The Returns are Here Again



Salmon Update: This season's largest run of kings entered the Salmon River Wednesday night, September 28. They're still entering the river as of this update, 11:30 a.m., Thursday morning. With rain predicted straight through the weekend, they should continue pouring in until the beginning of next week.

Owen Baxter, and his dad Don, of Boonville, N.Y. show off a Salmon River king

All the rain we’ve been having lately has spurred salmon into running Lake “O’s” tributaries a little early this year. In fact, enough fish entered the Salmon and Oswego Rivers in the first week of September to raise angler excitement to peak-run levels. And while a lot of guys got early thrills, these initial fish haven’t put a dent in the regular runs. Which, are just getting started.

Within the last few weeks, major numbers stormed the Salmon River (the Oswego always turns on a little later and should pick up this week). Anglers have reported tackling with near record numbers of kings and cohos.

Fortunately, for fish and fishermen alike, decent rain at regular intervals coupled with forecasts for more, means river conditions should remain almost perfect and stream banks and bottoms should be full of both for the next several weeks.

While Mother Nature is doing her part to make the angling experience more enjoyable, we are also realizing better conditions as the NYS DEC has been diligent in their efforts to eliminate lifters and snaggers from the environment.

“Now that lifting, lining, whatever…aren’t fashionable anymore, the chances of catching a clean fish are better than ever,” says Sean Rae, a Syracusan who fishes the river. “I’ve caught two today; neither one had wounds or hooks in its body.”

All the usual offerings are producing. Plastic eggs still seem to be the bait of choice but a lot of anglers are tossing flies, egg sacs and sponge to good effect, too.

What’s more, folks targeting early steelhead with everything from beads and Berkley Floating Trout Worms to yarn flies are finding their offerings are luring a lot of salmon.

Good numbers of fish are available throughout the river. Indeed, they’re stacked like cordwood below the bridge in Altmar.

The stream’s population of salmon should remain relatively consistent throughout the day for the next month or so as Brookfield Power continues to help balance the ebb and flow of natural precipitation. You see, the power company has agreed to release a steady stream high enough to draw and hold the beasts throughout the spawning season, a partnership that almost guarantees your trophy will be there waiting for several weeks to come.

For Safety’s Sake

The Salmon River is one of the slipperiest in NY. Wear clean Korkers or similar traction devices to help you keep your footing. A pair of Polarized sunglasses should be worn to help penetrate the glare so you can see where you’re stepping—and easily spot your prey.

Spawned in the Tug Hill Plateau, the Salmon is very sensitive to run-off and can rise quickly. Make a mental note of water levels before stepping in. In other words, note its location on a large object like a rock, bridge abutment, root ball or windfall. If you see, or feel, the water rising, get out immediately. Experts advise wearing a flotation device—it can be a life saver.

A hen coho taken by the author on September 21. 

Triple Deuce Charter's Matt Rubley, a Pulaski native, admiring a large male coho he took on September 21. 

Fishing at Ellis Cove on the Salmon River 

Watching the fish from the bridge in Altmar 

Stanley Cole of Snowcamp, N.C. fly-fishing for kings in the catch-and-release section of the river in Altmar.

Ron Haney of Altmar, who lost his right arm in an accident, shows how he fishes for kings

Pond Hawgs

 Pat with an average-size Sandy Pond bucketmouth.

Sandy Pond is mostly known as a splendid sandy beach bordered by majestic sand dunes where sunbathers toast themselves to a symphony of high winds, roaring waves and the cries of water birds of every feather.

On the other side of the dune sits the real Sandy Pond. Covering roughly 2,400 acres, it’s the largest embayment in the Eastern Lake Ontario Dune and Wetland Area, a 17-mile long natural barrier system containing the tallest sand dunes between Cape Cod and Lake Michigan.

The beauty of the place makes it extremely popular. Much of its shoreline is developed with camps, homes, and campgrounds. The place gets so crowded in summer, I never gave its warm weather fishery any thought.

However, I always knew “the Pond” was a well for northern pike and perch in winter, and crappies after ice-out. Some guys I normally consider reliable sources of information claimed it was a bass hot-spot in summer, but when I went with them, we got skunked every time. So I ignored it from then on.

That was, until I went fishing on Oneida Lake with Pat Miura last July (see blog post of Aug. 2, 2011). One of the most popular fly-fishing guides on the Salmon River (315-777-3570; pmiura@aol.com ), Pat spends his summers pursuing bass.

As often happens, our conversation drifted around our fishing experiences. I mentioned my lousy luck on Sandy Pond.

“Really!” he said, incredulously, “There’s a lot of bass in Sandy Pond…Some really big ones, too.”

