I arrived before day break, and parked on the shoulder of the road, just before the bridge to one of my favorite small Lake Ontario tributaries. I was early by maybe 10 minutes or so and already there were two guys heading up through the field to find their favorite spot. Soon my friends started to show up, and we got busy setting up our gear. We could hear fish splashing their way upstream from the road, and as we walked down to the stream, everyone was listening to the sounds of the new day in anticipation of hooking our first salmon of 2008. The water was a little on the low side, but the pools and deeper runs looked like they would hold fish. They did! And after a little instruction Dan was fast into his first Chinook salmon of the year. A little while later I wrapped my hand around the tail of the fish and he held it up for a few photos. First fish landed of 2008! Now the sun was working it’s way above the tree line and fish were pushing up past us all morning long. Everyone started to get some hook ups and we spent time helping each other land some very nice fish. For one of our friends it was his first experience with fish of this size, and I must say that he did a wonderful job. With a little coaching on drift fishing with a strike indicator he was able to get a fish to take his fly. Not knowing what to expect, he did not get a good hook set on his first salmon and after a few head shakes the fish was gone. We then moved upstream to find more fish holding in a run, and soon Drew had his first ever Chinook salmon in hand. And after a few smiles for the camera, we released the fish to finish his journey. By about 10:00 am everyone had landed at least one fish, and some were on their 3rd or 4th fish of the day.By 11:00am the fishing had slowed down considerably and we saw very few fish moving upstream. We called it a day! And what a day it was. Beautiful weather, great friends and great fishing to start of our 2008 western NY tributary season. Soon the Brown trout and steelhead will follow. … the fishing will only get better!
my god! that thing is a monster! sounds like you guys definately had a killer day .. like you said, the browns and the steelies are next to follow … looking forward to my first great lakes trip of 2008 … hopefully i find a few willing fish like you guys did! ..
It should be a great year for steelhead. Lots of fish starting to show up in the bigger tribs. And with the one fish a day limit in effect…it will be only a matter of time before you start seeing greater numbers of fish in the rivers and perhaps some really big fish too! You should do really well this year…..and remember, try dead drifting a white or black size 8 or 6 woolly bugger under an indicator this year.
Bfly- You’re not kidding. I don’t know about a wooley bugger, but a size 6-10 white zonker dead drifted is killer. Just started fishing streamers like that last year and it was incredible! It looks like a fish that has been stunned by drifting into fast water while it just tumbles through plus you can swing it at the end of the drift. Any white streamer should work well.
Mike
Slammin Salmon!!!!cool pics.
Nice job on the salmon bfly!! Great job!