Rainbows among the Browns--and Golds--of Autumn

Mike with his biggest brown ever!

Runs of coho and kings have petered out on the Salmon River. Still, some can be found in the whitewater…And they’re huge. I saw a king landed on October 30 that went forty pounds if it went an ounce. Indeed, it was almost as big as the guy trying to carry it--and drag it--to his car.




The scale of this year’s run is still obvious. Cadavers are everywhere; stuck between the rocks and wrapped around submerged branches, they wave in the current like muddy banners left by a defeated cavalry charge. Late spawners, now reduced to living dead, mill around in the ripples and pools. It’s a sad end to the noble beasts, but it’s the price they pay for their 3 ½-year sensual feast as the biggest, baddest kids in the drink.




Their loss is the trout’s gain. The river is loaded, from Douglaston Salmon Run to the fly-fishing only section, with huge browns and steelhead. Unlike the salmon, these guys ain’t there to spawn and die. On the contrary, the browns are there to spawn and the chromers are there to thrive by feasting on the caviar deposited in the gravel by the salmon.




Living classroom




With all the fish sure to be around, I called my cousin a few weeks ago and invited him to bring up his three oldest sons for the fishing trip of their dreams.




“Sure!” he responded.




He came last weekend.




We hit Altmar on Saturday, and saw quite a few steelies landed, and the huge king mentioned above. But we couldn’t buy a solid hook-up if we waved a fist-full of flies, egg sacs, whatever in the current.




Sunday was a different story. We started at Deer Creek at first light. The water was low and the fish weren’t in.




An hour later we headed for Pulaski, hit the staircase and worked up to the base of the village pool. Along the way, I got nine hits and landed one fish--what can I say, they were faster than I was.




Mike, Iggy’s oldest, got two hits and landed an eight-pound steelie and a 10-pound brown--ah, the speed and stamina of youth--all granted by the forces of nature to a guy who had only caught stockies until then.




Andy, Iggy’s 16-year-old, lost a couple fish, but the “excitement was well worth it!” he claimed.




And John, a 13-year-old with a smile that could make the sun blush, nailed a nice 18-inch steelie, too small to keep…except in his fondest memories.




We used single, plastic eggs fished in pockets and the edge of the current.




The kids had a ball and assured me they’d be up again soon, and often. Now, that’s a thought for a bachelor bracing for retirement.




The browns are in heavy now and should remain for the rest of the month, their numbers declining as November wears on. The steelies will be there till spring.




The fish are cooperative. It’s a great time to go out and tangle with one of these beauties. And while you’re at it, bring along a youngster and show him the ropes. It’ll be a lesson the kid will carry in his memories for the rest of his life.




You don’t really need any highly specialized tackle, either. The young men above used my Shakespeare spinning combos, pretty standard stuff you can get at any outdoors store that carries fishing gear. There are plenty to choose from throughout Oswego County and Central New York.




Being a professional, I like to look like one and use an 8 weight Pflueger Trion Fly-fishing combo.




By the way, these fish didn’t get big by being careless. While they’re not exactly leader shy, what they don’t see won’t distract them. Use a fluorocarbon leader like Berkley’s Professional Grade Trilene 100% Fluorocarbon. It costs a little more but it’s well worth it.




The Salmon River is super slippery. Use traction devises like Korkers.

Andy showing off brother Mike's steelie.



John holding his first steelie.

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.

Minetto Cats

Eatin'-size cat


Salmon and trout ain’t the only fish spurred into action by early autumn’s meteorological changes. The higher water levels and lower temperatures of October jump-start bottom feeders, too; particularly channel catfish, Oswego County’s favorite, fast lane lowlife.



Bearing a face only a mother could love, able to eat just about anything organic--dead or alive--it ain’t exactly the classiest critter in the drink. But its inclination for heavy current, Herculean hardiness and stamina, make it a perennial winner in any fishy popularity contest.



Channel cats are named for their bias for moving water; the faster, the better. And, mile for mile, the Oswego River offers more public bank-fishing access for this marvelous beast than Lake Ontario tributaries 10 times its length. And the village that offers the largest stretch--relatively speaking--is Minetto.



Less than five miles upstream of the city of Oswego, the river runs right down the middle of this sleepy hamlet. And the catfish are there, in massive quantities. Mostly small guys ranging from 12 to 18 inches, the kind that’ll eagerly take a worm, piece of shrimp, minnow or Berkley Gulp’s Catfish Dough or Catfish Chunks fished on bottom.



