Fishing the Rapids during the Run

Coho taken in the rapids at the bottom of the Long Bridge Hole in Pulaski, N.Y.

This week marks the time to get excited about Oswego County’s salmon runs.

Oh sure, a few precocious kings and cohoes have been teasing gung-ho, big-game anglers since the end of August; but you ain’t seen nothin’ yet!

Thousands of kings and cohoes will rip through the rapids from now until late next month. So many, in fact, cousin Staash claims “they’ll raise the water level a couple notches.”

You can bet the fish are gon’na draw legions of anglers from all over the Northeast, too.

Inexperienced in the ways of salmon in the fast water, most of these guys will think like humans and surround the big, deep  holes,  thinking they’re  the best spots to catch the trophies swimming around in their imaginations.

The fish are sure to be there, and fishing the rapids is one of the surest ways to find them.

You see, out in the big pond salmon are accustomed to being the biggest kids on the block. They bring that attitude with them when they enter the river, aggressively striking anything that gets in their way. Their confidence quickly fades after tasting the sting of a hook, or encountering excited anglers chasing after them.

That sends most of them heading for cover in the deep pools…where they encounter more hooks and more fish. So what’s a salmon to do?

Run!

And into the rapids it goes.

An exciting way to catch one is to swing a streamer through the current. Good patterns are wooly buggers in trout colors (brown or chartreuse) and Mickey fins.

Good spots to try on the Salmon River include Pineville Pool, Long Hole, Trooper Hole, Ball Park Run and Staircase.

Don’t be aggressive. Simply cast the streamer across the river and let the current swing it back to your side…and hold on.

After all, any fly-fisher can tell you: The drug is the tug!

Low Water Salmon

By Spider Rybaak

The results of Captain Dick Stanton's outing last Saturday morning.

Nestled in an incredibly beautiful and productive web of waterways, Oswego County ranks high on the short list of the world’s greatest freshwater fishing destinations. And this summer we’re proving it in spades. While all the other self-proclaimed capitols of the fishing world are crying because the drought has drastically reduced water levels--and creel counts--our charter captains are smiling, pulling into port with coolers loaded with trophy salmon.

Take Capt. Richard G. Stanton (315-246-4767), for instance. The last two times he’s gone out, he’s led his highly satisfied clients to 16 keepers (see photos).

“We got these off Oswego, 50 to 70 feet deep, over 90 to 120 feet of water,” reveals Capt. Dick. “The vast majority was taken on Echip flasher/A-Tom-Mik fly combinations, and Moonshine spoons,” he adds.

Anyone who knows anything about Great Lakes salmon knows this is nothing new. Indeed, blessed with the Oswego (Lake Ontario’s second largest tributary) and Salmon (the most famous cold water stream in the Great Lakes) rivers, our corner of Lake Ontario is notorious for drawing the biggest concentration of mature salmon in the lower 48 states.

Unfortunately, the rivers aren’t faring so well...yet. Rain has been so scarce lately, that streams everywhere are running at about half of normal capacity. At this writing, the Salmon River is barely at 185 cubic feet per second (cfs); normal September flow is 300 cfs.

Still, a few salmon are in. Not in any great numbers, but enough to reward patient anglers with some of the most exciting fishing imaginable. You see, the fish are already staged off the Salmon River’s mouth and more are arriving every day. They feed like pigs while waiting for the signal (a drop in the stream’s temperature, rising water, nature’s clock running out, whatever) to collectively enter the flow. And while most wait to storm upriver in mass, there’s always a few that run early, on their own or in small groups, usually after dark.

These precocious critters rule the night. In the morning, they’re caught unaware and become easy prey to early-rising anglers. Veterans that survive daylight’s ambush head for the safety of pools and mill around all day avoiding hooks. 

But they’ll re-enter the rapids in daylight if fishing pressure subsides; and it often does the first couple weeks of September.

The key is to find a spot that isn’t crowded with excited anglers. Then you gotta hunt the beasts stealthily: wear camouflage (on sunny days, blue or white will do) and walk slowly, quietly. Swinging streamers through the rapids, or working egg sacs, gobs of skein or imitations like pieces of sponge in pockets and channels, often produce strikes.

As far as the Oswego River goes, Larry Muroski, owner of Larry’s Oswego Salmon Shop (315-342-2778), says, “The water’s in the low 70s right now [September 9] and it’ll take at least a week, probably a little longer for it to cool down enough for fish to start coming in.”

But come they will; and early indications are this is gonna be a banner year for big ones. 

A word of caution: Wear a personal flotation device whenever wading one of Lake Ontario’s major tributaries. Although the rivers are low and easy to wade right now, you have to remember they drain wide areas. For instance, the Oswego drains the entire Finger Lakes region and Oneida Lake. A storm upriver can send a mini-tsunami barreling downstream, raising the water to dangerous levels without warning. In addition, pay attention to the water level by mentally marking its location on a rock, wall, tree, even your boots; and if you see or feel it rising, get out as quickly as you can.

New Dress Code for the Oswego River: Personal flotation devices required to fish upstream of the power plant--Coast Guard approved, no less.

Capt. Stanton's results on Sunday morning.

Early birds on the Salmon River last Sunday.

Like Minnows to Water

By Spider Rybaak

A couple more students.

You hear old folks talking a lot nowadays about how kids don’t have a handle on the real world.

“They’re so into texting they’re forgetting how to look straight ahead and their fingers and thumbs are mutating, curling and forming calluses on their tips!” claims cousin Staash.

While you couldn’t be faulted for thinking he’s exaggerating, he does have a point: the digital world has made life convenient; so easy, in fact, the wonderful virtual world that electronics brings into our living rooms and backyards can make stepping out into a landscape shrouded in iffy weather and uncooperative wildlife seem risky, or even a terrible waste of time.

