Last Call for Winter steelies

By Spider Rybaak

Sue and Tiny with the day's nicest steelie.

A famous journalist wasn’t getting the attention he felt he deserved from his Salmon River guide so he asks:  “Is the weather always this poor around here?”

“Nope,” responds the guide, “it changes sometimes.”

The noble writer turns red.

Since they hadn’t had a hit in about 30 minutes, the humble guide figures that’s the cause of his client’s antsiness and tries remedying the situation by announcing: “We’re movin’ after this cast.”

“Where to next?” asks the wordsmith.

“Glass hole.”

The writer completely loses it. “A guide’s never called me that before.  Take me back to shore this very instant,” he demands with such authoritative anger the river stops running for a split second.

So the guide takes him to the take out, passing several anglers battling steelies along the way.

Moral of the story: Listen to your guide or, don’t let the weather stop ya.

Last Sunday and Tuesday brought both points home.

February 24th found me Spey casting wooly buggers in the pool below the bridge in Pineville. Snow came and went at 10 minute intervals. An hour after starting I’m fishless and ready to leave. Seeing a guy entering the river on the other side holds me back. After all, I need affirmation that my decision to quit is a good one.

But he catches chrome.  And it didn’t take him more than 10 minutes. The most irritating thing about it is he’s Spey casting, too. But he’s using a marabou streamer and he’s hitting a seam I can’t reach from my side.

As tempted as I am to cross the bridge and fish next to him, I like my space too much and decide to go elsewhere, namely the stretch of river between the Short Bridge Pool and Long Bridge Pool in Pulaski.

Fish were there (I know because I watched a pin-head catch one floatfishing an egg sac) but they ignored my streamers.

Tuesday finds me in a drift boat with Captain Ryan “Tiny” Gilbert (One More Fish Guide Service; 315-529-6427) and Sue Bookhout, an Outdoor Communicator and Online Visibility Expert with Sue B Media (315-378-7738), a company she owns.

Launching in Pineville, our first stop is a no-name pool a couple hundred yards downstream of the first bend.

Tiny and Sue are floatfishing with beads; I’m Spey casting a wooly bugger.  Tiny suggests I floatfish, too, but I know better and keep whipping my fly.

Before long, they’re getting all kinds of action—and I can’t buy a hit. The sun’s high in an azure sky, so I whip out my cameras and, thinking I’ll show them, make like a photographer. I get some pretty good shots of an insect hatch and ice formations…but no fish.

If, as the book of fishy wisdom says, the proof is in the catch, I re-learned a valuable lesson: I don’t know it all. But the rebel in me argues: having fun Spey casting and making memories with great photos is every bit as valuable?

With an attitude like that you can’t lose, eh?

Currently, loads of overwintering steelhead are spread throughout the stream. The water’s running less than 200 cfs, a very fish-friendly rate. While the majority is enjoying success floatfishing  with beads and egg sacs, guys throwing inline spinners and streamers are catching rainbows, too.

Steelie in the snow.

Fishing from ship and shore.

Last ice.

Spots in the snow: winter hatch.

First Snow on the Salmon River

By Spider Rybaak

Migell Wedderburn, Pennelville, NY, with a nice steelie he took in the catch-and-release section of the Salmon River on a home-made, egg-pattern fly.

Lake effect snow warnings kept crawling along the bottom of the screen while I watched Syracuse University’s basketball team trounce George Washington on December 10. Up to a foot was predicted to drop in the “snow zone,” a band running between northern Oswego and southern Lewis Counties.

First snow always excites me. After that, it progressively loses its appeal as winter drags on, so that by March snow’s the last thing in the world I’m dreaming about. But right now it’s kind’a magical, bringing memories of Christmases past, sugarplum fairies, fun--but useless--stuff like that. 

So the next morning me and Susan headed for Pulaski to feast our senses on what promised to be one of this winter’s nicest, most scenic days—maybe get a chance to nail a steelhead, too.

Stepping out of the door, we were disappointed that a dusting of pure white wasn’t carpeting the neighborhood. A crinkly skim of ice etched the water in the bay out front (we live on Oneida Lake), but that was all the frigid autumn night left behind.

We got on I-81 and headed north. Snow was absent all the way to Parish. Suddenly, spots of whitebegan punctuating the countryside. Nothing exciting, yet, but the spots grew into pockets…pillows…sheets.  By Tinker Tavern Road, a foot of snow blanketed the world in cold, hard innocence.

We got off the highway and headed south on NY 13. The storm turned the area into a winter wonderland…in autumn.

Natives expect—indeed, love—the effect extreme cold has on Oswego County. Winter comes early and stays late, drawing trophy trout into the Salmon River, cross-country skiers, snowshoers and snowmobilers to the Tug Hill’s vast tracts of snowy woods, photographers and artists to some of the most beautiful snow-draped, December scenery you’ll find in the Northeast.

So c’mon up some time this month and get an early taste of winter.

Susan Rybaak snowshoeing on first snow at Salmon River Falls, December 10, 2011.

Snowy Shoulders:   Salmon River in Pineville.

Unidentified angler and his steelie; Ellis Cove.