“Oh yeah,” I countered, “Prove it.”

“OK,” he replied.

Late last month we fished the place and I’ve been eating humble pie ever since.

Only averaging 8 feet deep, it’s loaded with bass habitat: docks, creek mouths, windfalls, sprawling weed beds, boating channels leading to campgrounds and summer camps, reed fields, you name it. The problem is, you gotta look for the stuff.

You see, Sandy Pond has…lots of sand; sandbars stretching for hundreds of acres, in fact. And you wanna avoid fishing over these barren spots.

Once we located a fishy looking area, all the usual suspects worked: floating lures like Zara Spooks and buzzbaits in calm areas, Berkley Powerbaits, especially Texas-rigged  4-inch Finesse Worms and Carolina-rigged 6-inch Finesse Worms in and along weed edges, Smithwick Rogues jerked in deep water and Berkley’s Heavy Weight fat Sink Worms fished wacky style.

During the heat of the day, I found finesse presentations extremely gratifying. A good braided line like Nanofil on my spinning reels and Spider Wire Fluorobraid on my Abu Garcia Revo and Toro Winch allowed me to feel even the slightest take.

This time of year the pond prepares to hibernate.  Most of the boating crowd has gone back home. With hunting and salmon seasons just around the corner, a lot of local pressure is removed from the waves, making it possible to find some peace on the pond.

Pat says autumn is one of the best times to fish Sandy Pond. The bass are big, fat and cooperative, the scenery is colorful, and the days are brisk, making for the kind of trips you’ll be telling your grandkids about.

 Casting to some heavy brush.

 Bassin' in the reeds.

My biggest of the day came out of some heavy cover clinging to a sand dune.

Curtiss Gale Wildlife Management Area: Fulton’s Primordial Woods

Trees so tall you can't see where the canopy begins.

About a mile south of Fulton, a New York State Department of Environmental Conservation sign hangs on the west shoulder of Cty. Rte. 57, its golden letters announcing the Curtiss Gale Wildlife Management Area.

You search in vain, left and right, up and down the road, for a parking site or access point (the road on its north end is a private driveway).The only way in is from the shoulder of the highway or from the WMA’s 1,000 or so feet of Oswego River waterfront.

And if you decide to hike in, don’t expect to find even the barest amenity like a trail.

No, this lack of human intervention isn’t a sign of our tough economic times and things to come; it’s the result of DEC honoring an agreement it made with the pair of gentlemen who gave this magnificent patch of woods to the state to insure its rare, primordial beauty is never blemished by human kindness and remains a refuge for wildlife.

You see, H. Salem Curtiss and Thomas K. Gale donated the area to the DEC with the stipulation that hunting and trapping are prohibited.

That’s one of the things that make the spot unusual: hunting is a management tool used on all the other WMAs in the state.

Seems the donors’ kind restriction was contagious, spawning a rare moment of cooperation among all concerned.

Normally when a pristine piece of property this close to a metropolitan area is acquired, selfish interests band together to develop it, usually destroying its natural makeup with bathrooms, fences, and groomed trails, making it look like a franchise of the state park system.

Instead, they left the place to nature’s devices; and wow, what a job she’s done!

The forest has never seen mechanized equipment. Its rolling complexion doesn’t have one rut. Instead, the ground is carpeted in a uniform patchwork of plants and forest litter.

And the floor is old; older than the old growth trees reaching so high you need binoculars to recognize the leaves.
I know…I got a stiff neck trying.

I had to identify several by their bark.  A black cherry boggled my mind; how it managed to grow so straight and tall is nothing short of miraculous. Tulip poplars, maples, oaks, hickories, beechnuts, you name it, tower to heights I never knew the species could reach. They’re so far up there, in fact, it’s surprising the Federal Aviation Administration doesn’t make them wear blinking lights. 

These behemoths aren’t the exception; the forest’s full of majestic old growth. Adam Perry, a wildlife biologist with the state Department of Environmental Conservation puts it in a nutshell: “There’s a lot of really old, big trees there. If you’re into big trees, it’s the best place in Oswego County to see a bunch in a small area.”

Covering only 45 acres, Curtiss Gale WMA is one of the smallest in the system. Straddled by the highway and river on the east and west, and posted  signs to the north and south, it’s virtually impossible to get lost--or even disoriented--in the place.

And that’s great for family groups and others who fear wandering off the beaten path. The moment you step in, the trees start to dwarf you but never so much you have to worry about losing your way out.

To learn more about WMAs, including their locations, go to www.dec.ny.gov/outdoor/7768.html.

 One of countless giant tulip poplars.

