New York, October 2012

Well, what can I say...  A friend and I drove out to New York to fish a few well known streams and one that we thought wasn't that popular but as we checked out the stream access points we were quite mistaken.  I will mention it as I type. 

We got on the road at around midnight on the 24th and would fish the Lake Ontario tributaries from the Oak Orchard all the way up to Sandy Creek near Watertown, NY all in total we would fish 4 tributaries.  I was invited to hang out with a friend from work at his cabin which was near the world famous Salmon River with a small group of people for a weekend of beer drinking and four-wheeling and most of all partying with a great group of people. 

Our plan was to fish during the day and at night party and then do it all over again each day we were there.  When my friend and I arrived Thursday morning at the Oak we hightailed it to our favorite spot.  Surprisingly we had that whole side of the river to ourselves with the opposite bank lining up with fishermen.  The morning bite was as usual fast and furious.  I would have to say nearly everyone was hooking up on nearly every cast.  The hole was loaded with brown trout, steelhead, and the old moldy salmon.  The fish were hitting on just about anything that was thrown in the water ranging from large magnum spawn bags, beads, egg flys and woolly buggers.  I honestly believe that it really didn't matter what was tossed the fish were going to hit it.  But then again this is the norm for this stream. 

As the day went on and the sun began to shine hot and bright it turned the fish off and they got a major case of  lock jaw.  Now, don't get me wrong the fishing was still good but nothing like it was earlier.  So... We decided it was time to move up river and then from there we decided to head East and fish some new water as we made our way to the mighty Salmon River.  As we were making our way up river each spot we saw had somebody fising it.  We finally decided to make some casts at the dam and it was just loaded with fish and man were they skittish.  If your presentation was not spot on the fish would not bite at all.  We had a few hook ups.  Before we left I made some casts at my favorite spot at the dam and hooked into a brown trout the had to weigh close to 20 pounds.  This was the largest fish I had hooked in the nearly 20 years I have been fising this river.  As I was bringing the fish to the net the line broke just above the hook.  I was devastated but life goes on.

That afternoon we called it quits and headed East.  From there we stopped and fished the Oswego River.  Now this river is massive.  It's hard to describe just how big this water is.  The flows are also dictated by the amount of water dischraged from the hydro-power plants that operate there.  The river was peppered with warnings of high water and that life-jackets are recommended to anyone wading this river.  There were also floating rafts where a stranded fisherman could escape to had they got caught out in the rising water.  My friend did hoot a salmon in the river.  I instead took a spill and shortly there after bought a pair of corkers. 

The next day we headed out to the Salmon River and fished the DSR.  This is a two-mile stretch of private water.  As we arrived down at the river bank we were greeted with a raging torrent of water littered with tons of leaves.  Wading at this time was downright treacherous and the fishing wasn't any better.  We didn't see or hear of any fish caught or hooked that day.  My friend ended up landing one adult steelhead.  Soon after that we walked up stream hoping to find better water but to no avail.  Now, if you decided to fish the DSR it'll set you back $45.00 per day.  The people that ran the booth were not the friendliest people I've met.  They seemed downright rude when we were buying our passes.  My recommendation would be to find other places on the river to fish and save your 45 dollars for other things.  It would have also been nice to know that the river went from 450cfs up to 1000 in just a couple of hours.  It was water that we had a difficult time fishing.  Usually 1000 cfs in my neck of the woods is high and muddy.  So on that note thanks Hurricane Sandy. 

After a few hours of mostly wading from one spot to another and trying not to drown we headed up river.  We got to a hole called the trestle hole.  Below the trestle is a beautiful looking hole that should have yielded a few fish but we were skunked... Oh well, we'll get them next time.  We walked a couple of hundred yards up stream crossing a small channel that seemed quite benign but again we found the wading very difficult and nearly took a spill.  We set up on a bend that was a fairly uniform depth with a massive volume of water flowing past making drifting very tricky and finding fish quite difficult.  Luckily, we ended up with one brief hook-up.  Other than that the fishing was slow for everyone fishing there.  After that we ended our day of fishing and decided to meet up with my friend from work.  Our day ended with four-wheeling, shooting rifles, and drinking lots of beer.

Screen Shot of Sandy Creek

Saturday my friend and I decided to try Sandy Creek which was up near Watertown.  We thought that this was a lesser know stream which would see way less pressure than the Salmon, boy were we wrong.  Sandy Creek down low is a very shallow shale bottomed river with very few and far between holes.  It was kind of reminiscent of the rivers you find here along the Lake Erie shoreline in Ohio and Pennslyvania.  We ended up with one small steelhead to show for our efforts.  The stream does have some potential and does warrant further exploring the next time I am in the area.  Here's a picture of the steelhead.

Small Skipper Steelhead from Sandy Creek

A short time after that we made our way back to the Salmon River and fished the furthest upstrean we were alowed to fish.  We fished a hole called the School House hole.  And again the river was ripping which made finding the fish difficult.  Luckily we caught a few chubs which went an easy 12" each.   Again the fishing wasn't the greatest and we decided to call it a day and drown our sorrows in some more beer. 

Sunday was our last day to fish.  After a great tasting breakfast we quickly said our goodbyes and hightailed it back to the Oak for our last day for fishing.  We the cabin at around 9am and arrived at the Oak sometime around 1 o'clock in the afternoon.  We only had a couple of hours to fish so we traveled light and ended the trip with over a half dozen fish hooked each.  Here's a pick of one of the fish

Brian with Male King Salmon from the Oak

All and all it was a very good trip with some decient fishing.  As luck would have it Hurricane Sandy didn't have much of an effect on the Salmon River.  The flood gates were closed and by Tuesday the river was flowing back at 450cfs.  So.... I'm giving a big thanks to Hurricane Sandy for making my first trip to the Salmon River a difficult one.  Fishing a brand new stream acually made the trip.  I also couldn't have asked for better weather.  But what made the trip memorable was the great people that I shared the each day with.