The size pictured above is the most popular among most anglers because it tastes best. Once a cat reaches 20-something inches, it tends to taste too gamy for your average palate.



What the big guys lack in flavor, they make up for as competitors, though. And the place has a good population of larger than average cats, some up to 20 pounds. These fish like a large meal and one of the best right now is a strip of salmon, a gob of raw skein or even a strip of milt (you can generally get some at the fish cleaning stations in Oswego). Don’t wait too long, however -- The catfish bite starts seriously slowing down when water temp gets below 50.



Minetto is about as fisherman-friendly a place as you’ll find anywhere. The River View Park on the west bank above the dam is one of the best fishing spots. It boasts a hard surface boat launch, riverside picnic tables, rest rooms, ample shoulder parking, even a convenience store/gas station right across the street.



Minetto at Dusk



Autumn decorations along the canal at Minetto.



Fighting a big one that got away.

After the Storm

Fishing in the public access parking lot, Altmar, October 1.

Last week’s hurricane generated rains swelled Lake Ontario’s tributaries to the bursting point. By Friday afternoon, the Salmon River peaked, but not until it ran over the north end of the CR 52 Bridge in Altmar.

“That don’t happen often,” said a village resident. “When it did this time,” he continued, “a few guys fished on the bridge, in the ripples running over the pavement. One nailed a 20-pound king and another took a nice 10-pound male.”

I’ve heard of pounding the pavement, painting the pavement, laying pavement…but fishing the pavement???

By the time I arrived on the scene at 5:30 p.m., the water was on its way down. But it was still way up there, higher than during your average spring thaw. A side channel with a good current plowed through the fishing access site on the northwestern corner of the bridge. I watched two kings get hooked in the parking lot. They were huge, at least 35 pounds each, and when they decided to head back to the main river, the anglers couldn’t stop them and they broke off.

An eddy developed at the drift boat launch on the other end of the bridge. I saw a guy holding a bowed rod high over his head. It danced in time with the thrusts made by the mighty king on the other end of the line.

Now, a sight like that normally doesn’t warrant a second glance. But this time, the guy was Ron Haney, an Altmar resident who only has one arm. You gotta see this guy fighting a fish to believe it. He holds his rod high while the fish has the upper hand, letting the drag, current and bent rod do all the work. When the fish tires and starts giving a little, Ron hangs the reel over his thigh and reels in the line.

He actually got the fish to shore, but it was a stubborn critter full of hope. Right when everyone watching thought the game was over, the fish waved its tail good-bye and snapped the line.

“That was a nice fish. But the conditions are tough,” Haney stoically remarked, staring out over the raging river.

Ron Haney holding on while an angler tries tailing his king. It got away at the last minute.

High water is good for salmon and they were everywhere. Unfortunately for “sports,” the water was too much to chase after the beasts and few were landed. Sunday saw the water down enough for anglers to have a fighting chance. I saw fish get taken in every pool I visited on the Salmon River. Kings mostly, with a few browns and steelies mixed in.

Water in the River Park's walkway, downtown Oswego, October 3.

South of the plant, more than two feet of water surged along the concrete wall lining the riverbank, forcing folks to fish from the sidewalk. Some brave anglers entered the water at the trail’s end but heavy current wouldn’t let them get more than 15 to 20 feet from the staircase.

Anglers fishing on the walkway upstream of the power plant, an area they usually fish from a dry bank.

Above the power plant, the stairway ended in water on Sunday.

Under normal conditions, salmon mill around in the lake waiting for high water before storming in. Usually, it comes after autumn showers that only raise the river a few inches to a foot per storm. As a result, the runs are staggered.

This year three months of rain fell in one day and the water rose to Global Warming proportions. It’s a good bet that a lot of salmon will take advantage, and come in groups to spawn, offering super fishing over the next several weeks.

So, there’ll still be plenty of salmon to catch, with late-running fish all month long.

In addition to kings with record-breaking potential, steelhead and brown trout runs should be off the charts. The high water will draw massive quantities of both species into the Salmon and Oswego Rivers; browns until the end of the month, chromers from now through spring.

The fish are huge, so’s the water. Put the two together and we stand to have the best fishing Oswego County--aka water of champions--has seen in 25 years.