No trails through Curtiss Gale WMA's magic forest.

Oswego River’s Master Chef

McGrath with a carp... they kept coming all night long.

On the water, Mike McGrath II looks like your average angler. But look close enough and you’ll see the guy’s fishing habits are anything but common. You see, the man’s favorite game is carp, and he owes his extraordinary success to his knowledge of carp cuisine.

Not cooking the brutes, mind you--hell, seafood chefs are a dime a dozen. But preparing meals that carp find so irresistible, they pack so thick into holes he chums, their wakes swamp the shoreline.

OK, that might be exaggerating things a bit. But the fact is the man knows more about the tastes of rough fish than anyone I’ve ever met. In fact, he’s so savvy about their dining habits, his firm, McGrath & Associates Carp Angling Services (315-882-1549; mmgrath2@twcny.rr.com), is famed for providing fishing adventures dreams are made of.

While most anglers fantasize about fishing action so fast and furious their arms ache for weeks afterwards, few ever have their dreams come true. A trip with McGrath, on the other hand, leads to so many carp, you’re immediately inducted into an exclusive group of smiling anglers incapable of ever wearing a straight face again.

Now, I’ve known about the river’s fantastic rough fish populations since early childhood. Back in the 60s, me and the boys would chip in to buy a can of kernel corn, go to our favorite fishin’ hole, throw three-quarters of the can into the drink to draw the fish, sit down and wait. We caught a lot of carp…but we had to wait. And we waited a lot between hits.

Not master carp chef McGrath. He reduces the waiting time to anywhere from a few seconds to a couple minutes by chumming the area with a fragrant recipe he calls a “tending pac” or “12 pac.”

In a big bowl, he mixes crushed popcorn, crème corn, quick oats, puffed wheat, corn pops, Panko bread flakes (Japanese breadcrumbs) and millet. Adding Marukyu carp sauce or R&W Carp juice for added scent, and reconstituted calve’s milk replacement as a binder, he mashes the ingredients into a ball and squeezes it 12 times; hence the name 12 pac.

“One youngster I know spits in his bait to bind it,” says McGrath. “We call him animal.”

After lobbing several baseball-sized chunks of the stuff into the spot he wishes to fish, and scattering several handfuls of boiled feed corn around the site to whet their appetites further, he gears up.

“This fishing is so brutal, I have to re-spool at least twice a month,” he says, while winding 14-lb Stren mono onto his Alvey reel, an Australian contraption which allows the spool to be moved so it’ll cast from the front like a spinning reel, or the side like a center-pin.

Terminal tackle consists of a slip sinker on the main line, a barrel swivel and a couple snelled hooks. The hooks are tied side-by-side onto the swivel’s bottom ring.

Baiting each of the hooks with a corn pop, he encases them in an egg-sized 12 pac and casts.

A carp is usually munching on the offering before the water can dissolve the 12 pac.

I reduced the time between hits even more by fishing a single corn puff dipped in Marukyu carp sauce, enticing numerous catfish to hit before the bait could reach bottom.

Mike, being a carp purist, wasn’t as thrilled as I, a catfish enthusiast.

“We’re fishing for carp, he reminded me. “When I start getting too many catfish, I cast to a different spot.”

I spent the next hour or so catching and releasing so many fish I broke out in a sweat. It was as heavenly a fishing experience as a mortal angler could ever hope to find down here.

All made possible by a guy who looked beyond prejudice, recognized the value of the Oswego River’s incredible carp population and founded McGrath & Associates Carp Angling Associates, an affordable guide service to fishing excitement that’ll take you beyond your wildest dreams.

McGrath mixing his secret tending pac (carpspeak for chum).

 

Terminal rig showing hooks holding line bait (carpspeak for bait).

 

Baited hooks wrapped in tending pac.

 

McGrath with the prize.

 

McGrath Associate's Darryl Storie holding a bonus catfish.

Oneida Lake: Hawgmouth Capital of Central New York

Pat Miura holding a fat, five-pounder. 

Perceptions have a life of their own.

For instance, a couple of weeks ago, I would have argued that when it comes to bass, Oneida Lake is bronzeback territory. Today I’d have to say it’s a hawgmouth hotspot.

That’s what I said,  hawgmouth. The largemouths in the lake are so big, you might as well put hawg right in their name!

I learned that the most pleasant way possible. Pat Miura, the only Salmon River guide I know of who specializes exclusively in fly-fishing, (315-777-3570; pmiura@aol.com), showed me while proving he knew how to catch bass, too, on Redfield Reservoir earlier this summer (click here to read that blog).

“Oneida Lake’s my favorite largemouth bass spot in the state,” claimed Miura, matter-of-factly, while removing the hook from his 10th bass of the day.

