhead every day. Hopefully this will continue, still guardedly optimistic. Over the pass week there were reports of both steelhead and occasionally a big brown trout being caught, including a few from our groups.  It is early yet for steelhead but things can you do change quickly, Especially when it comes to steelhead fishing.

Productive flies; this week have been more oriented towards egg patterns. Egg sucking leeches and size 4 with black bodies, Orange, chartreuse, pink have been the best colors for this pattern. As the spawning pace increases egg flies are now becoming the daily standard. For now size 8 eggbeaters and nuclear row-bugs in colors of Orange in chartreuse I getting the job done.

Note:

I still have a few prime days available for mid to late October 21,22,27,28,29. These dates are steelhead fishing. The fish are fresh from the lake in full of flight. October steelheads are some of the hottest Fish of the entire tributary season.

I also have also have dates available for Rick, October and November. For those of you do not know Rick Smith, He has been working with me for over 10 years and is an excellent fly fisherman and Guide. I have no doubt you will enjoy your day on the water with him.

If you’re interested or have any questions please feel free to give me a call. Cell 585-233-0436