Granted, interacting with digital images is the most efficient way known to science for pumping surges of excitement through kids, without them ever getting their hands dirty. But there’s more to life than the sterile audio/visual stimulation found in the digital universe. Indeed, nature whips countless sensations into every second of the day: a breeze’s gentle caress; the cacophony of boisterous waterfowl; the quiet splash of a turtle diving off a log; frogs croaking and jumping  for cover; the scolding of a startled blue heron; the pull of a fish struggling to free itself of a hook…

What’s more, these thrills are free and constantly playing along the banks of the streams and lakes watering Oswego County’s great big back yard. And the best way to launch children--adults and senior citizens, for that matter--into a future steeped in the wonders of the natural world is to take them fishing.

It’s not all that hard to do. All ya need is a rod and reel combo, some bait and a kid--anyone’s’ will do; provided you get the parents’ permission, of course.  There’s plenty of safe spots around to fish, like the parks lining both sides of the river in the city of Oswego; the locks at Fulton and Phoenix; above and below the dam in Caughdenoy; the municipal dock on the north bank in Brewerton; the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation’s Fishing Access Site on CR 37, below the north end of the I-81 bridge; Cleveland Docks on NY 49; Fulton’s Lake Neahtahwanta...

If you don’t know much about angling, don’t worry about it. Kids take to fishing like minnows to water, and if the fish ain’t hittin’, the kids are sure to have fun watching nature bustling all around them.

However, it’s always nice to catch something. In fact, landing a first fish, regardless of size or make (carp, perch, sunfish, bullhead, to mention a few) is sure to etch itself deeply into the person’s memories for life, and might even hook them hopelessly to a lifelong pastime.

With that in mind, me and Mike McGrath, owner of McGrath & Associates Carp Angling Services, have begun conducting free monthly fishing classes this year. Primarily designed for kids, we provide everything from instructions to loaner equipment--and we’ll teach their parents, too.

Our last one was held at Fulton’s Lake Neahtahwanta last month. McGrath, one of America’s pre-eminent carp experts, held 10 children and their guardians captive for two hours, explaining and demonstrating carp subjects ranging from habitat preferences and mixing chum (a recipe of grains, syrups Marukyu baits and other delights used to draw the fish in close) to the knots and terminal tackle they’d need to successfully fish for the species.

After his course in theory, McGrath led the kids to a spot on the lake, cast out a couple lines and promptly caught a 10 pound carp. The students and their parents were mesmerized by the man’s expertise in fishing for this monstrous species, a popular game fish in Asia and Europe.

Meanwhile, I was on the beach handing out free Berkley PowerBaits, including Atomic Teasers, Power Honey Worms, Ripple Shads, Atomic Mites and Wigglers, and Johnson Beetle Spins to each student, and loaning Shakespeare Classic rod and reel combos to kids who didn’t have their own fishing equipment.

Worms were also available, but half-way through the session, so many kids (95 percent) were catching everything from bluegills and pumpkinseeds to white and yellow perch on the PowerBaits, everyone started using them and the worms were spared.

Our next class is this Saturday, August 18, at Lake Neahtahwanta’s Bullhead Point (where the gazebo stands on the pier), from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. To get there, head west on NY 3 in Fulton and follow it west to the edge of town.

For more info, contact me at srybaak@yahoo.com or McGrath at mmcgrath2@twcny.rr.com.

A couple of students.

Fishing class...fishing.

McGrath teaching how to mix bait.

Big fish...Wide eyes...and McGrath explaining it

Withdrawing Walleyes from the Bank

Oneida Lake is on the edge.

Fishing the surf.

To the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, it’s the biggest geographic feature splitting the state into northern and southern tiers. For meteorologists, it marks the southernmost spot of the lake effect snow region. And come fall, walleye anglers see it as the best spot around for taking massive quantities of delicious walleyes from its edges: the surf and bank.

Late September’s cooling water temperature starts the fish moving inshore. But the major forays to the shallows don’t start until mid-October.

And they’re in right now…Boy, are they ever.

Normally, reasonably competent anglers expect to catch at least one walleye ranging from 15 to 18 inches every night they go out, doubles sometimes, and a limit at least once.

This year it’s different. The fish are larger. I’ve seen more 22-inchers already than I’ve seen any other autumn so far this century. In addition, I’ve seen a couple two-footers, and one that went 25 inches.

The hottest spot is Oswego County’s southeastern edge, particularly the area around Cleveland. On any given night, a line of anglers forms on the sagging concrete wall of the Cleveland Dock Fishing Access Site, working stickbaits in the shallow water parallel to the north shore.

Others walk out on the decaying breakwall on the southern end of the FAS and take walleyes from the surf by casting due west.

The “eyes” are there pigging out on massive schools of buckeyes and shad, in water so shallow, the whites of their bellies look like whitecaps as they take the minnows on the surface.

If you think that’s exciting…it gets better. In fact, the autumn bite provides the greatest sensual feast fishing has to offer. For example, on windless nights you stand a good chance of seeing a school of bait moving right for you. Appearing like a choppy spot on the glassy surface, the patch of ripples slides silently past ya, often erupting into a jumping rain as walleyes charge into the group for dinner.

Equally thrilling is when a walleye--or sheepshead, bass, whatever--takes the lure at your belly right when you’re getting ready to pull it out of the water. Sometimes the hit is so violent, it’ll send a small tsunami into your waders.

This fabulous bite will continue until mid-November, slowly petering out until ice seals the lake for winter.

Osceola's Wayne Carew with a typical walleye taken at the Cleveland docks.

A good night's catch.

The night fishing scene at the Cleveland docks.

This 22-incher shows 2010's crop of walleyes are larger than normal.