“Really?” I responded.

“The place is loaded with daggone largemouths. You wanna go sometime?”

“You’re on,” I replied; “how about the end of July?”

We went in the middle of the third week, the hottest day of the year—so far. Temperatures hovered just below 100. The sun’s rays made us sweat so profusely you could boil eggs on our foreheads.

Still, the fish were active. Right when we launched, we saw what appeared to be bass attacking minnows on the surface over deep weeds.

Pat starts out tossing a hard jerkbait. Before his 10th jerk, he reports “Fish on” and immediately lands a 20-inch walleye.

Next cast he’s got another…then another…and so on.

By his fifth walleye, I figure I better switch to a jerkbait. Before I could tighten the knot on my Bomber, Pat lands his sixth, the last one to cooperate in that spot.

Stubborn cuss that I am, I cast a couple dozen times anyway. Fortunately, I got a northern, one of my favorite fish.

Next we hit the weeds around the big islands. Once again, Pat shows me how good he is by landing about six largemouths averaging 1 ½ pounds and a bronzeback of about three pounds—in less than an hour.

All I got was a pickerel. It’s hard fishing behind a guy like him, I thought, jealousy welling in my heart.

“Now we’re gonna get serious,” Pat announces. We take off for the northwestern corner.

Big Bay, Three Mile Bay, bays with no name, even no bays (we fished the open lake, too) it didn’t matter, the guy hooks largemouths. All the while, I’m casting my heart out coming up with nothing but weeds.

So I switch to a 4-inch Berkley Power Worm rigged Texas Style. I drop the offering at the edge of a clump of weeds and get the slightest series of taps imaginable. Setting the hook gently (thinking it was a small rock bass, I didn’t want to rip too big a hole in its jaw), I wasn’t prepared for the intensity and duration of the struggle that ensued.

Pat knew it was a big bucketmouth and warned me to be cautious.

“This can’t be a largemouth,” I shot back. “I never caught one that fought this hard.” It’s gotta be a 20 pound sheepshead, or carp, maybe even a sturgeon…

My Abu Garcia Vendetta Rod and Revo SX reel combo proved their mettle and a few minutes later, the fish shows: a bucketmouth so big, it barely fit into my field of vision..

“Now that’s a hawgmouth,” I squealed like a Cub Scout holding his first sunny. “You see the size of this thing?”

And that was my last of the day.

But Pat kept right at it. He even caught one as big as mine, plus a couple only a few ounces smaller. In fact, he caught and released about 20 largemouths whose total weight would have been at least 50 pounds; on the hottest day of the year, no less.

We didn’t keep anything. Pat never does. Just fishes…and releases…and fishes some more.

“The fish will remain active all of August,” says Miura.

And as summer’s greens bleed into the reds and golds of autumn, the bite will only get better, he adds.

Pat and a chunky smallmouth he took on the east end of Dunham Island. 

My five-pounder; taken in Big Bay. 

Pat releasing two of his six walleyes.

Keeping the Nuts Out 101

Pullin'...

Ten drift boats manned by members of the Oswego County River Guides Association, in league with a small flotilla of local environmentalists ranging from Albion Fish and Game Club members to independent kayakers and canoeists, descended on the Salmon River estuary on the morning of July 10, 2011, to get their hands wet pulling water chestnuts.

John DeHollander, District Manager of the Oswego County Soil and Water Conservation District, was on hand at the staging area at Pine Grove launch site to help coordinate the event, man the registration table and answer questions.

While removing each plant by hand is primitive, it’s the most environmentally friendly way to rid the estuary of these exotic invaders.

You see, harvesting water chestnuts mechanically takes a terrible toll on indigenous flora, and “you’d do more damage than good,” claims DeHollander. “By hand pulling, you remove enough to limit their spreading and if you keep at it, you can eradicate them completely,” he adds.

Similar “pulls” have been conducted on the Oswego River by other groups. Lake Ontario’s second largest tributary, the stream is much larger than the Salmon River and its infestation is far greater.

Still, “We’re starting to see a dent in the Oswego River’s infestation,” boasts DeHollander. “Things look promising. Provided funding is available, it looks like we’ll be able to control it.”

And that’s a goal everybody from anglers and boaters to waterfront owners are shooting for because the plants grow so thick in shallow spots like bays and coves (a couple are located right off the shoulder of State Route 48 between Fulton and Oswego), some folks claim blue herons walk on top of the mats.

That may be stretching things a bit. An annual aquatic plant, water chestnuts spring from spiny nuts buried in the mud. Their slender, flexible stems can grow 15 feet tall and are crowned by floating green rosettes comprised of saw-toothed, triangular leaves held aloft by bladder-like appendages growing just below the surface.