When the water came down on Sunday, anglers began landing fish again.

.

.

A happy Sunday morning angler on the Salmon River

Salmon are In…and They’re Huge!

Notice: Given the recent weather conditions, the Salmon River and the Oswego River have become extremely dangerous. We urge anglers to consider fishing techniques other than standing directly in the water, such as fishing from streams, piers or driftboat, until the high water levels subside.

Normally, the last week of September sees waves of kings and cohos climbing the rapids of the Salmon River to spawn. This year the runs are on time but there’s one noticeable difference: the fish are the biggest they’ve been this century.

And that was expected. Fish that were taken from the tiniest Great Lake over the summer were huge compared to recent years. A lot of 35-something pounders were landed, including a 39 lb. 8 oz. fish that took America’s Fall LOC Derby. Better still, the Great Ontario Salmon Derby, a Canadian tournament sponsored by the Toronto Sun, was taken by a 40 lb. 2 oz. fish caught in July. The fish were so big, rumor had it charter boat captains were whistling “Happy Days are Here Again.”

I called some bait shops the last weekend of the month and they all reported the river was loaded with fish. One, under condition of anonymity, claimed so many fish were taken right in the heart of Pulaski, Main Street’s sidewalks were coated in a layer of fish slime.

I had to see that. But I couldn’t break away from other commitments until Monday night.

I got to Pulaski around 5 p.m. Parking on the shoulder on the side street heading to the ball park, right where US 11 banks west before crossing the Salmon River, I strapped my corkers to my sneakers (in case the sidewalks were slimy, you see) and headed for the bridge.

Salmon are everywhere in the river.

There was only about a dozen guys fishing on both sides of the crossing, but what the river lacked in anglers, it more than made up for in salmon. They were everywhere. I saw anglers fighting salmon, salmon frolicking on the surface in the Village Pool, and salmon climbing the rapids just upstream of the bridge.

I went to the Ball Park and the story was the same. Anglers were stretched out in comfortable distances from one another along the stream. Everywhere I went, someone was fighting a fish.

Kings ranging from 15 to 30 pounds made up the vast majority of fish I saw on stringers. But cohos ranging from 10 to 18 pounds were strung up with em in many cases…and that’s big for the species.

Again, that shouldn’t really surprise anyone, considering the world record coho, a fish indigenous to the Pacific Ocean, came out of the Salmon River several years ago.

All the salmon activity has spurred steelies into action. Several anglers I talked to, including PA resident Kurt Kmetz (see photo), have been catching steelhead ranging from 5 to 10 pounds on streamers like egg sucking leeches.

Thankfully, the unethical behavior spawned by snagging practices that were encouraged in the 1970s and early 1980s is a distant nightmare. There are fewer guys running up and down the river swinging hooks at everything with fins, and ethical anglers are reprimanding those who still try, so the fish have calmed down and are remarkably eager to hit a fly.

This world class salmon fishing is playing now through the middle of October. Get there early to claim the good seats.

PA resident, Kurt Kmetz, holding a 25-lb. king and a 15-lb. coho.

Village Hole

Fishing at the Cleveland Dock

Set into the north shore of Oneida Lake, Cleveland, NY traces its roots back to the days of our country’s founding. By the first quarter of the 19th century, it had enough residents to support a general store and hotel. As the century rolled on, glass manufacturing, spurred by the discovery that the area’s sand was the finest around, caused a mini population boom. Its deep water port, dug out of Oneida Lake by the mouth of Black Creek, facilitated huge barges that carried finished glass products to the Erie and Oswego Canals and on to world markets.

Glass manufacturing is a distant memory now, but the docks are a local hot spot for everything the lake has to offer.

The fishing's easy at Cleveland Dock.

Dropping to about six feet deep right at the dock, fed by the cool waters of the creek on the north side, lined by weeds to the south, and straddled by concrete and rocks, the harbor is an ideal bass habitat. However, stuck all summer long by everyone from dock-side, leisure-time anglers in anti-gravity chairs to professional bass pros, these fish are savvy veterans.

Still, they gotta eat sometime, and you can nail ‘em on a free-swimming minnow, fat crayfish, or by presenting lures in new and unusual ways. For instance, I watched one guy nail a 15-inch smallie by twitching a floating stickbait on the surface. What was unusual about him using this popular low light technique is that he was doing it at high noon, out in open water.

