Zombie King Salmon

My final trip to the SR this year was a good one.  Trevor & I made a day run with father & son , Bill & Will.  This was a plan that was born at a couple of scout meetings throught the year.  Everyone was pretty much a novice salmon angler so I wanted to make sure everyone got to fight a fish.  Mission accopmplished. 

Bill with a hefty spawned out hen.  He is admittedly not much of a fisherman and hasn't done much fishing.  Welcome to your new addiction Bill.

Here is his son Will fighting one of 5 or 6 hel landed throughout the day.  He got the nack of things only after a couple of hours toutering on spotting fish on proper presentation.

My son Trevor fought several kings today and finally got this male to come in to get his picture taken.

The salmon season is winding down as you can tell most of these fish are spawned out and headed out.  We saw lots of guys fighting steelhead today.  It should be a great chome season .  I have a couple of friends in Oswego County now and I should be getting reports from them soon.  More to come.

KING SALMON

Al, Greg & Derrick joined me in Pulaski this weekend for some salmon fishing.  Great to get together with old friends for some time on the water.  Saturday proved beyond expectations with comfortable and sunny weather for most of the day on the DSR.  Saturday night was like hurricane conditions off Lake Ontario.  The awning on the camper made a great sail that rocked us all to sleep.  Sundays weather was nice again until we left and it rained all the way home.

Being sucessful at King salmon fishing takes a lot of practice and you gotta pay your dues.  It's a totally different game than trout.  I have put in enough time in the Pulaski fishery to learn the way to do it right.  Legend has it that Kings do not bite during the spawn.  This picture is proof that they do.  If this fish had been lined/flossed, the hook would be stuck from the outside of the mouth in not from the inside out.  Obviously this fish "took" the fly.




THE REPORT: I limited out on Saturday with two males about 24" and a spawned out hen in the 12 to 14 pound range.  I caught 2 more and released them.  The real heart breaker was a 25 pound hen that came unbuttoned.  Sunday I was in the right place at the right time to land a 20 pound hen just upstream from the Tressile Pool.   My buddies are getting closer to payday with every trip.  They all were able to get a tug and understand more about spotting and presenting.

Now the work begins.  Filleting and preping for the smoker and canning.

The Rewards of Autumn Fly Fishing

What a great weekend.  Fall  colors are splashing up and the fishing was just as good as the Adirondack eye candy. 

Every winter I spend countless hours pouring over maps and pick brains of other local outdoorsmen to put together a coming season "To-Do" list.  Most of these waters I go to investigate are potential Native Brook Trout locations so I'm not going to name them on the blog.  Saturday I went to "check off" one of those places.  What I found was way better than I expected.  Huge granite cuts recently washed and scoured by hurricane rains. The brookes are making very light takes this weekend.  I landed one but in true brookie style he was blasting crazy and photo shy.  I need to work on my camera skills so no photo.  I did hook and land a surprise brownie in this plunge pool  

Sunday was a super "bluebird" day.  I set the truck northward and fished the Boreas for a couple hours and landed a brookie in full fall color.  Drat! I left the SD card in the laptop.OK another beauty with no image to remember but the one in my brain.  I left the Boreas and stopped at a reliable spot on the way home.  All the salmon this summer were just over par size.  this one was about 13".  Super jumps! A nice way to finish the weekend of fishing.  

Early Fall Brown

What a nice crisp fall day.  I went to check out one of my "usual" place.  The flow is still up from Hurricane Irene.  The water temp was 59 degrees with a few gray mayflies and white midges in the air.  I didn't see any fish rising but hey, it's fall, no big deal.  I fished an Ausable Ugly tandemed with a brown backed scud.  My first fish was this German Gentleman

As I left, I called a buddy who fished the DSR today.  The words "Ya' shoulda" been here today"  came through the cell phone.  Enough said; Trev and I are packed and ready to leave early for Pulaski tomorrow morning.  Huge Coho run today.  Looking for a little payback for last weekends trip.