But you can’t just pull the plants out and cast them adrift. The rosettes bear the next generation of nuts and if they’re allowed to float away, they’ll contaminate some other dude’s waterfront downstream.

And that’s not funny. In fact, such careless action will come back to bite ya. Ducks and geese foraging in the water chestnuts you sent downstream can collect the next generation in their wings or on their feet, fly over to your place and drop em off again.

Best thing to do with the plants you pull is to burn them.

For more information, contact John DeHollander at the Oswego County Soil and Water Conservation District by calling 315-592-9663, or sending an email to information@oswegosoilandwater.com. Check out the website: http://www.oswegosoilandwater.com/.

Water Chesnuts where they belong; in a bag! 

Capt. Rick Miick wearing his crown of water chesnuts. 

 Future Biologist, Brayden Miick, showing rosettes.

Floating rosette

Return of the Giants

Carl Rathje, a fish culturist at the DEC's Oneida Lake hatchery, holding one of the facility's resident lake sturgeon.

Larry Muroski, of Larry’s Oswego Salmon Shop, reports five lake sturgeon were caught in the river behind his shop the last week of June.

“These things were huge. The one caught by Jarret Crimmins [a native of the city of Oswego] was six feet long” claims the colorful bait monger.

Fortunately, just about everyone who fishes in downtown Oswego knows the species is listed as threatened in New York State and totally protected, and all the fish were quickly released.

Up until the 19th century, lake sturgeon were plentiful in the Great Lakes. They thrived in the Oswego River drainage, including its two biggest lakes, Cayuga and Oneida.

There’s even evidence the art world’s most popular sturgeon came from our drainage, specifically, Onondaga Lake, on Syracuse’s northwestern corner. In his poem, “The Song of Hiawatha,” Henry Wadsworth Longfellow describes how the legendary warrior went “Forth to catch the sturgeon..., Mishe Nahma, King of the Fishes.” While most scholars claim the setting was Lake Superior, Iroquois legend has it Hiawatha was an Onondaga, suggesting his favorite fishing hole was the lake named after his tribe.

Poetic license aside, the fact is these native New Yorkers were around way before man; going back to the Jurassic period, in fact. They survived very nicely all the way up to the 19th century, when humans posed a greater threat to them than the meteorite that allegedly smashed into the Gulf of Mexico and wiped out the dinosaurs. You see, human activities ranging from pollution and over-fishing to building dams blocking their spawning routes pushed them to the brink of extinction.

Luckily, small populations survived in some of the state’s northern streams, most notably the St. Lawrence River. However, it’s doubtful their numbers would have rebounded without assistance from the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation.

According to Carl Rathje, a fish culturist at the Oneida Lake hatchery in Constantia, “The DEC’s goal is to restore lake sturgeon into their original range in the Great Lakes.”

In 1993, the authorities stocked 35 sturgeon into the Oswego River that were hatched out of eggs taken from fish netted in the St. Lawrence River. The Oneida Lake hatchery continued raising roughly 5,000 sturgeon annually for distribution throughout the region, including Oneida Lake.

According to Rathje, before the program could bear much fruit, Viral Hemorrhagic Septicemia (VHS), the deadly virus responsible for massive fish kills in the Great Lakes, was discovered, leading to cessation of the sturgeon rearing program at the Oneida Lake hatchery in 2004 for fear of contaminating the lake.

Still, scientists didn’t give up. Research showed eggs could be disinfected by submerging them in an iodine solution. In 2009, 2010 and 2011, eggs taken from St. Lawrence River sturgeon were treated and brought to the Oneida hatchery for rearing. “But we haven’t been able to hatch out any,” laments Rathje.

On a brighter note: “Oneida Lake is very productive and our sturgeon grow quicker than anywhere else in the state. Cornell University has already netted fish in the lake weighing up to 100 pounds.” continues Rathje.

“It’s been 16 years since Oneida Lake was first stocked with sturgeon. The females will be maturing soon [they take about 20 years], and there’s a possibility we’ll be able to get future batches of eggs from our own fish,” he adds with great enthusiasm.

In the meantime, prepare to hear a growing number of stories of sturgeon being caught in Oswego County. And as more and more sturgeon gain 100-something pounds, brace yourselves for a proliferation of stories of the one that got away.

By the way, if you catch one, Rathje advises leaving the fish in the water while removing the hook and simply letting it swim away. If you must remove it from the water, keep it out only for as long as it takes to extract the hook and release it immediately.

Lake sturgeon up close and personal.