Most who fish the dock are trying for panfish or bottom feeders. Yellow perch hang out in the open water, rock bass like the walls and rocks, and sunfish are plentiful along the weed edges. They hit the worms the majority is using, but I do just as good on a Berkley Atomic Teaser (a 1-inch tube jig/trailer combo) tipped with a Berkley Power Wiggler. In addition, my rig draws an occasional crappie and pickerel.

Walleyes move into the dock just about any time of the year, but especially in spring, when they run Black Creek to spawn, and fall, when cooling water temperatures draw them close to shore. They find the security of the deep water to their liking and stay all day long.

What’s more, this time of year the walleyes are drawn to the lake shallows on the south end of the fishing access site, within easy reach of surf anglers casting stickbaits.

Cleveland Dock offers some surprises, too. When I was there last week, I saw a sturgeon, my first in the wild. I was fishing in the shallow water on the north end and the thing come out of the deep. It moved sluggishly in two feet of water, staying in plain sight for a good two minutes. Unfortunately, all I had was my point-and-shoot camera and it doesn’t have a polarized lens so the fish didn’t appear in the photograph.

Get there by taking I-81 exit 32, and driving east on NY 49 for a little over 12 miles.

Panfish are plentiful.

My Abu Garcia fishing tackle resting on decaying structures from Cleveland's days as a thriving port.

Good Old Days are Back

Water levels ain’t the only thing that swelled following the heavy storms that swept through Central New York a couple weeks ago. Rumors of Lake Ontario coughing up 40-pound salmon sprouted like mushrooms after an autumn rain.

With a name like Spider, all ya got’s your reputation, so I figured before I started claiming the good old days are back, I better do some verifying. The results were…oh, so pleasantly ambiguous.

Fulton's Pedro Moreno holding his King, taken in downtown Oswego on September 5

Figuring guys who mount fish for a living would be the first to know if such beauties were being caught, I called Pulaski’s Fish Wish Taxidermy (all numbers are 315 area code: 298-4588). Owner Maggie Rathje said a fellow brought in a 41-pound king the other day. Unfortunately, she didn’t weigh it on a certified scale. Instead she used a ruler: multiplied its length (45 inches) by its girth (27 inches) and divided by 800. She’s been dealing with fish for a long time and feels confident her figure is accurate.

As an aside, she mentioned taking in a half dozen kings weighing over 35 pounds each already this season.

A responsible writer draws on several sources so I decided to call Fran Moshier, over at Animal Art Taxidermy Studio (963-3817). The biggest he’s seen so far this year is a 33-pounder.

Moshier suggests exuberance can cloud a good man’s judgment: “They might look that big when they first come out of the water, but on a good scale they’re usually a little lighter.”

Still, he’s quick to add: “Captains keep saying there’s a 40-pounder out there. They’re marking big fish.”

I went up to Oswego to pound the pavement for the truth. Mike, at Fat Nancy’s Tackle Shop (125 E. First St., 216-4595), hadn’t seen any 40-pounders, but he heard a lot of stories.

“One local charter captain’s taxidermist told him 40- and 42-pound kings were brought into the shop on August 2,” said Mike. “They were taken by the same boat. They weren’t entered in the LOC derby.”

Drew over at Screwy Louie’s Sport Shop (9 East Cayuga Street , 342-3138) confirmed that he heard the report of the 40- and 42-pounders over the radio, and that a lot of anglers are talking about it.

However, Shantell, another employee of Screwy Louie’s, claims the biggest king she’s heard of so far is the LOC Fall Derby winner, Richard Priset’s 39 lb. 0.8 oz. bruiser.

And that’s so close it almost hurts.

On the bright side: “A lot of people tell me this year could see the state’s king record broken,” says Fat Nancy’s Mike.

Considering that kings put on a lot of weight in their last binge before spawning, and that there’s still a week or two before some stop eating, we just might see a new record setter.

My money says it’ll come out of Oswego County waters.

I’ve included some photos of fish that were taken in Oswego on Sunday, September 5th. This is the earliest I’ve ever seen so many nice fish taken out this early in the month. If this holds, we’re in for a memorable season.

Pedro holding a brown he also took below the Varick dam on the same day, using an orange sponge.

Pedro waits at Larry's Oswego Salmon Shop to have his fish cleaned.

Fulton native Brian Stephens with a 24-inch walleye he took downstream of the Bridge Street bridge in Oswego.