Steelhead anglers are always thinking about their next fishing trip, so they spend time communicating with other anglers who recently have been fishing.

 

If you have a desire to fish Pulaski, New York’s Salmon River, then read on. “Cyber friend”, Steve and his buddy were there and he emailed images and the following fishing report. 

 

I added some links, maps etc. because I got confused trying to remember what the river looks like or the places that Steve mentions. The good news is that computers and the Internet can take the "mystery" out of a Salmon River report.

 

 

"The last time I fished the Salmon River was eight years ago, but after recently visiting the Salmon Crazy web site, I planned a quick trip.

 

Because of low water predictions, this trip was a “suicide trip,” but as they say, when you "gotta go, you gotta go”.  At least that’s what my fishing buddy says and he is 75 years old and still fishes from dark a.m. to dark p.m.

 

My buddy and I fished the Salmon River back in the 80’s, and we also fished Erie tributaries for salmon back in 1977. He got me talked into returning to New York in 1999 and on that trip I thought I was in fish heaven.  We witnessed strong runs of fish entering the river for the three days that we fished. Pods of fish constantly moved from one hole to the next; and after they would vacate the hole, another pod of fish would move in. This happened every 15 to 20 minutes throughout the day.  I would say to my buddy, pinch me.  Am I dreaming?

 

On this trip, we started the day with a long walk to the “black hole.” If you are not sure of that location, you can see a nice map on Whitakers Sport Shop web site just look for the Douglaston area.  When we got to our fishing spot, we saw a couple of guys already fishing the hole so we went downstream to the top of “the glide.” We fished wooly buggers [black& brown], and caught a couple of fish before starting downstream. I used a spring wiggler to hook and land a nice 15 pounder.  I also hooked fish on jaw breakers, teeny flies in black, green, orange, and sand colors. I hooked some on an Estaz Egg too.  My only failure was when I tried to drift some comets downstream. I donated them to the river when they got snagged on the bottom in the shallow water.

 

I use a 9ft St. Croix and Ross Big Canyon reel.  I was impressed with the tippet I used to land these fish, it was 8lb Maxima Line. That stuff is like steel cable. You really need to pull hard to break it. 

 

Oh yeah, my flies are tied on number 6 hooks, except for the jaw breakers – when I use number 10s. 

 

The attached pictures are of my neighbor Dave catching a 17 pounder,  at the top of the glide hole at the Douglaston Salmon Run (D.S.R.) 

 

   

 

River flow above and below the town bridge was low, but it still packs enough force to knock you off your feet if you are not careful. The water was at 100 cubic feet per second, at 335 or quarter gate, and it was strong.  At 750, I have trouble wading across many places on the river. (River flow is a key to fish movement and fishing success)"

 

Thanks for the report and photos Steve.

 

Click the egg fly photo to open a link that provides tying instructions for some Steelhead flies.