A Pulaski report to my buddy Alec

Alec,



Pulled into Selkirk at 6 Friday night. We decided just to bring a tent. Just me and Trevor so why not? SKUNKS! We had a skunk fight in our camp around 2am. I packed all our food & garbage in the truck so the skunks were probably angry about that too. Can't describe how nasty a skunk fight/breeding is, just something you have to experience to get the full effect & experience from for yourself. The guy next to us had racoons the past 3 nights and they trashed everything he had.






We did make it to the DSR around 5:30 the following morning and down to the river at 6. Nothing was moving. We hiked from the Flats to the Lower Clay and up to the Wall- I saw one small Atlantic Salmon splashing his way down through the run just above the Flats. Wasn't really interested in that. We poked around in all the places I know hold fish. Joss Hole was the only place to find a king. We squeezed in between the some snaggers and spent sometime casting to non-players (about 4 fish in the pool; best as I could figure). You know snagging isn't my thing so we went up to the truck for lunch. We hiked back down to the holding spot where you landed yours last year. Nothing. I looked though and casted to the big pool just above there for 45 minutes- no fish. We went to Selkirk, packed our stuff & left. Lots of cars at the Tressile. All the Tuesday run, I figured, was probably there by now but my feet hurt and my Orvis waders are now Orvis soakers. I had had enough. Got home around 6.


Stiles

I love e-mail questions

I love e-mail questions.  What better way to expand the next level of fly fishing than to learn and share with other anglers?   I have had several questions from the inbox over the last few days asking about September fishing on the Schroon River.  

I believe that a picture speaks a thousand words.

Any Questions??

NOAA has predicted 4 to 7 inches of rain for the Eastern Adirondacks in the next 72 hours.  The Schroon watershed drains 600 square miles of  the Eastern Adirondacks.  Doing the math, this means the river is going to be blown out and unsafe to fish for at least two weeks.

My fall weekends are spent chasing King and Coho Salmon in Pulaski ever chance I get.

Can you blame me?

Hydraulic Fracturing and Environmental Water Quality

Preface/Disclaimer/

As my life time goes by, I find that I personally am doing a better job of environmental stewardship. Gone is my burning barrel in the back yard (and most of my neighbors too). I return & recycle all of our steel, aluminum, glass and plastic. My motivation to do this is primarily economic but I do "feel environmentally better" after the work is done. I'm not an environmental radical. I am, however, very skeptical of big business when they tell you "It's perfectly safe" & what they do will help insure our liberty as Americans.

I know bullshit when I hear it.

Lately, There seems to be a lot of news media coverage on the subject of hydraulic fracturing.

Drilling horizontally and using clean water to pressurize and then retrieve hydrocarbon based fuels just sounds like a bad idea.  Just a couple of years ago, every Mom & Pop gas station had to replace their in ground fuel tanks to avoid fuel/water contamination, right?



Think about it: Commingling fresh, clean water with toxins. Hmmmmmm?

An industry-supported fund to pay for potential environmental damage caused by hydraulic fracturing in New York State
is just stupid. (my opinion)

 

What if people get sick from drinking contaminated water? 

What if the fish are all dead?

 

Money can't fix that.  (common sense)

I encourage you to do some reading & research. Consider your sources and make up YOUR OWN MIND.

Essential Question:

Why is hydraulic fracturing exempt from the

Federal Safe Drinking Water Act ?

Here are some links:
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s111-1215
http://www.tu.org/press_releases/2010/trout-unlimited-calls-on-gas-companies-to-disclose-chemicals-used-in-marcellus-s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAWawNVziXI
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/07/31/us/natural-gas-water-contamination.html?scp=4&sq=hydraulic%20fracturing&st=cse
http://water.epa.gov/type/groundwater/uic/class2/hydraulicfracturing/index.cfm
http://www.riverkeeper.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/Fractured-Communities-FINAL-September-2010.pdf